Roy Weintraub's Studies in Appraisal: Lakatosian Consolations or Something Else?

Abstract

As made manifest by Clower's (1975) comments on their “science fiction” nature, general equilibrium theories (GET) present such peculiar and puzzling features that the methodologist must perforce seek some specific methodological accommodation for this part of economic theory. The role played by such theories in contemporary economics is so fundamental (in the sense of Green, 1981) that the impossibility of appraising them by means of any version of falsificationism, and their patent lack of (excess) empirical content if approached with the conceptual devices of the methodology of scientific research programs (MSRP), have prompted several scholars interested in the methodology of economics (although from different points of view and for even more different purposes) to search for a reasonable way out.

Foundations for New Economic Thinking

“…But doubts about the capacity of the Lakatosian framework to allow appraisal predominated in de Marchi 10 See Fulton (1984) for a critical account of early attempts at such specification. 11 See Weintraub (1985bWeintraub ( , 1987Weintraub ( , 1993, Rosenberg (1986Rosenberg ( , 1987 and Salanti (1991Salanti ( , 1993aSalanti ( , 1993b. The Lakatosian framework has been used to classify descriptively a range of schools of thought in Mair and Miller (1991).…”

“…Case studies of the great debates demonstrate the importance of criteria external to the mathematical systems in question. Thus, for example, Salanti (1989) argued that the capital theory debate was conducted using criteria external to the formal re-switching argument, on both sides of the debate. (The conventional wisdom is that external criteria were only employed by the non-formalist approach of Robinson.)…”

“…These criticisms have arisen from two quite different standpoints, which reflect two different types of argument for pluralism, which we now consider. Salanti (1997) drew the helpful distinction between pluralism as an ethical principle (elaborated on by his co-editor, Screpanti, 1997) and pluralism as a normative methodological principle. It is on the first that there is greatest agreement, while the disagreements centre on the reasons for advocating pluralism as a methodology (pluralism of method), or indeed as a meta-methodology (methodological pluralism) and on what that pluralism means (see further King, 2002).…”

“…The troubling implication was that the only alternative was that 'anything goes' (Salanti, 1997). It is natural for economists to seek firm foundations, and to be concerned at the sense that the discipline is developing in an ad hoc manner (Blanchard and Fischer, 1989;Colander, 2000a).…”

How Not to Be Lakatos Intolerant: Appraising Progress in IR Research

“…Collaborative efforts at Nafplion and Capri produced two edited volumes: Latsis, 1976a;andde Marchi andBlaug, 1991, respectively. See also Jalladeau, 1978;Archibald, 1979;Hands, 1979;Goodwin, 1980;Cross, 1982;Fulton, 1984;Hands, 1985;Weintraub, 1985;Rosenberg, 1986;Khalil, 1987;Glass and Johnson, 1988;Hands, 1990;Hands, 1991a;Hands, 1991b;Salanti, 1991;Backhouse, 1993;and McGovern, 1995. For the view that Lakatos is "the philosopher who has . .…”