ABSTRACT
In defending economic methodology from the challenge of global economic rhetoric we adopted a neo-Habermasian threefold division and specified appropriate and accurate description as a principal task for the science of economics. It may be felt, however, that such a defence is too narrow or limiting. The aim of any science, we are frequently told, is twofold, namely, to furnish accurate descriptions of the events, happenings or facts in the actual world, the dimension which we have focused on, and, second, to explain these facts by recourse to theory, the dimension which we have ignored. In this not uncommon view, the facts are presented in a nonproblematical observational language which is theory-neutral. For instance, we may say that it is a fact that the car was travelling at 30 km/hour when it crashed or that the temperature was 65°F at 3 p.m. at a specific location in Dublin on the 31 May last. There is no apparent reference to Newtonian or kinetic theory in these observational statements.
