ABSTRACT

Lastis's paper is an important and constructive contribution to the methodology and history of economics even if one questions his proposition that ‘the adoption of antipsychologism as a heuristic canon is not only unnecessary but, by restricting permissible types of explanatory generalisation, may halt progress in microeconomics’ (Lastis [1972], p. 229). For, as befits a philosopher of science, his method is more important than his implied historical judgment. By focusing attention on a fairly narrow, long-established, and theoretically sophisticated segment of economic analysis, and providing a more penetrating and methodologically more precise review of its evolution, he has helped to elucidate the nature and significance of scientific ‘progress’ in economics. In the process he has demonstrated that Lakatos's ‘research programme’ concept is a more powerful weapon than Kuhn's blunt and multi-faceted ‘paradigm’ instrument; and, after the initial dust of controversy has settled, he may be seen to have provided a more secure basis for agreement and mutual understanding between economists of differing methodological persuasions. 1