ABSTRACT
Recently I published a paper in the Journal of Economic Literature entitled 'Clarifying Popper' (Caldwell 1991a). The intended audience comprised everyday economists who wanted to know a little more about Karl Popper's philosophy and methodology of science and how his ideas might relate to their discipline. Much of the paper was devoted to exposition, but it also contained an argument about what I thought was valuable in Popper's work. The argument ran as follows. The part of Popper's thought that is most well known among economists, his falsificationist methodology, when strictly interpreted, is of little use to economists. Falsificationism also appears to be inconsistent with Popper's methodology of the social sciences, situational logic, a doctrine that may be of value within economics. Finally, if one emphasizes ideas found in Popper's writings on critical rationalism, it may be possible to save Popper from the inconsistency: though they apply in different domains, both falsificationism and situational logic can be used to enhance the critical environment. Because of the audience for the paper, direct references to debates in methodology were muted. One purpose of the current paper is to make them more explicit.1 Another is to advance two proposals concerning the practice of economic methodology that, if followed, may help us to understand better the practice of economists.
