ABSTRACT
In the wake of the demise of logical positivism an increasing number of contending methodological positions have emerged in what is now a burgeoning literature reflecting a vibrant and multi-voiced discourse. This resurgence in economic methodology is linked to a complex set of interacting influences, both internal and external to the discipline. The development of the ‘crisis’ in contemporary economics followed from the breakdown of the post-war Keynesian paradigm during the course of the 1970s (Coats 1977; Bell and Kristol 1981). This resulted in a protracted period of theoretical reassessment which was matched by an intensive methodological interrogation of the discipline. The unsettled state of the discipline provides a plausible ‘internal’ explanation for the growth in methodological research which has been pursued relentlessly since then. The ‘external’ contributing factor arose from the ‘crisis’ in the related, but in the event extremely influential, domain of the philosophy of science. This latter crisis, which pre-dated the upheaval in economics, arose from the sustained critique of logical positivism and its variant, logical empiricism, which was launched in the 1950s. The ensuing decades have been characterised by the elaboration of alternative paradigms preoccupied with the role, status, and evolution of scientific knowledge in general and specifically the contribution of scientific theories. This has been a period of intense activity in the philosophy of science with implications for all the sciences, including economics. The major developments in economic methodology and its interaction with the philosophy of science have been the subject of a number of major surveys including Blaug (1980), Caldwell (1982, 1984, 1993), Hausman (1984, 1992), Redman (1991), Backhouse (1994).
