ABSTRACT
While an economics of science with an evolutionary interpretation of rational action and behavior provides a coherent theoretical framework for understanding much of science, it also raises a problem of self-reference. The problem of selfreference is an important aspect of the problem of induction that was discussed in the previous chapter. The problem of self-reference for an economics of science can be formulated as follows. An economics of science must be applied to and not exclude economics. If an economics of science were inapplicable to economics, then an inconsistency would arise. An example would be the position that the laws of economics are universal, but they exclude economists (and economic methodologists). Such a position would be blatantly self-contradictory. From a knowledge of recent intellectual history, a self-referential paradox or inconsistency is the most significant non-ideological critique of a position that I can imagine. Such an inconsistency could lead to the invalidation and perhaps to a rejection of economics as a science. Self-referential inconsistency is an example of internal criticism. It is the single, strongest internal criticism that can be imagined. In philosophy, the problem of self-referent&y raises the arbitrary nature of our most fundamental intellectual positions. The element of arbitrariness of science that comes out of an economics of science is no diierent than the uncertainty, if not agnosticism, attained in recent philosophy of science.
