ABSTRACT
This chapter examines conditions of felicity, namely the condition of empiricity. This condition, which refers to the form a theoretical element must take to become performative, seems to constitute a blind spot for performativist studies–a desertion of scientific discourse that takes root in the theoretical origins of actor-network theory. The chapter aims to study a more complex chain, introducing both the scientific discourse as such and the social conventions to which it gives birth through technical devices: theoretical convention–shaping of the social world. It argues that the definition of rationality has not always been consistent with the requirement of empiricity, and that behavioural hypotheses have often not been intended to be tested, but to animate economic reasoning. Rationality is a key concept of economic analysis, which offers many examples of the performative process of theoretical statements. The central point of the transformation from the rationality principle to its now-standard definition can be seen as a change in its epistemological status.
