ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to show how the systematic approach developed in Chapters 3-5 can be applied, by means of rational reconstruction, to understanding the conceivable creative processes in the work of economic researchers who produced seminal work. Rational reconstruction is best described by Darden (2002:S355) as “compiled hindsight” in which one tries to establish whether the patterns observable in the published work – and, where available, the written notes – of scientists can be explained by a particular hypothesis of the scientific process. If the hypothesis is plausible, it should be possible to reconstruct the scientific process that culminated in the published research. Well-known philosophers of sciences, like Thomas Kuhn (1970) and Imre Lakatos (1976), used rational construction to great effect in astronomy, physics and mathematics to test their hypotheses of the scientific process.
