ABSTRACT
The 1980s saw a growing interest in Karl Popper’s view of science among economists. This began with Mark Blaug’s popular methodology book [1980] that espoused the ‘falsificationism’ that he attributed to Popper. As I explained in Chapter 11, Blaug’s Popper was unrecognizable to me. As it turns out, there are two views of scientific thinking attributed to Karl Popper. The more popular among economic methodologists is not very challenging and to be useful requires only a minor adjustment to commonly held views. The less well-known view considers Popper’s theory of science to be revolutionary and extremely challenging and requiring a major change in attitude toward science and scientific thinking. In this chapter I will explain the nature of these two views and their implications for the study of economic methodology. Also I will examine why there are two different views and why one is more popular than the
other. Above all, I will try to explain why I think the less popular is the more important.
