Indications of Science

Towards the end of 1861, Walras had apparently planned to write nine new ‘Paradoxes Economiques’ ¹ though he changed his strategy by communicating the subjects of his ‘Paradoxes’ to the editor prior to writing an entire article. ² As far as we know, only one was drafted. ³ In this third surviving ‘Paradoxe Economique’, entitled ‘De la richesse naturelle ou gratuite—De la richesse sociale ou économique—De la richesse intellectuelle’, the discussion, started in the first article, ⁴ was continued. Common sense, as a methodology, merely appeared to represent an approach of empirical observation and was in itself inadequate for science, according to Walras. In this article, the businessman and the economist once more discussed methodology. Falling back on his earlier ideas about ontology and methodology, Walras argued that each science studied phenomena from a certain perspective, but each (social) science was also rooted in the same general theory of society. At the time, however, Walras had not yet arrived at a fully elaborated theory of society. From his published and unpublished material it can be inferred that a draft of a ‘Walrasian research programme’ would at that time have been organized in the manner as depicted in Figure 5.1. Figure 5.1 The Walrasian research programme https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203979525/fd9b25d3-c467-4e9c-b8a8-94b249764c2e/content/fig5_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>