ABSTRACT
When economics emerged as a science, the économistes self-identified as philosophes. This is a rather bizarre feature that would surprise many of its current practitioners. This word involves multiple meanings proper to the eighteenth century. In the words of Chesneau who wrote the entry for the Encyclopédie: “nothing is easier to acquire today than the name philosopher, an obscure and retired life, a few outward signs of wisdom, with a bit of reading, are enough.” According to him, a philosopher endeavours to “bring causes to light.” The philosopher “forms his principles on the basis of an infinite number of discrete observations.” A very feature set apart philosophers from other people. The latter “adopt a principle without thinking about the observations that produced it: they believed that the maxim exists, so to speak, in itself.” Instead, the philosopher “follows the maxim to its source; he examines its origin; he knows its true value, and only makes the use of it that is appropriate.”
