Mark Blaug on the historiography of economics
Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 6 (3):44 (2013)
Abstract
This paper discusses how Mark Blaug reversed his thinking about the historiography of economics, abandoning 'rational' for 'historical' reconstruction, and using an economics of scientific knowledge argument against Paul Samuelson and others that rational reconstructions of past ideas and theories in the "marketplace of ideas" were Pareto inefficient. Blaug's positive argument for historical reconstruction was built on the concept of "lost content" and his rejection of the end-state view of competition in favor of a process view. He used these ideas to emphasize path dependency in the development of economic thinking, thereby advancing an evolutionary view of economics that has connections to a Lakatosian understanding of economic methodology. The paper argues that Blaug was essentially successful in criticizing the standard rational reconstructionist view of the history of economic thought in economics, and that this is borne out by the nature of the change in recent economics.My notes
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Citations of this work
A 2x2=4 hobbyhorse: Mark Blaug on rational and historical reconstructions.Harro Maas - 2013 - Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 6 (3):64.
References found in this work
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History of science and its rational reconstructions.Imre Lakatos - 1971 - In R. C. Buck & R. S. Cohen (eds.), PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. D. Reidel. pp. 91-108.
History of Science and Its Rational Reconstructions.Imre Lakatos - 1970 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1970:91-136.
The Methodology of Economics: Or, How Economists Explain.Mark Blaug - 1992 - Cambridge University Press.
The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres.Richard Rorty - 1984 - In . Cambridge University Press.