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Karl Popper and Economic Methodology: A New Look

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Douglas W. Hands
Douglas W. Hands
Affiliation:
University of Puget Sound
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Extract

Discussions of Karl Popper's falsificationist philosophy of science appear regularly in the recent literature on economic methodology. In this literature, there seem to be two fundamental points of agreement about Popper. First, most economists take Popper's falsificationist method of bold conjecture and severe test to be the correct characterization of scientific conduct in the physical sciences. Second, most economists admit that economic theory fails miserably when judged by these same falsificationist standards. As Latsis (1976, p. 8) states, “the development of economic analysis would look a dismal affair through falsificationist spectacles.”

Type
Essays
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , April 1985 , pp. 83 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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