Entrepreneurship, knowledge and employment

Some considerations on the evolution of the economic method

Blanco Maria, Universidad CEU-San Pablo

The history of economic thought covers not only the study of the different solutions that all the philosophers and economists had offered to solve different economic problems through the history; or the evolution of the perspective from which the economists have analyzed those problems. Our discipline also studies the different ways to solve problems, to elaborate theories and to distinguish what is science from what is only opinion or beliefs: the evolution of the economic method. In this sense, most of the advancement in Economics has been made by scientists who dedicated part of their research to some particular problem (theoretical or practical issues) and that to this purpose, they tried to apply the most refined and accurate method of thinking, many times taking from their own science many things. The purpose of this paper is to consider some of these authors, like Cournot, Whewell, Walras, and others, and to analyze if they have printed some particular feature of their science of origin into the economic theory or not.

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Keywords: economic method, history of economic thought

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