Partial interpretation and microeconomics

Alexander Rosenberg

pp. 93-109

in: Werner Leinfellner, Eckehart Köhler (eds), Developments in the methodology of social science, Berlin, Springer, 1974

Abstract

In this essay, an account is given of why economists are more sympathetic to logical empiricist views about the nature of scientific theories than other social scientists are. It is claimed that economists who have written on methodology find a "partial interpretation" view appealing because it enables them to avoid serious problems surrounding the conceptual position of microeconomics, as well as their own claims about its more basic general prinicples. The essay purports to show that, appealing as this doctrine seems in the physical sciences, it cannot be successfully applied to an analysis of microceonomic theories.