The Nature of Economic Theory: A Philosophical Inquiry

经济理论，不管我们喜欢与否， 个人、企业、地方和州政府以及国家 规矩点。 经济知识的提高将有助于改善 人类福利，帮助控制和可靠地预测经济 经济、政治和社会变化的后果。 鉴于 随着经济的日益重要， 我们也应该更仔细地研究哲学 经济学的基础，也就是可检验性等问题， 不切实际的假设、理想的模式以及 理性 1976年，罗森伯格博士发表了一份被称为 对这些问题的“分水岭”研究。 在接下来的10年里，博士。 罗森博格一直沉浸在这些问题中， 对最初辩护的几种观点的批评， study. 根据这项资助，罗森伯格博士将进一步研究 经济学哲学基础中的大量文献 和经济理论本身的发展，以综合他的 评估和吸收各方面的重要贡献， 其他人对这个问题。 研究结果表明， 经济理论将研究哲学的替代方法 经济学，特别是修辞方法，研究什么是 进步的本质在经济学中，经济理论的功能， 解释变量“期望”的含义和用途， “偏好”，经济理论作为应用数学，新古典主义 “持不同政见者”及其假设，以及经济学中的适应主义。 这些研究保证是最具煽动性和极大的兴趣， 经济学和科学哲学都一样。

Economic theory, whether we like it or not, affects the way individuals, businesses, local and state governments, and nations behave. Improvement in economic knowledge will help to ameliorate human welfare and help to control and reliably predict the economic consequences of economic, political and social changes. Given the increasing importance of economics, it becomes increasingly necessary as well that we should more closely examine the philosophical foundations of economics, that is, such issues as testability, progress, unrealistic assumptions, ideal models and the nature of rationality. In 1976, Dr. Rosenberg published what has been called a "watershed" study of these issues. In the ensuing 10 years, Dr. Rosenberg has immersed himself in these issues and has in fact led the criticism of several of the views originally defended in that study. Under this grant, Dr. Rosenberg will further study the ballooning literature in the philosophical foundations of economics and developments in economic theory itself in order to synthesize his own work and to assess and incorporate the important contributions of others to this subject. The resulting study on the nature of economic theory will examine alternate approaches to the philosophy of economics, especially the rhetorical approach, examine what the nature of progress is in economics, the function of economic theory, the meaning and uses of the explanatory variables "expectation" and "preference," economic theory as applied mathematics, neoclassical "dissidents" and their assumptions, and adaptationalism in economics. These studies promise to be most provocative and of great interest to economics and philosophy of science alike.