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Release Date 27.02.2026

 METHODOLOGY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE

 

 

 

Tishkin Aleksandr

Postgraduate student

Moscow State University Lomonosov Moscow State University (Moscow), This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2218-5770

 

THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACHES OF T. KUHN AND I. LACATOS IN THE METHODOLOGY OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND THEIR CRITICISM

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The article examines the potential of applying the science studies approaches of T. Kuhn and I. Lakatos to describing the development of economic science. First, an attempt is made to systematize approaches to analyzing economic theory as a science by identifying three approaches: science-based, narrative (postmodernist), and sociological approaches. Given that mainstream economics is often presented as a kind of social physics, further analysis is focused on T. Kuhn and I. Lakatos, whose approaches are considered more suited to describing the exact sciences than the social disciplines. The development of science appears to be a nonlinear process: either an abrupt paradigm shift or competition between research programs with different hard cores. Applying Kuhn’s lens can help one to identify several scientific revolutions in economics: the marginalist revolution and the emergence of macroeconomics. In the author’s opinion, the credibility revolution is not a revolution from Kuhn’s perspective, since it affects certain methodological issues of proving existence of cause-and-effect relationships of limited application. Despite this, I. Lakatos’s approach, in the author’s opinion, is more justified: it is difficult to believe that a common paradigm in economics exists at any given point in time. It is worth acknowledging the significant shortcomings of both scientific frameworks: the ambiguity of key definitions; a reliance on retrospective analysis without a prospective view of the future. According to the author, these shortcomings justify the usage of other approaches to analyzing the development of science.

Keywords: methodology of economic science, economic theory, history of economic thought, scientific studies

JEL: B40, B10, B20

UDC: 303.01, 330.8

DOI: 10.52342/2587-7666VTE_2026_1_54_69

 

©  A. Tishkin, 2026

© Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences «Issues of Theoretical Economics», 2026

Acknowledgments: The author of this article expresses his gratitude to A.A. Maltsev for discussing the ideas contained in this article, as well as to an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments that contributed to improving the quality of this article.

 

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Manuscript submission date: 27.11.2025

Manuscript acceptance date: 18.12.2025

 

For citation:

Tishkin A.S. The Scientific Approaches of T. Kuhn and I. Lacatos in the Methodology of Economic Science and Their Criticism // Voprosy teoreticheskoy ekonomiki. 2026. No. 1. Pp. 54–69. DOI: 10.52342/2587-666VTE_ 2026_1_54_69