Back to the big picture

Abstract

We distinguish between two different strategies in methodology of economics. The big picture strategy, dominant in the twentieth century, ascribed to economics a unified method and evaluated this method against a single criterion of ‘science’. In the last thirty years a second strategy gained prominence: fine-grained studies of how some specific technique common in economics can achieve one or more epistemic goal. We argue that recent developments in philosophy of science and in economics warrant a return to big picture–but now reinvented. It should focus on a new question, already intensely debated within the profession: is the organization of economics healthy and appropriate?.