The fruits of Enlightenment: what should economic knowledge be like?

Abstract

The article offers a new view on the formation of economics as a science, based on the hypothesis of coexistence in XVII–XVIII centuries of a range of projects of scientific economic knowledge, reflecting the relevant scientific programs of the scientific revolution in that era. Five such projects are analysed: James Stuart's project of conservative transformation of economic knowledge; the Baconian projects: William Petty's statistical project and John Law's engineering project; D. Hume's socio-philosophical project; and Richard Cantillon's theoretical project. Each project is examined both in the context of its origin and through the prism of the subsequent fate of its main idea.

It is concluded that the recognition of economics in the XIX century as a science in the form of classical political economy was a victory for Cantillon’s project, which was later developed in the works of F. Quesnay and Adam Smith. This theoretical project met the scientific standards established in the second half of the XVIII century, consolidated economic knowledge of that period around the universal ontological scheme of economy as the subject of the new science, and met the ideological demands of the era. However, the rationalist trajectory of economic science also had its price. The sophistication of the theoretical apparatus was often achieved by abstracting from features of reality that were difficult to measure or model, while the forms of economic knowledge represented in alternative projects remained on the margins of attention.