Blurred Boundaries: Recent Changes in the Relationship Between Economics and the Philosophy of Natural Science D. Wade Hands* Introduction FOR MANY YEARS a rather simple one-way relationship existed between econ- omics and the philosophy of natural science. Economists writing in the field of ‘economic methodology’ would simply ‘borrow’ various arguments from the philosophy of natural science and then ‘apply’ those arguments to economics. These methodological ‘applications’ would produce one of two results: either a general set of methodological rules for the conduct of scientific economics, or a ‘methodological appraisal’ of a particular economic theory or research program. In either case, whether undertaking specific appraisal or methodologi- cal homily, economists writing on economic methodology took the philosophy of natural science as simply given-a shelf of scien@c philosophy-that could be used without much reflection or reconfiguration.’ Despite the homage of economists, philosophers of science have not tradi- tionally been very interested in economics. Mid-twentieth century philosophy of natural science-in both its logical empiricist and Popperian versions-was primarily a philosophy of physics. Physics was viewed as the paradigm case of successful science, and whatever theorizing occurred in the social sciences was, for the most part, irrelevant to the philosophical understanding of this type of real scientific knowledge. The items on the shelf of scientific philosophy were primarily the products of a priori philosophical reflection about the nature of scientific knowledge; secondarily, they were the products of casual empiricism about what goes on in the best physical science, but in neither case was economics of much interest. It was a simple one-way relationship; ideas flowed from the philosophy of natural science to economics. *Department of Economics, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA 98416, U.S.A. Received 28 January 1994; in revised form 18 July 1994 ‘This applies mainly to orthodox economic methodology-methodological questions motivated by, and solely concerned with, orthodox economics. Methodological inquiries informed by heterodox economics-Marxism, institutionalism, Austrian economics, etc.-have frequently drawn their inspiration from a wider range of philosophical sources. Pergamon Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci., Vol. 25, No. 5, pp. 151-712, 1994 Copyright 0 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0039%3681/94 $7.00+00.00 751