Uchronies and the History of Economic Knowledge

Abstract

The international community of historians of economic thought is not essentially divided between 'absolutists' and 'relativists', or between 'continuists' and 'discontinuists Rather it is the specific content of the metier d'historien which makes the difference. This paper aims at highlighting and systematizing the features characterizing the work of innovative historians. Some of these features are represented by analyses concerning: 1 the intersections between pre-theoretical categories; 2 enunciative homogeneities/heterogeneities; 3 the formation and decomposition of social knowledge; 4 schools of thought These different research practices are then unified under the common label of 'uckronies' (possible albeit non-arbitrary histories). Lastly, some implications of this interpretation are examined. One of them is particularly important: i. e. the irreducible ambiguity of the historian of economic thought vis-a-vis the economist. On the one hand, the former may hermeneutically discover new and valuable ideas from an intellectual viewpoint, but, on the other hand, the ways in which these ideas can enrich economic theory are absolutely uncertain. This ambivalence, together with the 'scandalous' trans-disciplinarity of the concepts and instruments employed by the historian of economic thought, may explain the diffidence of the economists towards the new tendencies of historiography.