Metalanguage within disciplinary discourse for scientific research programs: Invitation to a debate

Abstract

Modern economic science is experiencing difficulties in solving theoretical and practical problems, including its inability to predict future economic crises, and, after their onset, the effective ways to overcome them. This is largely due to the fact that representatives of different theories have different assessments of the ongoing processes in the economy and offer essentially different and often mutually exclusive ways to solve economic problems. The search for a common language and ways to unite the efforts of economists in achieving social progress is on the agenda. The paper addresses the possibilities of productive interaction between scientific programs in economics via mutual enrichment of ideas, and shows what role metalanguage plays in this process. It claims that metalanguage will allow representatives of various research programs to form a realistic view of each other’s concepts, and not to criticize the caricatures of their opponents’ theories.