Orthodoxy, Renewal and Complexity in Contemporary Economics

This contribution attempts at providing an explanation for how economics with its peculiar methodology of analysis and focus on modelling emerged. It furthermore tries to answer the intriguing question, haunting the discipline over the past 150 years or so, namely if, and to what degree analytical methods, that have been developed in and for the natural sciences, are apt for application in a different field. For the latter purpose, some of the fundamental issues of philosophy of cience have to be addressed, such as the uses and misuses of reductionism and equilibrium analysis. The rather fundamental changes that have emerged in the natural sciences since the onset of neoclassical analysis are concerned as well.