Description

The current economic crisis is also a crisis of the social sciences, notably
of economics, and offers an opportunity to reflect on the nature and the
prospect of these disciplines. The demise of neoclassical macroeconomics
and the emergence of behavioral economics suggest that the social sciences ought to lower their ambitions, to focus on the
accumulation of small-scale mechanisms rather than on the development
of grand theory. Rational-choice theory, while useful in specific domains,
can no longer claim to be the unifying theory for the social sciences. In
fact, there is not and probably will never be one unifying theory, only a
toolbox of mechanisms. A common language for the social sciences may
yet be created if all social scientists receive a thorough grounding in the
classics of historical writing.