Mémorial to Léon H. Dupriez

Université catholique de Louvain

(Belgium)

                           by Prof. Paul L. Mandy
 

• Introductory note

This means that whilst defining epistemology, we have to investigate the value of explanation which implies the issue of truth defined, according to its oldest definition, as “adequatio rei et intellectus" i.e. adequacy between things and thought. As the subject matter of the Economic Science is “social reality” related to decision making processes founded upon subjective motives and fully distinctive therefore from the physical or biological world, the explanatory thought in Economics must be adequate enough to be applied to this reality. The significance of economic explanation has also to be debated. It consists in carrying out a diagnostic without value judgments as well as in setting up efficient  economic policies founded precisely on such a neutral explanation.

In this introduction we simply state certain propositions which we find fundamental to Dupriez’s epistemological work as we use quotations in order to enhance certain points. The number of propositions that can be set out is, of course, arbitrary in that a different classification may suggest more or less than is intended. This said however, our intention is to achieve a synthesis of this epistemology rather than a series of disjointed propositions. So, we have at least seven fundamental points interrelated each to other:
 

1. The study of Economics concerns a conscious, teleological social worldand not at all a physical or purely biological world.

2. The economist tries to explain and not only to describe, this social reality according to the economic behaviour of individual or social agents, but without any value judgments.

3. The method of such an explanation requires both deductive and inductive approaches.

4. The principle of economic explanation involves in the tendency towards equilibrium i.e. to achieve compatibility between economic agents.

5. Economic explanation is theorisedby the General Interdependence or General Equilibrium Theory in deductive matter and by the Theory of Business Cycles in inductive, historic approach, theories connected each with other as closely as possible.

6. Moneyand Financeare also submitted to the social, interdependent network: they are integral parts of an Economy.

7. In order to become efficient, Policiesin economic field must respect the requirements of economic theory.

In order to make this synthesis easier to understand, we have set out a simple diagram placing the seven propositions of this coherent epistemology against the counter-propositions that Dupriez never ceased to challenge throughout his work.
 
 

Dupriez’s Epistemology	Non-explanatory Epistemologies
- There is FinalCausality behind humanfacts;	- Mechanistic,Efficient Causality like the physicalor biologicalworld;
- Purely ExplanatoryEconomics;	- Descriptiveand/or NormativeEconomics;
- Close link, i.e. Correspondence between deduction and induction;	- Idealismwithout social facts (only deduction) Positivism:human actions considered as purely positive facts without subjective motives;
- Tendencytowards Equilibria as principle of a true explanation;	- RealisedEquilibria: -  definitional equivalences  like  Y  C +  I   -  accounting identities like Purchase  Sale
- Theory of General Interdependenceor General Equilibrium (timeless marginalism) - Theory of Business Cycles (systematic sequences of facts in historictime);	- Modelisation with Exogeneity of Independentvariables (like hydraulic models of flows);  - Dynamic Models elaborated in theoretictime;
- Money and Finance integratedwithin the Economy (Money defined as “power of choice” and not only as “purchasing power”)  - Theory of Money and Finance in a whole and Interdependent Economy	- Dichotomybetween the Real and the Monetary Sectors;   (Money determining only the general level of prices, but not relative prices) - Monetarism (“neutral money”)  - Portfolio Approach (“Money in a Theory of Finance” only)
- Economic Policies responding to the functionalityof the Economic System	- AutonomousPolicies responding to proper (political, sociological) interests

 
 
 
 

< L. H. Dupriez's Biography (in French)

> The first of the seven pillars of Dupriez’s Epistemology according to himself

Displayed on 13 october 13th, 2001