NWO Vidi research project: Observation in economics, historically considered

This research investigates how economists observe the world, historically considered. To observe something a scientist (or scientific community) needs technologies and practices that enable him/her to identify the objects of study and to theorize on them. We link these technologies and practices to three different sites of observation, which is not meant to claim completeness, but is intended to keep the project manageable. These sites of observation have their own particular history: the "armchair", the "observatory", and the "laboratory". (the "field" would be an obvious fourth site).

We choose an historical approach: By choosing an historical perspective, we not only illuminate what observation meant to different kinds of economists; we are also able to show how the notion of observation develops in economics within the three sites we distinguish and we are able to clarify how and why different observational practices and technologies change and influence one another and how they hybridize. Another key issue to be examined is how within a scientific community different observational practices and technologies establish consent so that the observations made are considered ?objective?. We will examine the cognitive difficulties in establishing such consent. We will also investigate how observations, even when considered "objective", have political consequences for the world observed.