1991
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Pierre Dockès et al., « Histoire « raisonnée » et économie historique », Revue économique, ID : 10.3406/reco.1991.409274
Theory of history and historical economics History seems to be usefull to economics, first, in so far as it seems to provide facts : it enables to test concepts, hypotheses and theories, to work out new hypotheses, it puts them in perspective in time and space. But, on the second level, history is a theoretical discipline of the particular and of the irreversible change and it supposes the building up of « explanation sketchs », and these type of theories is necessary to the economist. Finally, on the third level, history may enable to build up more general theories (on the basis of explanatory patterns of the singular). These theories of evolution or comparative history open to the problem of the teachings of history : history answers our questions, but, like the Sphinx, with other questions.