THE METHODOLOGY OF HISTORICAL AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH AS A FACTOR AND A MEAN OF DEMYTHOLOGIZING THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ECONOMICS IN ITS ORGANIZATIONAL AND INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSION

Abstract

The article reveals the modern principles of studying the history of the development of economic science from the standpoint of institutional economic theory (the unity of logical and historical approaches, the objective and the subjective, formal and real analysis, the use of narrative discourse). It is shown that the history of economic ideas is closely related to the history of economic events, and a truly scientific reflection of both processes in their contradictory combination can most fully be provided by highlighting relatively autonomous levels of analysis (the history of the life of certain individuals; the history of the development of organizations in which they carried out their scientific research, pedagogical and practical activities, and the corresponding structural units of these organizations; the history of the development of the states (localities), on the territory of which these organizations and/or these individuals were located in different periods) with the subsequent combination of the results of this analysis and corresponding generalizations. Possibilities of using the proposed principles to solve debatable issues of historical and economic content (continuity of scientific schools, linking well-known names to certain free economic zones, historical succession of structural units of external evaluation and external evaluation) are demonstrated on the example of specific individuals – well-known economists, universities’ structural units related to economics, and universities themselves. The conclusion that the ways of proving the legitimacy of certain interpretations of historical and economic process should be adequate and based on all available set of historical facts and documents, taking into account the context of the relevant historical epoch, has been substantiated. It has been stressed that the application of the proposed principles at the selected levels of research can protect against false ideas about the real history of the economy and economic thought and/or from its deliberate falsifications.