The paper deals with the development of physics scientific ideal in economics starting from the vital contribution of Edgeworth to the new field of econophysics.
Mainstream economic methodology has been substantially influenced by the physics methodological ideal, at least since the emergence of marginalism. The study of economic phenomena with the models and methods of physics has experienced a
surge of interest through the emergence of “econophysics” in the 1990’s, which may be regarded as a new episode in the development of the relationship between physics and economics.
The paper has examined from a methodological viewpoint both the similarities and (mainly) the significant differences between mainstream economics and econophysics. Econophysicists’ emphasis to statistical mechanics rather to mechanical models, their reservations towards rational agent theory and their rejection of many standard assumptions of mainstream economics, are prime examples of such differences. Mainstream economic theorists’ response of this challenge is rather subdued, ignoring econophysics’ attack to economic methodology.
The modern reaction of orthodox economics to the challenge presented by econophysics is, however, very interesting. The physics methodological ideal has been crucial for the scientific status of orthodox economics at least since the marginalists. The recent attack to economics by econophysicists represents a rather surprising challenge by the very representatives of this scientific ideal. Thus, the lack of response by mainstream economics might indicate a certain methodological embarrassment. It seems that the long efforts to build scientific economics are now undermined by its methodological “mentors”. This development could lead to the re-emergence of the discussion regarding the epistemological nature of economics as a discipline and also to a re-examination of the concept of scientific ideal. This might be one of the least expected fruitful implications of the emergence of econophysics.
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