The theory of evolution and the evolution of theory: Veblen's methodology in contemporary perspective
从凡勃伦关于目的论与进化论科学思想的区分出发，追踪经济理论的最新发展，指出新古典理论因个体理性假设而无法展现真正的进化过程，但标准理性假设可在总体层面产生准进化序列，而宏观经济学中的代表性主体和自实现预期假设阻碍了这一可能性。
This paper traces recent developments in economic theory from the perspective of Thorstein Veblen's methodological distinction between teleological and evolution modes of scientific thought. It is argued that the imposition of rational behavior at the individual level prevents neoclassical theory from exhibiting genuine evolutionary processes since decision rules are prevented from emerging out of a process of adaptation to a changing environment. The standard rationality postulate can nevertheless give rise to quasi-evolutionary sequences at the aggregate level. This possibility is blocked in macroeconomic literature by the use of the representative agent construct and the imposition of the hypothesis of self-fulfilling expectations. (c) 1996 Academic Press Limited Copyright 1996 by Oxford University Press.