Several authors have detected a paradigm shift in contemporary science: from a reductionist or mechanicist approach to a holistic or systemic one. This transition in paradigms should be perceptible in several disciplines, starting in biology and extending itself to others areas. In light of the...

This paper discusses the attempts to publish a historical-critical edition of the works of Karl Marx, the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA): the first one, which was led by David Riazanov in the 1920s and 1930s, and the second one, the MEGA2 project which begun in the 1970s and is still in course...

The catharsis produced by the early 1620’s trade crisis had a significant impact on the way economic themes were regarded by public opinion in England. As a result, those who analyze the ideas put forward in the documents written during that period – be they printed pamphlets or...

This paper presents Isaak Rubin’s History of Economic Thought. After a brief description of his life and work, the paper discusses Karl Marx’s attempts to write a critical history of the political economy and, in connection with this, the paper analyses the meaning of Rubin’s History of...

This paper discusses the role of credit in the capitalist accumulation. It presents Hilferding’s analysis of the financing of corporations and of the role of stock exchange as an agent of the mobilization of capital. Theoretical and historical elements are deployed to support a conjecture...

This article presents an outline of the biography of David Riazanov. The article discusses Riazanov’s participation in the political and intellectual life of Russia, and his role in the discovery and the publication of the literary legacy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which culminated in...

The article argues the need to preserve the pluralism in economics. The article examines: i) the nature of the knowledge and of its production; ii) the specificity of the knowledge production in economics and the historical and cultural conditionings of the knowledge; iii) the implications of the...

Amidst the economists that are concerned about the method, it is common to make reference on the subject of a new economic methodology. It was from the deception and the abandon of the search toward a unique criterion to give scientific status to research programmes that this new movement came...

This paper examines Adam Smith's understanding of the philosophy and science, the motivations that lead us to investigate nature and society, and the proper methods of investigation and exposition. The paper also criticizes those authors that interpret Smith's work as an example of the...

This article examines Adam Smith’s Theory of moral sentiments. Taking as its point of departure the moral philosophy of the Scottish enlightenment, the paper presents the central argument of Smith’s Theory. It analyses the concepts of “sympathy” and “impartial spectator” and points...