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...

Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), considered the first institutionalist author, tried to formulate, in the passage of the 19th century to the 20th, an original system of political economy that was alternative to classical, neoclassical, historicist and marxist thoughts. In this paper, this system of...