An essay on the idea and logic of agricultural economics
Authors:   , Choe Yang Boo 
Published: May 2024

The idea and logic of agricultural economics is primarily concerned with determining what agricultural economists mean by the "science" of agricultural economics. What is the logic of "scientific discovery" in agricultural economics? What sort of a science is agricultural economics? In an attempt to answer to these questions, this study critically reviewed various methodological ideas, concepts, and principles which have been taken for granted in the methodology of agricultural economics today. The present problems of agricultural economics, i.e., the "survival problem" and the "identity crisis," are described as a result of the accepted definition of agricultural economics which was formulated by the Schultz-Heady School of applied economics of agriculture. Unfortunately, this definition is constructed upon two logically untenable premises: the "doctrine of uncritical reductionism" and the "oneness of economic principle." Further, those premises contributed to the agricultural economists' dogmatic belief in the universal validity and applicability of neoclassical economic theory. All these problems essentially arose as an unintended consequence of the applied economists' solution to what is termed the "Schultz Dilemma." Therefore, this essay concluded that there is no such survival and identity problem in a logical sense, but that there is a certain psychological problem. Furthermore, some unsettled problems of the methodology of agricultural economics have been described largely as the problem of differences in the methodological frames of reference. This problem was complicated due to the problem of logical inconsistency in applying various different methodological principles to agricultural economics research. This has been done without realizing the differences in the epistemological foundations upon which these various methodological principles are built. This difficult problem situation raises the problem of choosing a better set of methodological principles. As a solution to the methodological problems of agricultural economics, this essay systematically introduced Karl R. Popper's criticisms of traditional epistemology and methodology as well as his alternative epistemological and methodological principles. This essay proposed that agricultural economics is a theoretical as well as a technological discipline of the social sciences. It is not merely an applied field of neoclassical economics, the principles of which form the basis of what has been called general economics. Like all other natural and social sciences, agricultural economics aims at the search for truth and the solution to various practical problems of agriculture via a scientific approach. The approach used in this dissertation is that of the critical methods and principles of Karl R. Popper. These methods and principles consist of (1) the aim of science; (2) the criterion of scientific knowledge in terms of the principle of falsifiability; (3) the criteria of selecting better scientific theories; (4) the method of trial and error elimination based upon critical realism, critical conventionalism, and hypo-thetico-deductivism; (4) the concept of scientific objectivity in the sense of inter-subjective objectivity. As a discipline of social science, agricultural economics also may adopt Popper's methodological presuppositions: methodological individualism and methodological humanism. This essay also suggested that Popper's principles must be considered as a set of proposals which must be decided upon in the scientific community of agricultural economics. A final adoption or rejection of Popper's principles as the rules of the game of scientific inquiry depends not only upon each agricultural economist's individual methodological decision, but also upon the group decision of the scientific community of agricultural economics as a whole.