Enlightenment thought was central to the rise of modern social sciences, bequeathing to Classical Economics a framework shaped by methodological individualism, a deterministic view of science, and a strong commitment to universality. Yet this inheritance seems to rest on a static and ahistorical conception of human nature. The present study follows that intellectual lineage through primary sources and, within the framework of Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm theory, asks what methodological difficulties arise from the universalist claim about “human nature.”
Lütfü Şimşek (Tue,) studied this question.