C H A P T E R T H I R T Y - T H R E E Mathematical Modeling as an Exegetical Tool: Rational Reconstruction Rational reconstruction According to Lakatos, RR is equivalent to what he calls internal history: a putatively diachronic account of what counts as “growth of knowledge” or “progress in science” – as “progress” is adjudicated by the particular normative methodology favored by the historian. | CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Mathematical Modeling as an Exegetical Tool Rational Reconstruction A. M. C. Waterman Terminology Rational reconstruction Rational reconstruction hereinafter RR will be understood in this essay in the sense used by Imre Lakatos 1978 ch. 2 in reference to the history of science. According to Lakatos RR is equivalent to what he calls internal history a putatively diachronic account of what counts as growth of knowledge or progress in science - as progress is adjudicated by the particular normative methodology favored by the historian. Lakatos s external history is confined to social and economic conjuncture the tastes ideologies and metaphysics of the scientists and other circumstances that explain the residual non-rational factors. Thus external history is irrelevant for the understanding of science Lakatos 1978 pp. 118 102 . It is apparent that there must be at least as many rational reconstructions of any particular episode as there are methodologies. Thus an historian who accepts the criteria of scientific progress proposed by conventionalism will offer a very 554 A. M. C. Waterman different internal history of some important scientific innovation from that of another historian whose criteria are those specified by Lakatos s own methodology of scientific research programmes. It also appears that those who accept Thomas Kuhn s account of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 1962 must disqualify themselves from attempting any kind of RR. For In Kuhn s view there can be no logic but only psychology of discovery hence scientific revolution is irrational a matter for mob psychology Lakatos 1978 pp. 90 91 italics in original . Some historians of economic thought . Blaug 1990 have preferred Richard Rorty s seemingly more open-ended usage of rational reconstruction never clearly defined to identify one of the four genres of the historiography of philosophy the others being historical reconstruction and Geistesgeshichte literally a
