Extended Input-Output Dynamics and the Concept of National Economy

Abstract

In mathematical sciences the term ”phenomenological theory” has a meaning that differs from that in philosophical phenomenology. It means simply a theory whose statements and laws can be considered to be inductive generalizations made directly from empirical facts. In physics, for instance, Faraday’s electromagnetic theory could be said to be phenomenological, and so is most of the elementary theory of optics, acustics, or thermodynamics, and — why not — even elementary mechanics. This was what Newton presumably meant by his famous sentence ”hypotheses non fingo”: hypotheses that are necessary starting points in any theoretical constructions are minimized in phenomenlogical theory, which is as closely and as widely as possible associated directly with empirical facts. Indeed one can say that phenomenological theory is nothing but a restatement of facts in terms of a more general language, i.e. in a form where conclusions can be made that concern a larger sphere of phenomena than just the pieces of evidence from which the generalizations were made.