The article highlights the historical peculiarities of genesis of the term political economy and analyses the changes in its essence in the history of economic thought. The author substantiates that political economy is not a homogeneous and monistic science, as at different stages of its historic develop-ment it was represented by various scientific traditions, which coexisted within the doctrines of scientific economic orthodoxy and heterodoxy. The article distinguishes and analyzes the impact of the complex of qualitatively new factors on active revival of attention and interest to the political economy as a philosophy of economics and as a general methodological and ideological basis for a number of traditional and newly created branches of economic subjects. The author emphasizes the actualization of scientific research of the main megatrends of development of the modern economics and the necessity of involvement of the metaphysical discourse in the disclosure of the problems of the political economy.

Keywords:political economy, economics, scientific tradition, orthodoxy, heterodoxy, metaphysical discourse of economy

-

Keywords:-