IMHO, for the conventional economist, this view of history (in this case, of thought) as
irrelevant flows from the view that our constrained choices (in this case, on how to think
about economic problems) only depend on present information.  The present embodies all
past history, our choices are Markovian equilibria, etc.  An answer that would make (some)
economists stop and think is to say that, in real life, time-serial correlation, time-path
dependency, non ergodicity, etc. are pervasive.  Time is not logical but historical,
history matters, the assumptions that life is ergodic (repetitive in its essential
features) and serially uncorrelated, time is reversible, etc. are the price economists pay
to build tractable models, but they are not actual features of things out there.  Etc.
   
Julio Huato