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NOTE FROM ROSS EMMETT: The following query was recently sent to me on the
"Ask the Prof" service. I sent the query to three contemporary economic
methodologists. The first to respond was Roger Backhouse; the other two
(Bruce Caldwell and Wade Hands) sent responses that basically built upon
Roger's response. Here are the original query and all three responses.
Comments and questions which elaborate/challenge/expand/etc. the
responses are welcome:
++++++++++++++
ORIGINAL QUERY:
Why is it that what Blaug call 'mainstream orthodox economics' is
dominated by logical positivism? Did Ricardo leave such a lasting
impression that his methods have dominated for so long? Which economists
were most influencal in the formation of the deductive economics
methodology?
++++++++++++++
[From Roger Backhouse]
Bruce [Caldwell] is much better qualified to answer this than I am, but I
would start by questioning the assumption that mainstream economics is
dominated by logical positivism. LP is a very specific philosophical
doctrine, developed in the 1930s, and I am sceptical about whether it
dominates modern economics. Even the received view in the philosophy of
science in the 1950s (and which inflenced economists such as Machlup) was
not the same as LP. The term positivism is used in very many ways, only
one of which is LP, and it is a term bedevilled by confusion.
Being more specific, LP is a form of empiricism, in which the empirical
foundations of theory are very important. Even to state this is to point
out a big contrast with much modern economics.
Having said this, there are features of modern economics that relate to
the idea that it is influenced by LP - the separation of positive and
normative questions, the idea that theory should relate to observable
propositions. Here, one presumably has to find an explanation in the 1930s
and the work of Hicks and Samuelson, which has been so influential. Their
work is contemporaneous with the heyday of LP, but I do not know enough of
their biographies to know whether there was a connection. Hicks's
attitudes were influenced by Pareto, whose main work predates LP by
several years. To understand Samuelson and Friedman, one needs to consider
Henry Schultz and debates in the 1920s and 1930s over demand theory. If
one were looking for philosophical roots it would be possible to find them
in pragmatism (James and Dewey) as much as, if not more than, in LP. As
for why the work of Hicks and Samuelson became so influential, that is a
big question that I would not wish to answer briefly. So many things
changed in economics between, say, 1930 and 1960 that I would be hesitant
in providing a very simple story.
Roger E. Backhouse
Department of Economics
University of Birmingham
Email: [log in to unmask]
+++++++++++++++
Roger has sent me a copy of his reply, with which I agree and to which I
have little to add. The inquirer may consult my _Beyond Positivism_ if he
would like references to flesh out Roger's point that logical positivism
is but one of the positivisms, and not as particularly important one for
understanding economists' practice (though obviously the various
positivist incarnations have influenced our rhetoric or our claims about
our practice). Blaug's _The Methodology of Economics_ discusses the
methodological views of classical economists like Ricardo. But surely if
one wants to understand why late 20th century economics is so deductive,
one would look (as Roger suggests) at the influence of the Lausanne
school (Walras and Pareto) via Hicks and Samuelson (see Weintraub on the
Pareto kreis at Harvard in his _Stabalizing Dynamics_), and then the
Wald, Karl Menger, Morgenstern et. al. influences regarding g.e. theory
and game theory. People like these, rather than Ricardians, are the more
likely sources (except for Ricardo's influence via Sraffa on that
particular version of post-Keynesianism).
Bruce Caldwell
Department of Economics
University of North Carolina, Greensboro
<[log in to unmask]>
+++++++++++++++++++
Roger send me his comments and I think I would only disagree with one
point. I do think positivist ideas -- in a very broad and general way --
did influence the way that Samuelson et. al. thought about science (see my
entry on "positivism" in the HANDBOOK OF ECONOMIC METHODOLOGY). This is
not to say that their economics was consistent with, or that they even
knew much about the details of, logical positivism (as Roger correctly
says: "a very specific philosophical doctrine'), but rather that it formed
a very general backdrop for what they viewed as "scientific" activities.
They were "positivists" in the sense that most 19th century Americans were
"Christians"; these can be true statements and yet have very few
behavioral implications. I think Samuelson, Cowles' people, Hicks, etc.
are all different in this regard than Friedman, Knight, and other Chicago
types.
D. Wade Hands
Department of Economics
University of Puget Sound
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