================= HES POSTING ======================= 
 
On Thu, 26 Sep 1996, E. Roy Weintraub wrote: 
 
> When one  
> thus says "economics in the late 20th century is more rigorous than it 
> was in 1900", just what exactly is one asserting if the concept of  
> rigor is not either stable, or comparable between the periods?  
>  
> That is why I insist that the idea of a "formalist revolution" is  
> an historical question, not a quibble over current word usage.  
 
While I have no problem granting that the concept of 'rigor' has varied 
considerably over the disciplines and over the years, what if the 
hypothetical economist you just quoted answers you by saying: 
 
"When I say that economics today is more rigorous now than it was in 1900, 
I mean to be appealing to this field's current usage of 'rigor'. The fact 
that 'rigor' has meant different things in different times and places is a 
red herring, unless you can show that our neglect of this fact somehow 
hampers what the field is currently trying to do." 
 
Is part of your goal to get economists to become better economists by 
attending to their history, or is it simply to get historians of 
economics to become better historians?  Your manifesto suggests your 
aspirations are limited to the latter, but your latest missive suggests 
you may be on to something more ambitious, like Mirowski. 
 
Yours in discourse 
 
Steve Fuller  
 
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