Our readings were indeed different, Steve. Let me defend my reading of   
your quote and also tell why I think that you misinterpreted my remarks.  
  
First, let me deal with the question of which reading is correct? I   
point you to the phrase "writing off" in the sentence you quoted in your   
most recent message:  
  
"I do not think that our knowledge is so far advanced as to justify us in writing off as
superseded the proposition of all but our immediate contemporaries."
  
(I have not looked up the exact quote. This representation of Robbins' remarks, I assume,
is a paraphrase of the longer quotation in your earlier message. Both quotes seem
grammatically incorrect due the term "proposition." But perhaps the context explains
this.)
  
It seems to me, even from this paraphrase, that he is saying that   
economists should not disregard the writings of the past because to do   
so is to risk making errors in the future. But the errors of which he   
was writing, at least in the passage you quoted before, were errors in   
policy, not in theory ("the purely analytical field"). My message was   
concerned with the errors implicit in Robbins' statement, which you   
quoted. If you read that statement carefully, I believe that you will   
see that he is referring to the need to comprehend the purely analytical   
field of the past in order to understand the PROBLEMS and policies that   
resulted from that field.  
  
I do not disagree with your interpretation, but it seems shallow.  
  
Now to the more important question regarding the history of error. Of   
course, I do not subscribe to the "notion that the history of economics   
is no more than a history of error," to quote from your message where it   
appears that you imply that I do. And I am pleased to learn that you   
also do not subscribe to this. But is it reasonable to think that anyone   
(including me?) would subscribe to it? I am, in the condescending phrase   
of some HESers, a whig historian of thought. My point about Robbins is   
merely that he must have been assuming that he knew the difference   
between "truth" and "error" in order to make the statement you quoted.   
More directly, to the extent that he was himself an historian of   
thought, he also practiced whig history, at least insofar as he was   
concerned with the economic theory that caused problems and influenced   
policy. Yet the statement you quoted in your first message does not tell   
us which ideas of the past he regards as true and what he regards as   
having led to problems. I suggest that you dig deeper for this. As I   
recall (although I am no expert on the matter), Robbins did, indeed,   
have many opinions about good and bad economics and about good and bad   
policy.  
  
Your messages, like the quotation and like the messages of most (all?)   
others who have contributed to this thread, seem to me to be "fluff."   
How in the world can your talk about teaching the history of error be   
meaningful to a young historian of economic thought if you are unwilling   
to give examples?  
  
I assume that we are in fully agreement that errors were made and that   
economists of the present can learn from the errors of the past. I can't   
imagine anyone on this thread disagreeing with this. Indeed, to do so,   
would be tantamount to admitting that HOT has little reason for being,   
since success is meaningless without a concept of failure. Only the   
pope, so I have been told, is infallible (in matters of doctrine, not   
personal hygiene). My concern is to identify these errors and, of   
course, their antithesis.  
  
It seems to me to be a contradiction to assume that errors exist without   
producing a potentially disputable definition of economic truth and,   
therefore, of economics as a science.  
  
With due respect,  
  
Pat Gunning