Two comments regarding issues raised in the "family tree" debate. but  
first let me say that I have learned a lot by listening in, and am still  
interested in putting together a web page(s). 
 
My comments: 
 
1. "Influence" is extremely hard to track, for all the reasons raised here 
plus a few more. There was an interesting discussion of the problem of 
"influence" on H-IDEAS in the spring of 1995 (probably accessible from 
their filemanager). My contribution to that debate emphasized what I see 
as my primary task as an intellectual historian: rather than tracking 
influences, I want to ask what resources were available to a scholar as 
s/he attempted to communicate with her/his audience. Knowing the Menger 
and von Mises "influences" on Hayek helps us to interpret what Hayek may 
have meant when he said what he did, and knowing that he was not aware of 
some other scholar's work would help us by eliminating other potential 
meanings. (One of the negative examples would be Knight and Keynes 
writing on probability theory -- some have asked what Keynes' influence on 
Knight was, but Knight did not know about Keynes' Treatise on Probability 
when he was writing Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, so there is no 
influence, and we should look elsewhere to find the resources Knight had 
at his disposal as he tried to apply probability theory to social 
science). 
 
2. Peter asks about the relevance of discussion of "schools" to the 
history of economic thought. My answer here is twosided: I think it is 
relevant to speak of the "Chicago School" but I am personally more 
interested in the differences among them than in constructing a systematic 
account of the "Chicago research program."  The ties that bind them 
together are much more tenuous than the debates that separate them (and 
lead to much of their most interesting work!). One is tempted to say that 
it is only "location" that binds them together; but in the case of Chicago 
from the late 20s to the late 70s, the LSE for most of its history, 
Vienna in the 20s and early 30s, and a few other places, perhaps that is 
enough. 
 
Ross 
 
Ross B. Emmett, Augustana University College, Camrose, Alberta 
CANADA   T4V 2R3   voice: (403) 679-1517   fax: (403) 679-1129 
e-mail: [log in to unmask]  or  [log in to unmask]