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Date: | Mon Jun 2 16:21:29 2008 |
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Many thanks to everybody for the information.
Michael, that was especially good information
Marshall, who usually gets the praise or blame
for the shift. I think the most salient line in
the "science" debate is " Experience in
controversies ... brings out the impossibility of
learning anything from facts till they are
examined and interpreted by reason; and teaches
that the most reckless and treacherous of all
theorists is he who professes to let facts and
figures speak for themselves, who keeps in the
background the part he has played, perhaps
unconsciously, in selecting and grouping them,
and in suggesting the argument post hoc ergo
propter hoc. [Marshall 1885, pp. 167 68]" The
pose of objectivity is always the first cover for
ideology, as witness the experience of a certain
"fair and balanced" news organization. It is
interesting to know that Marshall himself had doubts about the project.
Nicholas, The modern OED has, of course, an
excellent entry on "economics," the original did
not. The work on "E" was completed in 1893, by
which time the word had not come to the attention
of the lexicographers. The original did have an
entry for "economy" (with its mainly Aristotelian
meaning) and a sub-entry for political economy,
with the meaning that "economics" now has.
The purpose of the change is to make political
economy more "scientific." But the impression I
get is that when Jevons said "science," he meant
"like physics"; Marshall merely meant "more
rigorous." Economics isn't like physics, and the
attempt to treat it so makes it less rigorous.
John C. M?daille
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