----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- Ann Mayhew wrote: >His [My] argument is that individuals are thinking and creative; institutions are products of individual creativity; therefore methodological individualism is an approriate approach to the study of institutions. Ann, this is not exactly what I meant to argue. In formal terms, my argument goes something like this: 1. Some institutions (or parts of institutions) are the consequence of individual action. a. Some institutions (or parts of institutions) are deliberately created and, therefore, can be best explained by referring to the deliberate actions of the individuals who created them. b. Some institutions (or parts of institutions) are the unintended, or unplanned, outcome of individual action. These can also be explained by referring to the deliberate actions of individuals. 2. Some institutions (or parts of institutions) are the outcome of human behavior that is not deliberate or planned. These can best be explained by referring to the behavior and its non-deliberate causes. By non-deliberate causes, I am referring to what we might roughly call "instincts." The causes of this behavior is probably best sought in biology, broadly defined. 3. Institutions have no other "cause." (Of course, I am not writing scientifically, or logically, not theologically.) 4. Therefore, your use of the phrase "historically-determined institutional patterns" in your assertion that "The limits of methodological individualism upon which the broad neoclassicalsynthesis rested, became apparent even as neoclassicism became dominant." takes too lightly the relationship between an individual and an institution. Perhaps you did not understand this argument since your most recent post goes on to say: >The issue is to select the most appropriate unit of analysis for understanding the economy. A focus on individuals limits the focus of analysis to choice among a set of alternatives and begs the question of how and why those alternatives are the relevant set for the chooser. > It is consistent with my argument to agree that a focus on individuals limits the set of alternatives for an historian and an analyst to choose. But this is only because such a focus does not take biology, broadly defined, into account. Do you see some other limit? In answer to John Womack's question about Menger, I believe that the argument above is consistent with Menger. It is possible that he was the first to make it. See his "Concluding Remarks" in Part 3, Chapter 2 of his Investigations into the Method of the Social Sciences. I do not know whether any of the "new institutionalists" have worked on methodology. If not and if one wanted to do so, perhaps Menger is the best place to begin. With regard to early American Institutionalism, John Bates Clark is also a good source for exploring the methodology of what we later call neoclassical economics, although I cannot give you a definite reference at the moment. Today, Ludwig von Mises is regarded as the methodological leader of Menger's School. In Human Action (1966), Mises discusses this issue from several points of view: Here are a three references. 1. On the "great debate" over method between Menger and the German historians, see pp. 4-7, at http://www.mises.org/humanaction/introsec2.asp 2. On institutionalism, see p. 647, at http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap23sec1.asp 3. On methodological individualism, see pp. 41-44, at http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap2sec4.asp Pat Gunning ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]