HES has been quiet for some time, and I was busy when there was a flurry of discussion about why economists need the history of economic thought, so I decided to re-ignite the discussion with a short defense of the following statement: there is a fundamental difference between the history of economics and the history of economic thought. Furthermore, while the history of economic thought is intimately related to economics, the history of economics is not (in fact, it is more closely related to the history of science). Those who read Margaret Schabas' article in HOPE on Breaking Away (1992) will recognize my debt to her argument. Before defending this claim, let me say that identifying the difference between these two disciplines has helped me to understand a common uneasiness I experience when reading articles and participating in conferences. The uneasiness I experience emerges when the assumption is made (either explicitly or implicitly) that what we are doing is important because it will enrich the conversation of the economics community. To give a concrete example, at the Rotterdam conference my paper on Knight's capital theory was set in a session in which there were two other papers: a paper on the role of the entrepreneur in the history of economic thought; and a paper re-examining Knight's understanding of risk and uncertainty in order to see whether it could inform a re-orientation of probabilistic thinking in economics. Both of the other papers were good; my uneasiness had nothing to do with the quality of the work. Rather, I felt that my paper served a fundamentally different purpose than the other two. Some might chalk my uneasiness up to an implicit "presentism" in the other two papers, but even at the time I didn't think that. At least one of the papers explicitly acknowledged the limitations of what the analysis could do given its starting point. And presentism is present in all our work, in the sense that we all have contemporary concerns that direct the questions we ask and the issues we choose to treat. I know that I have specific issues which drive my research on Knight, and they are issues which would not have been Knight's. Now to a defense of my claim that there is a fundamental difference between the history of economics and the history of economic thought. The argument could be formulated in several ways, but the way I am comfortable with is based on a Kuhnian- type notion of science combined with the notion of separate discourses. We can begin by identifying what economics is. Economics is a community of scholars who engage in a disciplined conversation. The disciplines which direct the conversation are threefold: a common purpose, common methods, and common agreement on what constitutes the facts. In order to keep this message as short as possible, please bear in mind that the conversation is obviously not as unified as my description suggests. The community is fraught with disagreement and conflict over its purpose, its methods, and the facts; but the conflict has not reached the point where the community splits and separate conversations operating according to different disciplines emerge (although that has happened in the past -- the split between economists and sociologists at the end of the 19th century is one example). The important point for my thesis is that economics is a disciplined conversation. One thing that is important to every discursive community is the tradition of conversation. Whether it realizes it or not, every community is constantly engaging its tradition when it engages in conversation. In some communities, that engagement with tradition is obvious -- I would suggest that occurs because there is less agreement and greater conflict over the conversation's purpose, method, and facts. In other communities, the commonality of purpose, method and facts renders the conversation's engagement with its tradition almost transparent. For examples, consider the differences between physics and biology; or between archaeology (I'm guessing here) and political science. Most of the other social sciences call their conversation's engagement with its tradition "theory." In economics, we call it the history of economic thought, reserving the term theory for the contemporary conversation. But because there is no conversation without engagement with the tradition, theory and the history of economic thought are two sides of the same coin. Underlying both are the purposes, methods, and facts of the economics community. So what do I think the history of economics is? Essentially, I think that the history of economics is a different disciplined conversation than economics, operating in accordance with a different purpose, method, and set of facts. The history of economics is a disciplined conversation about the history of a different disciplined conversation -- the conversation of economics. The purposes, methods, and facts that discipline the history of economics are the purposes, methods, and facts appropriate to the study of disciplined conversations. [N.B., one could mount a counter argument here that would merge economics and the history of economics by arguing that economic activity is disciplined conversation -- in a manner similar to Klamer and McCloskey. That would open up the possibility that the history of economics can be explained by economics, or that economics can be explained by discursive theory. Both are interesting possibilities.] Anyway, the historian of economics, qua historian, is not directed by the purposes, methods and facts of the community of economists. In fact, the existence of the economists' purposes, methods, and facts may be the very things the historian of economics wants to explain, according to her methods and for her purposes. The history of economics and economics are not, therefore, two sides of the same coin; they are, in fact, different coins (maybe even different currencies). Furthermore, historians of economics share more with historians of other disciplined conversations (we call them historians of science--understanding science in a broad sense that includes historians of the humanities, the social sciences, and communities of non-academic conversation--for example, among bankers or political figures) than with economists or even historians of economic thought. I close with an observation. To say that the history of economics and the history of economic thought (as part of economics) are different disciplines does not mean that they cannot enrich each other. No discursive community exists in isolation from other communities, and inter-community (interdisciplinary) dialogue can help each community re-evaluate its purposes, improve its methods, and establish better facts. Unfortunately, up to this point historians of economics have tended to converse more with historians of economic thought and economic theorists than with historians of science. But that is changing. If you have read to this point, what do you think? Ross Ross B. Emmett, Augustana Univesity 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]