We should make a clear distinction between history of economic analysis and history of economic doctrines, as suggested by Fetter (1965, American Economic Review). When Weintraub argues that HOPE should reach the standards of the history of physics, he is referring to the history of economic doctrines : economic theories should be placed in a historical context, which includes society, philosophy, religion, other disciplines etc. The economic historian is trying to discover the reasons why something happened, and which consequences followed from it. The goal of this research is a critical re-examination of our present position, through a review of its origins. It should give rise to doctrinal criticism, or to the "subversive function" Robert Leeson is referring to. On the other hand, the history of economic analysis is trying to provide analytical improvements for contemporary economic theory through a review of past 'models'. We can refer to analytical Marxism (Elster or Roemer) or Sraffa's review of Ricardo. I think that this approach is defended by Greg Ransom when he discusses Darwinian biology. To sum up : I think that both approaches are legitimate. It is important, however, to choose sides, since otherwise the result would be confusion. Whereas a historian of doctrines will criticize the historian of analysis for not providing adequate historical descriptions, the historian of analysis will argue that the historian of doctrines does not offer 'new' analytical contributions. We should clearly state in what way we use the concept of 'interpretation' of a historical text. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bert Mosselmans Free University of Brussels CFEC M418 Pleinlaan 2 - 1050 Brussels - Belgium Tel. 0032/2/629.21.20 Fax 0032/2/629.22.82 [log in to unmask] My homepage : http://cfec.vub.ac.be/cfec/bert.htm VUB's homepage : http://www.vub.ac.be/VUB-home.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------