====================== HES POSTING ====================== With respect to Gunning's two points in his posting of today: 1. Historians of the rise of the nation state understand and, perhaps, define the nation state as a concept. This does not make them political scientists, nationalists, or sociologists. They are historians. I concur in the point that one can hardly do the history of economics without a knowledge of, and even considerable training in, economics [I recommend the PhD.], just as one cannot do the history of science, or the philosophy of science, without a knowledge of science; but historians of economics or science remain intellectual historians, not economists or scientists. It is conceivable that one might be both, and function on different levels in the hierarchy of knowledge, at different times, or in different aspects of one's work; but history is not theory. 2. The first sentence of Gunning's second point contradicts his first point. Consider the distinction between an historical thesis and an economic theory. A theory has application to all items of a certain class or kind [q = f(p) [cet. par.], for any individual consumer.], without reference to a particular time in history. (Ah! You see the point.). A thesis has application to only one set of events in some particular time and place. Further, the term "rhetoric" is used in a pejorative sense by Gunning, so we have here a rhetorical use of the term "rhetoric" [as the term "rhetoric" is used by Gunning]. Yet further, I concur that Von Mises has an interesting view of history, perhaps even a Whig view, with respect to a certain aspect of Whig history. The Whig view, along with all the others, has its place. It is the assertion, if anyone is making it, that Whig history is the objective truth, that is intellectually arrogant, because truth is a product of the mind, and so cannot be objective. Robin Neill ==================== FOOTER TO HES POSTING ==================== For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]