==================== HES POSTING ==================== [Note from the moderator: This message was posted yesterday, but never made it to the list. I'm reposting it and apologize for possible multiple postings. --E-MS] Roy, First, as I said before, I agree with your standard for contributions to the intellectual history of economics. But the field of history of economic thought can also represent part of the "extended present" as Boulding wrote about in HOPE way back when. In other words, individuals can employ history of thought to explore dead ends. That is how I read Horwitz's paper ... an attempt to link up two literatures that have existed side by side, but never really met eye to eye. The monetary disequilibrium school of the pre-Keynesian monetarists (as now represented in the work of Yeager) with the Austrian theory of the trade cycle. In this case, Horwitz is a consumer of history of economic thought and using what he has "purchased" in another endeavor -- which is exploring a path not taken when the path taken led to a dead end. What I don't understand is why you are so willing to dismiss out of hand contributions of this type and to insist that only intellectual history should be accepted within our field. Certainly you are correct that work of an intellectual history type should be held up as the exemplars in our field, but even in a field that respects intellectual history -- such as political theory -- intellectual history can be employed as a method of contemporary theory construction. See, e.g., the work of Alsasdir MacIntyre. Cannot economics follow a similar model? Why has history of thought become the field for this type of work? Because what unites us is a passion for understanding the continuity and discontinuity within the conversation that represents the discipline of economics. Since we share this passion and concern with understanding, what has shaped that conversation and how has it evolved? Why seek to exclude? Some scholars are going to do original work _in_ the intellectual history of economics, others are going to employ that work, and some are going to misuse it. Just like in any field of scholarship. Of course, we want high standards. I suggested before that those standards should be (for original work) the standards that exist in the field of intellectual history in general, just as the standards for methodology should be those established in that literature, _and_ the standards for history of thought as contemporary theory should be those reflected in the work of scholars such as Jacob Viner (in his Studies in International Trade). But note, we wouldn't want to exclude Jacob Viner from the club simply because in that work he is not doing work like Q. Skinner, though we recognize that Q. Skinner is the one really doing intellectual history to the standard we hope to aspire. Viner is doing theory, but in a manner that is different from that which modern methods and prejudices allow, and in a manner which historians of thought can learn from. It seems to me we would be an impoverished field if we insisted on only one or the other model for our society. The Cottrell/Horwitz exchange I think is a poor example, for Cottrell's criticisms (whether valid or not) were not on your point, but instead on the idea that Horwitz was sneaking in a theoretical and ideological agenda that Cottrell opposes and that he has criticized in published articles (which Horwitz did not take into account in his paper). Horwitz can defend his paper himself, but what he did was link two literatures that alone run into problems, but together might avoid them. It was an exercise in non-Whig rational reconstruction (if you allow me that terminology). It is a work of synthesis, which might have contemporary relevance. Why is this not a contribution to "Historical perspectives on modern economics"? It is _not_ a contribution to understanding the intellectual history of Clark Warburton's theory of cummulative rot, but it doesn't pretend to be. I am just not sold on the idea that (1) everyone confuses the differences between an original contribution to the intellectual history of economics, and the deployment of history of thought in contemporary theory construction; and (2) that we should be excluding scholars from the community who deploy h.o.t., rather than produce it. Isn't our field wide and robust enough to sustain both types of work -- and recognize that different standards apply? Pete Peter J. Boettke Assistant Professor of Economics Department of Economics New York University 269 Mercer Street New York, NY 10003 phone: (212) 998-8900 fax: (212) 995-4186 email: [log in to unmask] alternative email: [log in to unmask] web: http://www.econ.nyu.edu/user/boettke ================ FOOTER TO HES POSTING================ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]