====================== HES POSTING ==================== I find the soul searching on this net all very interesting. How come that we have to be so preoccupied with a justification for our interest in the history of thought? The answer is obvious: the establishment in our profession does not take our work seriously and relegates our sessions at the AEA meetings to rooms that are hard to find lest we may disturb the main proceedings. Rightly so. Our colleagues have very good reasons to ignore history. After all, they are in no need of it. Their rhetoric, their way of arguing, in terms of mechanistic models, precludes the historical argument. History comes in the form of time series. When they do history, it has to be cliometric history. Economists who think and argue this way, have no need for history of thought except maybe to get some ideas in the pre-analytic phase (the process of discovery), or just for fun (Samuelson's motivation), Accordingly, as long as the mechanic modeling dominates the economic mode of reasoning, there is no hope for a serious appreciation of historical work. Only when changes will occur at that end can we expect to get serious interest for our work from our colleagues. Arjo Klamer Erasmus University ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]