=================== HES POSTING ===================== NOTE FROM ROSS EMMETT: The following query was recently sent to me on the "Ask the Prof" service. I sent the query to three contemporary economic methodologists. The first to respond was Roger Backhouse; the other two (Bruce Caldwell and Wade Hands) sent responses that basically built upon Roger's response. Here are the original query and all three responses. Comments and questions which elaborate/challenge/expand/etc. the responses are welcome: ++++++++++++++ ORIGINAL QUERY: Why is it that what Blaug call 'mainstream orthodox economics' is dominated by logical positivism? Did Ricardo leave such a lasting impression that his methods have dominated for so long? Which economists were most influencal in the formation of the deductive economics methodology? ++++++++++++++ [From Roger Backhouse] Bruce [Caldwell] is much better qualified to answer this than I am, but I would start by questioning the assumption that mainstream economics is dominated by logical positivism. LP is a very specific philosophical doctrine, developed in the 1930s, and I am sceptical about whether it dominates modern economics. Even the received view in the philosophy of science in the 1950s (and which inflenced economists such as Machlup) was not the same as LP. The term positivism is used in very many ways, only one of which is LP, and it is a term bedevilled by confusion. Being more specific, LP is a form of empiricism, in which the empirical foundations of theory are very important. Even to state this is to point out a big contrast with much modern economics. Having said this, there are features of modern economics that relate to the idea that it is influenced by LP - the separation of positive and normative questions, the idea that theory should relate to observable propositions. Here, one presumably has to find an explanation in the 1930s and the work of Hicks and Samuelson, which has been so influential. Their work is contemporaneous with the heyday of LP, but I do not know enough of their biographies to know whether there was a connection. Hicks's attitudes were influenced by Pareto, whose main work predates LP by several years. To understand Samuelson and Friedman, one needs to consider Henry Schultz and debates in the 1920s and 1930s over demand theory. If one were looking for philosophical roots it would be possible to find them in pragmatism (James and Dewey) as much as, if not more than, in LP. As for why the work of Hicks and Samuelson became so influential, that is a big question that I would not wish to answer briefly. So many things changed in economics between, say, 1930 and 1960 that I would be hesitant in providing a very simple story. Roger E. Backhouse Department of Economics University of Birmingham Email: [log in to unmask] +++++++++++++++ Roger has sent me a copy of his reply, with which I agree and to which I have little to add. The inquirer may consult my _Beyond Positivism_ if he would like references to flesh out Roger's point that logical positivism is but one of the positivisms, and not as particularly important one for understanding economists' practice (though obviously the various positivist incarnations have influenced our rhetoric or our claims about our practice). Blaug's _The Methodology of Economics_ discusses the methodological views of classical economists like Ricardo. But surely if one wants to understand why late 20th century economics is so deductive, one would look (as Roger suggests) at the influence of the Lausanne school (Walras and Pareto) via Hicks and Samuelson (see Weintraub on the Pareto kreis at Harvard in his _Stabalizing Dynamics_), and then the Wald, Karl Menger, Morgenstern et. al. influences regarding g.e. theory and game theory. People like these, rather than Ricardians, are the more likely sources (except for Ricardo's influence via Sraffa on that particular version of post-Keynesianism). Bruce Caldwell Department of Economics University of North Carolina, Greensboro <[log in to unmask]> +++++++++++++++++++ Roger send me his comments and I think I would only disagree with one point. I do think positivist ideas -- in a very broad and general way -- did influence the way that Samuelson et. al. thought about science (see my entry on "positivism" in the HANDBOOK OF ECONOMIC METHODOLOGY). This is not to say that their economics was consistent with, or that they even knew much about the details of, logical positivism (as Roger correctly says: "a very specific philosophical doctrine'), but rather that it formed a very general backdrop for what they viewed as "scientific" activities. They were "positivists" in the sense that most 19th century Americans were "Christians"; these can be true statements and yet have very few behavioral implications. I think Samuelson, Cowles' people, Hicks, etc. are all different in this regard than Friedman, Knight, and other Chicago types. D. Wade Hands Department of Economics University of Puget Sound [log in to unmask] ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]