=================== HES POSTING =================== re the original question on mainstream economics and logical positivism. To complement the expert troika's comments Logical positivism is definitely an inappropriate label for any of the dominant methodologies implicit in practices within 'mainstream economics' in the neoclassical era. The problem is that many economists have picked up and used labels from philosophy on a fairly indiscriminate basis and the labels have then been taken by later generations as having substantive meaning. I remember having Martin Shubik talking to my honours class in microeconomic theory twenty five years ago, and he called himself a 'logical positivist'. I thought he was wrong then (and now). But MS wasn't going to be removed from his acquired label. There was an emotional element to such badges - it brought seeming legitimacy and security. especially in a cold war context. There was also threatening subject matter and intrusions from a nasty and brutish world (as in the Lester attack on marginalism). Friedman's 1953 excursion into 'positive economics' was a mess (albeit a great success for the discipline's continuity); unfortunately, that article was picked up by several generations of teachers for their first hasty and embarrassed class, before quickly moving onto an exposition of the received wisdom. Unfortunately also, now several generations of methodologists have pored over the damned thing, giving it a legitimacy it never deserved. Lipsey's textbook was similarly inappropriately labelled, misleading yet further generations of students. Of course all 'isms' get appropriated and used and abused as a living tradition of philosophical discourse and political rhetoric (liberalism as Exhibit A). We economists, however, like to think that a name is attached to a fixed meaning. In the case of the appropriation of positivism within economics, we have stretched meaning beyond recognition. As for the mention of the emphasis on deduction (at the end of the original question), my estimation is that the answer is in the sociological realm - logico- deductive reasoning is crucial to the construction and delineation of a separate discipline of 'economics'. Without it, we would blend indistinguishably with all those lesser breeds - historians, sociologists, etc. and where would our self-esteem and our influence be then? Evan Jones Economics, University of Sydney ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]