It has always been difficult for noninstitutionalists to describe and interpret the knowledge produced by institutional economists. I However, if the literature of institutionalism in general is perceived by the outsider to be obscure, the writings of John R. Commons must be regarded as practically unfathomable. Students of Commons's work have frequently commented upon the convoluted-if not outright unintelligible-route by which he typically "explained" his concepts, an approach that has generally been attributed by the noninstitutionalist to Commons's "confusion" regarding the nature of scientific explanation, or to his alleged failure to develop a discernable explanatory structure. 2 Significantly, even institutionalists have found it difficult to summarize the structure of Commons's thought or to explain why he organized his work as he did. 3 Indeed, there can be little question but that, within the institutional movement itself, Commons is the least understood of its major theoreticians.The question is, why so? It is my purpose in this article to offer a partial answer: Commons's consistent adherence to the unfamiliar methodological precepts of "holism."Economists, as a rule, evince little interest in, or self-consciousness about, the philosophical issues underlying scientific methodology [Bolan 1982, pp. xiii, 1-2]. As a result, explicit methodological instruction
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