A formative decade: methodological controversy in the 1930s^*

Abstract

An edited version of a semi-autobiographical piece that Terence Hutchison wrote in 2001-2003, shortly before his death, in which he reflected on the methodological developments in which he had been involved, centred on the London School of Economics, in the 1930s. It explains very clearly the context out of which his own work arose. Particular attention is paid to the work of Lionel Robbins, Frank Knight and the philosopher Felix Kaufmann.Hutchison, Robbins, Hayek, Kaufman, methodology, uncertainty,

Orthodox and heterodox economics in recent economic methodology

“…Ideas from the (assumed given and stable) shelf of scientific philosophy were simply taken off the shelf and "applied" to the science of economics without reconfiguration or with much sensitivity to the peculiarities of the discipline. In the case of both Blaug and Hutchison, the relevant philosophical shelf was Popperian-based on Karl Popper's philosophy of science (1959,1965,1994)-and according to Popper in order to qualify as a real science a discipline needed to make bold 6 A non-exhaustive list of their important contributions to the methodological literature includes: Blaug 1976Blaug , 1980aBlaug /1992Blaug , 1990Blaug , 1994Blaug , 2002Blaug , 2003and Hutchison 1938and Hutchison , 1981and Hutchison , 1988and Hutchison , 1992and Hutchison , 2000and Hutchison , 2009 (falsifiable, non ad hoc) conjectures and subject those conjectures to severe empirical tests. 7 There are of course many well-documented problems associated with Popperian falsificationism-in general, as well as when specifically applied to economics-but that is not my topic here.…”

“…Hutchison continued to criticize Austrian economics throughout his life (Hutchison 1981) and while, like Blaug, the main methodological villain was von Mises, he included others such as Friedrich Hayek as well (Caldwell 2009). Hutchison criticized Marxian economics on grounds similar to Blaug's (Hutchison 1981) as well as the Cambridgefundamentalist version of Keynesian economics (Hutchison 1981(Hutchison , 2009.…”

An unfinished manuscript by Terence Hutchison

“…Even his 'uncomprehending' opponents (see Tribe 1997, p. 126;Hart 2002, p. 373) agreed on that. However, Hutchison's consistent hammering away at this theme, even when discussing writers as remote as the eighteenth century (Hutchison 1985) is something that most students of methodology have neglected, preferring to concentrate on his analysis of tautologies and empirical propositions -the part that could be fitted in most easily to later discussions of Popper and falsificationism. What this paper shows is that in stressing the importance of the perfect knowledge postulate, Hutchison was following in a tradition set out by Knight, as were his LSE contemporaries: Hayek and Coase (Keynes was arguing similarly, though without paying attention to Knight).…”

ROBBINS'SESSAYAND THE AXIOMATIZATION OF ECONOMICS

“… 2 Terence Hutchison (2009) argues that the changed language did not change the substance of Robbins's original claims about economic theory.…”