Effective Tension in Robbins's Economic Methodology

Abstract

Lionel Robbins 1932Essay is one of the most influential methodological works in 20 th century economics. This said, the Essay is not philosophically seamless; it exhibits certain tensions that are not easily reconciled within any specific philosophical characterization of scientific knowledge. The paper discusses these issues, but also emphasizes that these tensions did not inhibit the influence of the Essay within economics. In fact, it is argued that these philosophical tensions actually contributed to its influence. Marginalist economics was under attack from a number of different directions and Robbins's Essay provided an effective response these critics -a response that would have been much less effective if Robbins had consistently adopted (only) one of the prevailing philosophical conceptions of scientific knowledge. It was a methodology for economics, not for philosophers, and its influence needs to be understood within the historical context of marginalist economics in the 1930s.

Rejoinder to Ross: More on the Robbins–samuelson Argument Pattern

“…We both argue that Robbins's economic commitments ultimately trumped consistency; we disagree about the character of those economic commitments. Now, while I will not argue for my own interpretation here-those who are interested can read Hands (2007)-I would like provide a bit more evidence against Ross' reading. His argument is based on a number of empirical claims that are summarized nicely in the above quote.…”

“…Although I agree that the tension Ross identifies existed within Robbins's work, and that he ultimately came down on the side of economics rather than philosophical consistency, I explain the relevant causal forces in a very different (and less Whiggish) way. The story I offered in Hands (2007) was that Robbins wanted to defend marginalist economics against a number of serious threats at the time, and given this context, Robbins's approach-the scarcity definition, introspection, and the critique of interpersonal utility comparisons-worked effectively to accomplish that task. Ross' story (not surprisingly) is one of a common conceptual thread running through almost all of twentieth century choice theory-RASP-while mine (perhaps also not surprisingly) is about the various historically contingent forces that worked on Robbins and marginalist economics more generally during the 1930s and 1940s and eventually led to the acceptance of his position by the majority of economists in spite of its philosophical tensions.…”

A New View on Robbins's Definition of Economics: the Notions of Real and Formal Scarcity

“…The next section describes some long-standing problems related to understanding the subject-matter of the science that were 10 Obviously, this is a very particular way of being interested in (or interacting with) neighbouring disciplines, and it is clearly not the only possible one ---see, for example, Stillman (1955) or Ruttan (2007) on some possible alternative ways in which scientists or disciplines can interact. 11 It is widely acknowledged that Robbins had at least three different aims in mind when writing his Essay: one was related to the definition of the object of the science and the other two were related to methodological issues ---see Corry (1987: 297), O'Brien (1988 or Hands (2009). Although the question of the elucidation of the subject-matter received comparatively less space in the Essay than the other methodological issues, it occupied a central position in his reasoning, since the resolution of these methodological issues follows from the correct identification of the subject-matter of economics, as can be inferred from what Robbins (1971: 146---147) wrote.…”