Bruce J. Caldwell - Beyond Positivism

It is indeed a pleasure to be writing a preface for a new printing by Routledge of Beyond Positivism. The reprinting of the book suggests that recent interest among economists in methodological studies may be something more than a transitory phenomena.

The current situation is relatively new. I began working in the area of economic methodology as a graduate student in the mid-1970s. At the time it was a very underdeveloped field. There were no texts written for economists to explain the (then, mostly philosophical) issues that one would continually encounter in the widely scattered literature on economic methodology. Beyond Positivism was written in part to fill that gap: that is why Part One is devoted to a survey of those philosophical topics which seemed to me at the time to be of the most direct concern to economists interested in methodology.

In the course of my studies, it soon became apparent that a revolution of sorts had taken place within the philosophy of science. The bundle of doctrines that might loosely be labeled positivism had been overthrown, and no heir was apparent. As is shown in Part Two, a command over the earlier philosophical literature enables one to understand better the methodological writings of men like Lionel Robbins, T.W.Hutchison, Fritz Machlup, Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson. But it was much less clear what set of doctrines might eventually replace positivism. My reaction to the disarray in philosophy is contained in Part Three. A kind of wait and see attitude, one in which toleration of alternative approaches and a readiness to engage in various forms of criticism, is endorsed there. I labeled this position methodological pluralism.

Beyond Positivism was first published in 1982 and reflects work undertaken in the preceding seven years. At the time I had little reason to believe that more than a handful of economists would share my interest in economic methodology. Virtually overnight, however, things changed. As the decade turned, a number of books on various aspects of the subject came into print (e.g., Blaug, 1992 [1980]; Katousian 1980; Hausman, 1981; Boland, 1982; Klant, 1984 [1979]). A research annual with the word methodology in its title appeared (Samuels, 1983). This was quickly followed by three edited collections of articles, a sure sign that at least certain publishers anticipated the formation of a viable market (Marr and Raj, 1983; Caldwell, 1984; Hausman, 1994 [1984]). Finally, in 1985 the journal Economics and Philosophy began publication. The growth of the field has been virtually logarithmic ever since.

As is evident from what has been said, a number of people contributed to the methodological renaissance. If one publication were to be singled out as having had the most influence, however, most would agree that it was Mark Blaugs The Methodology ofEconomics: Or How Economists Explain (1992 [1980]). This is my choice for a couple of reasons. First, Blaugs book was among the earliest of the group to be published. Because of his international stature as an historian of thought, he lent credibility to the field and thereby paved the way for the rest of us. Second, and perhaps even more important, Mark Blaug took a stand.

Blaug began his book (as I did mine) with a survey of the dissolution of the received view within the philosophy of science. His reaction to the death of positivism was different from mine, however. Though fully cognizant of the criticisms of prescriptivist approaches within the philosophy of science that had been advanced by writers like Thomas Kuhn and P.K.Feyerabend, Blaug nonetheless insisted that a prescriptive role for economic methodology was both feasible and desirable. The particular approach that he propounded borrowed from the ideas of Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos.

The reader will discover in my book a number of criticisms of Blaugs position, and more generally of the applicability of Poppers falsificationism to economics. I soon found that I was not alone in this opinion. Blaugs strong position in The Methodology ofEconomics helped to ignite interest in the field because it forced others to react to it. As a result, a significant strand of the literature within economic methodology in the past decade has focused on assessing the viability of the Popperian and Lakatosian frameworks (e.g., de Marchi, 1988; de Marchi and Blaug, 1991; Hands, 1993). The debate that has taken place has been rich and substantive, all in all a very Popperian affair (i.e., the critical process, if not perhaps its outcome, would be pleasing to Popper). One result is not in doubt: all parties seem to have gained a much deeper appreciation of both the strengths and the limitations of the Popperian and Lakatosian frameworks as they have been applied within economics.