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Don McCloskey's Rhetoric of Economics (1983, 1985) has spawned a controversy in economic methodology over what the proper roles are for philosophy and methodology, and indeed over whether these intellectual endeavors have any role whatever in economics. That is the larger issue; on a narrower plane the controversy concerns what McCloskey calls modernism or positivism. I This recent turn in economic methodology calls to mind Frank Knight's fiery review of the book that formally introduced the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle to economists, T. W. Hutchison's Signijkance and Basic Postulates of Economic Theory, and Knight's numerous other contributions that dealt with the very issues being argued today. Knight treated these issues with a philosophical sophistication that was and is rare for an economist. The position Knight developed was uniquely his-a highly personal and original antipositivism, or to use McCloskey's term, antimodernism.Knight's views on matters of doctrine were to a large extent defined by the opposition. For as James Buchanan (1968) has observed, Knight was above all else a critic. This is perhaps especially the case in methodology and philosophy, for there Knight planted his feet firmly in opposition to a tide that swept over both philosophy and economics during the first part of this century. This was the positivist quest for science based on quantification and measurement, on empirical verification of hypotheses, and free of normative values, metaphysics, animism, and anthropomorphism.Buchanan characterizes Knight as "economist as philosopher, not economist as scientist" (1968,426). The reference is appropriate in two respects. First, Knight's approach to economic theory and methodology, as well as to political economy, was to identify and analyze underlying philosophical issues, issues that economists less inclined to philosophy would not deal with and perhaps not even see. From the very beginning of his career Knight had a strong philosophical inclination,

Insurance is a technique to redistribute the economic consequences of loss from victims to the entire group. AIDS appears to lack the essential market and actuarial criteria of an insurable risk, without compromise to civil liberties or fiscal viability. Issues surrounding identification and classification of persons at risk of contracting the disease are most contentious. Accommodation, especially for health insurance, may be possible through mandated pools and other public and legal actions.

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