Machlup's misrepresentation of Hutchison's methodology

Abstract

Hutchison's 1938 essay has been mainly interpreted as introducing positivism and ultra-empiricism into economics. Such interpretations misrepresent his position. While he clearly drew on logical positivism, his methodology stems from a more moderate form of empiricism. However the issue at stake is not the exact degree of Hutchison's empiricism, but rather the extent to which such negative labelling has trivialised his position and distracted attention from the main concern of his 1938 essay. This was to mount a sustained and systematic criticism of the traditional abstract-deductive method in economics. In its place Hutchison sought to promote a more empirical, inductive approach. The paper is concerned with demonstrating the extent to which Machlup failed to provide evidence of Hutchison's ultra-empiricism. It thereby seeks to clear the way towards a reappraisal of Hutchison's methodology and towards a reappraisal of its relevance in our post-positivist era.B20, B40, B41,

Introduction

“…The papers by John Hart (2009) and Ross Emmett (2009) both examine Hutchison's response to critical evaluations of Hutchison (1960Hutchison ( [1938) and the ensuing debates. Hart discusses the debate between Hutchison and Fritz Machlup initiated by the publication of Machlup's paper on verification in economics in 1955, and Emmett examines the exchange between Hutchison and Frank Knight initiated by Knight's 1940 review article on Hutchison's book.…”

“…Given the excellent resources available on the life and work of Terence Hutchison (e.g. Coats 1983;Caldwell 1998;Backhouse 2008), the two very informative interviews from late in his career (Tribe 1997;Hart 2002), and the material contained in Roger Backhouse's introduction to Hutchison's last manuscript published in this symposium (Backhouse 2009), I will not use this introduction to provide a sketch of Hutchison's life and career, or to provide a summary of his major contributions to the methodological literature. Rather, I will use the space to emphasize two important general themes that emerge from the symposium in total -all four papers read as a single, if complex, commentary on Hutchison's economic methodology -and also to provide a brief introduction to the four individual papers.…”