Couldn't Say It Any Better Than This

I start my Austrian Theory of the Market Process II class tomorrow.  My first lecture emphasizes the ways that contemporary economics has moved in the direction of Mises and Hayek, rather than away.  The examples I give are: microfoundations, new institutionalism, and entrepreneurship studies.  I end my lecture discussing the remaining gaps.  The first example of a major gap is methodology, and I discuss the issues of formalism and positivism.  However, after finishing my lecture I discovered this wonderful post by Peter Klein on these issues.

Comments

[Rafe Champion]

On the problems of epistemology and methodology, some see see a hope of progress with ideas from Popper even though he was short on economics and he made a dreadful mess of the rationality principle in a paper that has been widely lampooned ("we are always rational except when we are irrational"). Jack Birner provided a nice run into these issues with his paper in Caldwell (ed) "Carl Menger and his Legacy in Economics". Birner's paper is 'A roundabout solution to a fundamental problem in Menger's methodology and beyuond'. Birner accessed papers by Menger in German and also detected flaws in the translation of Menger's book. He is also equally at home with the work of Popper, the Austrians and other economists.

[TGGP]

Off-topic, Rafe, but I was delinquent in replying to you in the Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy thread at http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/2008/01/capitalism-soci.html#comment-98765434
and if you want we can continue the conversation.

[Ludwig van den Hauwe]

My take is that the methodology gap will stay there. Do not expect a return of Popper either. In the upcoming Handbook of the Philosophy of Science (Elsevier), there is an interesting paper about the rise and fall of Popper and Lakatos in economics.

[Ludwig van den Hauwe]

My take is that the methodology gap will stay there. Do not expect a return of Popper either. In the upcoming Handbook of the Philosophy of Science (Elsevier), there is an interesting paper about the rise and fall of Popper and Lakatos in economics.

[Rafe Champion]

Lakatos attempted a kind of Hegelian synthesis of Popper and Kuhn. He got lucky when his student Spiro Latasis became excited about applying his ideas in economics. Latsis pere was a shipping magnate and he funded two conferences in the Greek Islands. [Spiro was later ranked 51 on the world rich list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiro_Latsis]. The first conference in 1974 convened in high hopes but the second, a decade later, was more of a wake. In the epilogue Mark Blaug came out as a supporter of the Austrians on some important issues. Wade Hands wrote the death notice 'Second thoughts on Lakatos' in "History of Political Economy" 17/1 1985.

Popper suffered from the strange idea that his ideas could be usefully summarised under the heading "falsificationism" and Larry Boland had no success in persuading people otherwise although his first book in 1982 should have helped, especially the chapter on the Popper/Hayek model. http://www.the-rathouse.com/shortreviews/revBoland.html

Wade Hands made some progress when he got away from the idea that Popper is a kind of eccentric positivist and depicted him as a critical rationalist, showing how this makes sense of Popper's hitherto rather confused exposition of situational analysis and the rationality principle.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R1J9SYDU9TXF32/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

[Ludwig van den Hauwe]

Rafe,
I seize the opportunity to come back to a communication you made to the Mises list some time ago, concerning Popper´s interpretation of quantum mechanics. In the meantime I found an interesting account of why Popper had it plainly wrong on the Einstein-Podolski-Rosen thought experiment. It´s in Giancarlo Ghirardi´s fascinating book Sneaking a Look at God´s Cards -Unraveling the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics.
A must for people like you...

[Ludwig van den Hauwe]

I thank Rafe Champion for his always well-informed comments. I am interested in Mark Blaug´s views on the Austrians. Is he an Austrian now or what?

[Air Jordan Retro]

Je me consoler comme ceci: alors que je suis à l'intérieur du point le plus bas, car maintenant des fleurs en fleurs, je peux habituellement témoin le roman lorsque les pétales tombent et volent à l'intérieur du vent.