An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science by Lionel Robbins

Author:Lionel Robbins
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61016-618-8
Published: 2013-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

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[1] See below, Section 4, and Chapter V., Section 3.

[2] For an example of such a derivation reaching substantially similar results, see Strigl, op. cit., p. 121 seq.

[3] If any reader of this book has any doubt of the evidence of the facts he should consult the standard work on recent British experiments in such measures, British Food Control, by Sir William Beveridge.

[4] “The vulgar notion that the safe methods on political subjects are those of Baconian induction—that the true guide is not general reasoning but specific experience—will one day be quoted as among the most unequivocal marks of a low state of the speculative faculties of any age in which it is accredited. . . . Whoever makes use of an argument of this kind . . . should be sent back to learn the elements of some one of the more easy physical sciences. Such reasoners ignore the fact of Plurality of Causes in the very case which affords the most signal example of it” (John Stuart Mill, Logic, chapter x., paragraph 8).

[5] See Rickert, op. cit., pp. 78–101, Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung, passim, See also Max Weber, op. cit., passim.

[6] On all this see the illuminating observations of Dr. Strigl, Die ökonomischen Kategorien und die Organisation der Wirtschaft, pp. 85–121.

[7] See above, Chapter I., Section 3.

[8] See Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, pp. 330–31. I myself first learnt this way of putting things from a conversation with Professor Mises many years ago. But so far as I know Mrs. Robinson is the first to put matters so succinctly and clearly in print: I think that Mrs. Robinson’s book will have done much to convince many hitherto sceptics of the utility and significance of the kind of abstract reasoning from very simple postulates which is the subject of the present discussion.

[9] See, e.g., Schneider, Theorie des Produktion, passim.

[10] See Knight, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit; Hicks, The Theory of Profit (Economica, No. 31, pp. 170–190).

[11] See Mises, The Theory of Money, pp. 147 and 200; Lavington, The English Capital Market, pp. 29–35; Hicks, A Suggestion for Simplifying the Theory of Money (Economica, 1934, pp. 1–20).

[12] See below, p. 99.

[13] Cp. Mises, Kritik des Interventionismus, pp. 66–90.

[14] Economic Principles, pp. ix and 12–21.

[15] See Menger, Grundsätze, 1 Aufl., pp. 77–162.

[16] See Positive Theorie des Kapitals, 4eAuflage, pp. 232–246.

[17] Mathematical Psychics, p. 15.

[18] For a refutation of this view, see Max Weber, Die Grenznutzenlehr und das psychophysische Grundgesetz (Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, vol. xxix., 1909).

[19] That this does not assume the possibility of measuring valuations has been already sufficiently emphasised in Chapter III., Section 4, above.

[20] The Theory of Social Economy, First English Edition, vol. i., pp. 50–51.

[21] Notably in the article on Economie mathématique in the Encyclopédie des Sciences mathématiques, Paris, 1911.

[22] See, e.g., Hicks, Gleichgewicht und Konjunktur (Zeitschrift für National-ökonomie, vol. iv., pp. 441–455).

[23] Max Weber, Die Objectivität socialwissenschaftlichen und socialpolitischen Erkenntnis: Der Sinn der Werlfreiheit der soziologischen und ökonomischen Wissenschaft in Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Wissenschaftlehre.

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