Conclusions

Leonidas Montes
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Leonidas Montes: Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

Chapter 6 in Adam Smith in Context, 2004, pp 165-167 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Mark Blaug (2001), in his recent ‘No History of Ideas, Please, We’re Economists’, after questioning the growing interest in our ‘not vocationally useful’ field, distinguishes between ‘rational reconstructions’ and ‘historical reconstructions’. As texts must be reconstructed, the question is how to do it. There are obvious risks in following a rational reconstruction, as the last chapter has shown in the particular case of Smith, Newton and general economic equilibrium theory, but historical reconstructions are not only inherently difficult, but also riskier. In my opinion, the challenge for historians of economic thought resides precisely in overcoming the inevitable difficulties of this enterprise and avoiding, whenever possible, the risks involved in too readily interpreting our masters with the eyes of today.

Date: 2004
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DOI: 10.1057/9780230504400_6

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