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Source: http://www.doksinet History of Economics as Economics? Yuichi Shionoya “Das Studium der Geschichte der Philosophie [ist] Studium der Philosophie selbst, wie es denn nicht anders sein kann.’’ (GWF Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie [1817], Werke 18, Suhrkamp, 1999, S. 49) I. Introduction The background to this paper is the question: how the future of the history of economics will be.１ Although this question has emerged directly from a worry on the part of historians of economics about a declining general interest in the discipline, it arises basically from a split between economics and the history of economics. The question must be addressed by an examination of some structural problems that have led to such consequences. The reasons responsible to the division are found in the prevailing practice of both economics and the history of economics. If the history of economics has suffered from a slight and disregard by economists, philosophy has

undergone no less than complete neglect by economists as well as historians of economics. It is under the reign of positivism and formalism in the last century that the links between economics, the history of economics, and philosophy have almost disappeared. Focusing on the research stance of historians of economics, this paper, as the self-reflection of the discipline, intends to discuss the crucial relevance of economics and philosophy to the history of economics rather than to preach to economists on the utility of the subject. It seems also meaningless to forecast the future of the history of economics without a presumption of some normative view on the discipline, which should serve as a basis for action. This paper first tries to extend the above quoted Hegel’s thesis on the relationship between philosophy and the history of philosophy to the context of economics and heuristically holds that the study of the history of economics is the study of economics as such, and vice

versa. Of course, as is the case with Hegel, this statement is not descriptive but prescriptive, meaning that the history of economics must be economics, and vice versa, if they are to be noble sciences. Why start with Hegel? According to him, there was no history of philosophy before him, 1 Source: http://www.doksinet but merely a chronological exhibition of different doctrines of different philosophers. He claims that he submits for the first time the conception of the history of philosophy so that it can be established as a discipline. It is worthwhile to examine what his thesis means before we proceed to the history of economics, particularly because partnership with economics is often urged by historians of economics to get rid of their difficulties. Apart from Hegel’s metaphysical slant on history, we can accept his thesis on the identity of philosophy and the history of philosophy, and construct a scheme for the history of economics, which we would call a

panorama-cum-scenario model (section II). Since there are naturally differences between economics and philosophy, the relationship between them will become another topic of the present discussion. First, whereas the history of economics is metatheory addressed to economics, the history of philosophy is metatheory addressed to metatheory; and second, whereas economics is theory addressed to the real world, philosophy is metatheory addressed to the ideational world. Based on these comparisons, it is argued that the history of economics is better characterized as a metatheory of economics rather than the vague notions of a subdiscipline or a coordinate of economics and is ranked alongside philosophy on the metatheoretical level (section III). Against the Hegelian panorama-cum-scenario model, we compare several approaches to the history of economics. They are also examined with reference to Nietzsche’s anti-Hegelian models of history. Nietzsche’s viewpoint provides us important

modifications to Hegel’s thesis and suggests specific roles to be played by our model. In view of its broad perspective and strict requirements, the panorama-cum-scenario model is to be viewed not as a specific approach but a basic framework for research in the history of economics (section IV). Since it is a difficult task for single scholars in the history of economics to construct a grand panorama-cum-scenario model, the number of accomplished models is actually limited. The absence of comprehensive models of this kind, coupled with specialization in separate subject matters, in the practice of historical research is one of the causes of a downward interest in the discipline. Among others, Schumpeter’s approach in this field is particularly worthy of attention for its grand philosophy and consistent system (section V). The paper concludes with a summary and implications of the discussion for the future (section VI). II. Hegel’s Thesis on the History of Philosophy Although

Hegel’s philosophy is completely out of favor with economists, his view on 2 Source: http://www.doksinet history gives a central idea of historicism and deserves our attention. To put it shortly, historicism is an insistence on the historicity of all knowledge and cognition, and on the segregation of human from natural phenomenon. It is intended as a critique of the a-historical epistemology of the Enlightenment and belongs to Continental philosophy vis-à-vis analytical philosophy.２ According to the historical studies of the Western thought by Ernst Troeltsch and Friedrich Meinecke, two moments in the way of thinking, i.e, individuality and development, characterize the paradigm of historicism.３ The historicist conception of history recognizes the individuality of historical phenomena in the process of development. Of course, historicism did not begin with Hegel. What is distinctive about his historicism is that it becomes the self-conscious method of philosophy in place of

a-historical reason. Thus he historicized philosophy, placing it in its social context, and argued that there is no distinction between philosophy and the history of philosophy, leading to the famous statement that the study of the history of philosophy is the study of philosophy itself, and vice versa. For Hegel, philosophy is the self-recognition of human mind and the history of philosophy is the process of development of such recognition in time and space; philosophy and its history are parallel each other. In Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807), Hegel described the process of human intellectual development as the logically necessary working out of mind’s coming to know itself from the primitive stage of consciousness, through self-consciousness, reason, spirit, and religion to the ultimate stage of the absolute knowledge. As philosophy is a theory of knowledge or a metatheory, which means a theory behind theory, particular sciences including economics are to emerge at the final

stage in which the philosophical enquiry into the process of evolution of consciousness terminates. Hegel’s thesis on the relationship between philosophy and the history of philosophy leads to the boldest statement that the logical succession of moments of ideas developed in Phänomenologie would be in parallel with the temporal succession of ideas described in Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie, because, for him, history is the self-development of reason. The point is that the historical succession of philosophical systems is primarily determined by the underlying logic of the main ideas.４ The history of philosophy does not deserve the name of discipline unless it is grasped as a system of the development of underlying logic behind phenomena; a collection of historical material without regulative principles is not a science. Hegel criticizes existing approaches to the history of philosophy for being devoid of 3 Source: http://www.doksinet philosophy to deal with

philosophies. According to Hegel, many historians only display a variety of individual philosophical doctrines to show off their erudition of the storage of historical materials that appears to be a dump for defective products or an antique collection. He labels their history of philosophy “the gallery of follies” (die Galerie der Narrheiten) or the record of failed efforts.５ He does not even admit the value of erudition because it consists of a number of useless things which hardly contain a matter of interest. Someone might say that knowledge of diverse views in the past would be of some use in discovering important ideas for the future, but Hegel rejects this defense because the history of philosophy would then be reduced to a superfluous and boring discipline. This criticism can be applied to some of contemporary approaches to the history of economics. As a result of the historicization of philosophy, Hegel derives an important conclusion with regard to the conception of the

history of philosophy, which has a crucial bearing on the history of economics. Since the plurality or diversity of thought is regarded as the essence of the development of thought according to historicism, different thoughts and conceptions produced in the history of philosophy and thus regarded as historical constitute the totality of philosophy. Therefore, any views once proposed in the history of philosophy are not eliminated but put together and preserved as necessary moments in the totality of philosophy. Instead of treating the diversity of knowledge in the history of thought as an awkward source of historical relativity and theoretical conflict, Hegelian approach regards it as building blocks for the whole system of knowledge and anticipates in a sense the ideas of Ernst Troeltsch’s “current cultural synthesis” (gegenwältige Kultursynthese) and Hans-George Gadamer’s “fusion of horizons” (Horizontverschmelzung) to rescue philosophy and science from the crisis of

historicism. Since Hegel’s history of philosophy is part of his philosophy of history, it is based on the presumption of the total progression of all history towards a final goal: that the end of history is the self-awareness of freedom. We can dispense with this metaphysical and teleological presumption and replace it with an open-ended vision on the scope and structure of the discipline in question, maintaining his claim for the need of a pre-theoretical vision concerning the development of knowledge. In sum, the history of knowledge (i.e, philosophy, economics, etc) must set a panoramic scene of all past achievements as the object of the study and depend on a subjectively drawn scenario to decipher the structure and development of knowledge before the specialization of 4 Source: http://www.doksinet historical research begins. In terms of economics, any system of economics is not complete in itself, and should be seen as an attempt to contribute to a total system of economics by

focusing on a particular aspect of the economic mechanism and structure with particular methods, concepts and models. The total system involving conflicts of thought is constructed only by the history of economics with a broad perspective and a constructive scenario. We call this Hegelian conception of the history of knowledge a panorama-cum-scenario model. Basically, the study of the history of economics is a creative venture to interpret and resolve the diversity of approaches to the economy. Just as Hegel viewed the history of philosophy as philosophy and resolved the conflicts of ideas through the dialectics, so the history of economics is seen as a set of diverse approaches to the self-discovery of economic knowledge. III. Economics, Philosophy, and History Can we apply this Hegelian model to economics as a heuristic device for identifying the relationship between economics and the history of economics? It is required to clarify the differences between economics and philosophy

and rectify the Hegelian model, if necessary. The question is raised on whether the relationship between philosophy and the history of philosophy, on the one hand, and the relationship between economics and the history of economics, on the other, are plausibly considered as parallel. This question is examined, first, in terms of the distinction between theory (economics) and metatheory (philosophy), because this distinction defines the different statuses and functions of knowledge, and second, in terms of the distinction between real science (economics) and ideational science (philosophy), because this distinction relates to the different nature of the object of knowledge. Let us consider the history of these sciences. The history of knowledge is another metatheory besides the philosophy of knowledge and the sociology of knowledge. From the Hegelian conception of philosophy as the self-recognition of human mind, it follows that the history of philosophy is the self-reflection and

self-discovery of philosophy conducted on the level of metatheory, although there is regress within the metatheory. Hegel’s thesis on the identification of philosophy and the history of philosophy implies that both disciplines are identified as coordinate on the level of metatheory and that the development of ideas forms not linear progression but spiral movements on plural tracks. It is argued that a spiral movement of ideas on the level of metatheory has to rely on the so-called “hermeneutical 5 Source: http://www.doksinet circle” between pre-understanding and understanding as the dynamics of the intellectual movements, as Dilthey, Heidegger, and Gadamer later argued. The interactions between philosophy and its history constitute a large part of the hermeneutical circle. In contrast, economics is not a metatheory, but deals with the changing external world on the basis of its own internal theoretical tradition. As a result, the history of economics has to face the

intertwinement between the history of the outer world and the history of the internal world. Hence, when we discuss the thesis that economics is the history of economics, it is interpreted to mean that economics develops as the internal as well as external history in that the development of economics depends on advances in logical formulation and responses to the challenge of economic reality. Moreover, since the history of economics is metatheory, there is a difference in the status of knowledge between economics and the history of economics. It is a unique function of metatheory of economics to critically evaluate economic doctrines and thereby indirectly influences and regulates the direction of economic research. How? The history of economics has the rules and procedures of historiography for recording historical data, but it must rely on further tools that would make it avoid the castigation of “the gallery of follies.” The tools needed by historians of knowledge in general

are two: the philosophy of knowledge and the sociology of knowledge, in addition to the knowledge of a field in question. The philosophy of knowledge is required to address the internal history of knowledge, and the sociology of knowledge is utilized to deal with the external history of knowledge. Historians of ideas are more likely to be engaged in the sociological investigations of doctrines, including biographical aspects of authors, in terms of socio-economic situations, schools of thought, research institutions, ideology, personal propensity, etc. and describe the intellectual products as part of social history at a certain time and place. On the other hand, average historians of thought are weak in the philosophical investigations of doctrines, which consist of epistemology, ontology, and ethics. Only in the philosophical, rather than the sociological, investigations of the history of knowledge, historians are able to not only describe and interpret but also normatively criticize

and prescribe intellectual activities of the past. The influence of the external world on philosophy appears much more remote and indirect in rationalist philosophy, but is more powerful and fundamental than the case of social sciences including economics, because in the Hegelian historicist conception of 6 Source: http://www.doksinet philosophy the Weltanschauung or Zeitgeist constitutes the substantive contents of philosophy, reflecting the organic whole of activities and institutions in history. Here applies Hegel’s another historicist thesis: “philosophy is its own age comprehended in thought.”６ The philosophical concepts relating to the world and the time are not an external history but the internal scenarios explored by the self-consciousness of spirit. Examples of the scientific Weltanschauung are positivism, historicism, romanticism, and phenomenology, and a deep philosophical inquiry into the history of economics cannot dispense with them. In sum, the adapted

Hegelian conception of the history of economics as economics teaches us the need to study economics when studying the history of economics and the need to study the history of economics when studying economics. From the didactic point of view, this will be the first requirement for the profitable future of the history of economics, but not all. The second requirement will be to recognize the status and function of the history of economics distinct from economics. The history of economics is not only economics but also a metatheory of economics. The history of economics is not a showroom or gallery of past publications; it should present a scenario for interpreting and evaluating the panoramic scenery of thought by the use of the sociology and philosophy of science. Thus, we argue that, first, a panorama-cum-scenario model of the history of economics not only formulates the self-development of human mind into theoretical constructs but also takes account of interactions with the

external world; and second, it not only describes but also prescribes historical development of economics achieved internally and externally. The latter considerations will lead to the notion of the utility of the history of knowledge in comparison with the truth of knowledge. IV. Several Approaches to the History of Economics Here we take account of five approaches to the history of economics, including a panorama-cum-scenario model based on the adapted Hegelian thesis. First two approaches are typical practices currently prevailing in economic theory and the history of economics. For the sake of modeling, they are a bit caricatured. First, most theoretical and empirical economists don’t regard the history of economics as a subdisciplinary field within economics necessary to their own discipline, because, they believe, they work at the frontiers of the discipline with the most advanced techniques, while all past theories are obsolete or wrong and superseded by current ones. They

don’t admit the 7 Source: http://www.doksinet history of economics even as a subdiscipline, much less as a discipline coordinate with economics. In consequence, if there exists in fact a discipline or course called history of economics, doing the history of economics is seen as not doing economics, or doing second rate economics. This view can be easily rebutted. If it is true that past theories are replaced with a present one, a present theory will be replaced with future ones and judged at once as worthless. The development of science is not such a linear and cumulative process. All theories in the past have not necessarily converged on current mainstream theories in all branches of the discipline. The formation of mainstream in knowledge is largely a matter of sociological phenomena, not a matter of truth or falsity. In fact, the past and the present coexist simultaneously as parts of the whole ideas of the discipline of economics. Therefore, the current world is not addressed

by current theories alone, but by a set of the present and past theories. Although past theories were originally concerned with the past state of affairs, they are still legacies to the present as the source of eternal views, whether they are recognized or not. According to Hegel’s thesis, it does not matter whether the combined set of present and past theories is called theory or the history of theory. All theories from the past to the present provide materials for a panoramic view of the history of theory. The view of the cumulative development is doubtful even in natural science. Before the radical positivistic philosophy of science prevailed, Ernst Mach, the physicist, had warned theoretical scientists that the prevailing theories were not inevitable and might not have taken over important ideas: “We shall recognize also that not only a knowledge of the ideas that have been accepted and cultivated by subsequent teachers is necessary for the historical understanding of a

science, but also that the rejected and transient thoughts of the inquirers, nay even apparently erroneous notions, may be very important and very instructive. The historical investigation of the development of a science is most needful, lest the principles treasured up in it become a system of half-understood prescripts, or worse, a system of prejudices. Historical investigation not only promotes the understanding of that which now is, but also brings new possibility before us, by showing that which exists to be in great measure conventional and accidental.”７ Second, most historians of economics publishing articles and monographs, far from 8 Source: http://www.doksinet negating and disbelieving the history of economics, are absorbed in specific figures or schools in the past often without proposing a panoramic overview of the subject as well as a scenario of the development of thought. When their works are not necessarily informative of why they are interested in their chosen

topics, they are unlikely to escape the criticism of “the gallery of follies” and a hobby of antiques and niches. Even if this approach focuses on specific, limited aspects of the history of economics, the importance of a scenario that explains the rationale of particularized research should be emphasized in clipping fragments from the history. It is also the crucial weakness of this approach that it often lacks any reference to the current economic theory, whether it might be a positive or negative appraisal. Possibly this approach merely keeps up the fashion of remarkable research attained for some major figures or schools. Under the great names of Smith, Marx, Keynes, and the like, historians of economics seem to feel like exempt of revealing their intention of research. The third and fourth approaches are exemplified by Christina Marcuzzo and Annalisa Rosselli as the traditional American and British “Whig” approach and the Italian approach in the 1970s respectively.８

According to them, the “Whig” approach is tried to legitimatize current mainstream by tracing the predecessors of modern theory. It is a “quest for ascendancy” of mainstream thought. In the fourth approach, in contrast, the past is searched, by concentrating on some neglected authors or some neglected aspects of major authors, for what has been lost and can no longer be found in current mainstream. It is a “quest for an alternative” to mainstream and implicitly intends to stimulate the development of economics in a new direction. Whereas both the third and fourth approaches do not necessarily exhibit panoramic views of the whole history of thought, they seem to select their objects of study based on certain scenarios of intellectual development. There is another type of approach which is related to the fourth one. Whereas the fourth approach usually focuses on a positive appraisal of neglected past thought, its variant provides an opposite type of history through a critique

of a line of mainstream from the past to the present as the preliminaries in pursuit of an alternative theory. Examples are: Böhm-Bawerk’s Geschichte und Kritik der Kapitalzinstheorien (1884) and Marx’s Theorien über den Mehrwert (1905-10). It is not possible to discuss the relative superiority of the third and fourth approaches offhand; they are equally creative work in the history of economics and also excellent practice of the thesis that the history of economics is economics. But I personally agree with Marcuzzo 9 Source: http://www.doksinet and Rosselli that the quest for alternative theories rather than confirmation of present theories is potentially more fruitful. The fifth approach is a full use of the panorama-cum-scenario model. The third and fourth approaches are insufficient application of this model in that at least they presume some scenarios serving as a selection principle for the subject matter. The fifth approach is apparently demanded when an author writes a

treatise on the history of economics as a whole from the antiquity to the present, if he is to avoid the criticism of “the gallery of follies.” It is appropriate to illustrate the fifth approach with Schumpeter’s work. Before doing so, it seems important to examine the above mentioned approaches from the standpoint of Nietzsche’s anti-historicism. Friedrich Nietzsche criticized Hegelian historicism for the excessive emphasis on history. If we were fascinated too much by the past history, we would become stunted and degenerate in living our life. The past should not be treasured for its own sake, but be valued for its utility to life and action. He inquired about the “advantage and disadvantage of history for life” in an essay with the same title (“Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben”) and argued that history should serve life, not that life should serve history.９ Thus he submitted a viewpoint to counterbalance history with life. History is demanded and

reinterpreted only to satisfy the present concern for life. He mentioned three kinds of approaches to history which could serve life: (1) monumental, (2) antiquarian, and (3) critical history. According to Nietzsche, while a monumental history praises great achievements of the past, an antiquarian history deals with the past in a reminiscent mood; both lack a reference to our action in the present and future. In contrast, a critical history brings the past before the tribunal of the present and asks whether it could provide a new vision for life. An excessive weight of past knowledge would deprive us of energies and innovations for the future and bring about formidable harms to life, because it is impossible to live without forgetting the past. He claimed that only ones with high power and strong personality are allowed to interpret the past; the weak is effaced by the weight of history. Historical knowledge is useful for the future only when it is ruled and guided by a high power and

does not itself rule and guide. The above mentioned first approach to the history of economics in our classification, which maintains the complete dismissal of the history of the discipline, appears to comply with Nietzsche’s anti-historicism. However, he would blame it for the guilt of not pondering 10 Source: http://www.doksinet using history to serve life. The second particularized approach by historians, which covers Nietzsche’s monumental and antiquarian history, is less valued than the third and fourth approaches, which belong to his critical history. Nietzsche’s critical history means a positive or negative appraisal of the past thought and is compatible with a quest for ascendancy of mainstream and a quest for an alternative to mainstream. His thesis that history should serve life should not be understood exclusively as a defense of a Whig history; the thesis rather advocates the use of history for creating the future through a critique of the present. From his

viewpoint, positive value of the history of economics is to be found in the productivity of a panorama-cum-scenario model for life. It is a function of a scenario that rules and guides history. It is interesting to see that Nietzsche associates different types of history with different mental states of historians to emphasize the priority of a subjective standpoint over the alleged existence of objective history. According to him, a monumental history belongs to a man who is active and striving to accomplish something great; an antiquarian history to a man who likes to preserve and admire the tradition; and a critical history to a man who suffers from some present misery and is in need of liberation. Whereas Hegel identifies philosophy outright with the history of philosophy, Nietzsche separates them and weighs one against another. For Nietzsche, the nuts and bolts of historical research is not to discover the eternal truth but to interpret the past so that we can live a creative life

and action. He provides us with a principle for selecting the type and subject matter of history, which would make life most productive and creative. This superb economic principle can be applied to detect a proper relationship between economics and the history of economics through a specification of the panorama- cum-scenario model. The advantage and disadvantage of the history of economics for the current activity of economists rest on the specific contents of the panorama-cum-scenario model that would articulate the creative directions of life. V. Schumpeter’s Approach to the History of Economics Since Schumpeter advocated the theoretical formulation of history or the histoire raisonnée (reasoned history) as the approach to the socio-economic evolution, it was incumbent on him to develop a theoretical framework of history---be it the history of the economy or the history of economics.１０ In the present context, the histoire raisonnée means 11 Source: http://www.doksinet

working out a scenario for formulating the history of economic thought. By proposing a definition of science in History of Economic Analysis, Schumpeter declares that science is the object of the philosophy of science because it has certain rules of procedure, on the one hand, and that science is the object of the sociology of science because it is carried out by groups of experts and is thus socially conditioned, on the other.１１ History is subjective; there exists no objective scheme or scenario for historical description acceptable to everyone. However, the sometimes implicit framework of historians yielding subjective scenarios should be made explicit. What is the basic idea that characterizes Schumpeter’s approach to the history of economics? １２ In History of Economic Analysis, a set of metatheory (the philosophy of science, the history of science, and the sociology of science), a set of substantive theory (economic statics, economic dynamics, and economic sociology),

and a set of analytic tools (theory, history, statistics, and institution) are presented as the components of a theoretical framework to describe the history of economics. Here I have to set aside several interesting issues but concentrate on how Schumpeter sees the philosophy of science and the sociology of science cooperate in doing the history of science. This problem relates to Schumpeter’s conflicting statements that appear paradoxical: (1) “Within serious economic theory there are no such things as ‘schools’ or differences of principles, and the only fundamental cleavage in modern economics is between good work and bad. The basic lines are the same in all lands and in all hands”１３ (2) “The history of science is a fascinating study which unveils us the ways of the human mind. And it has a neighboring field of research, which is developing slowly and is perhaps more fascinating still. It may be called the Sociology of Science, and consists of the study of science as

social phenomenon. In this study, the phenomenon of grouping, which we call scientific schools, is of primary importance.”１４ Here is no paradox; Schumpeter argues that as the ultimate ideal of the philosophy of science, there can be no schools, whereas schools are important as a subject matter in the sociology of science. He is confronted with a problem how the two theses are integrated In the scientific world, conflict, dispute, and disharmony are apparently dominant instead of compromise, cooperation, and harmony. He believes, however, that at a deeper level of turbulent scientific activity in pursuit of novelty consistent development is likely to be achieved because of the common recognition of the basic nature of science. Although the process of scientific activity 12 Source: http://www.doksinet is in a mess like a tropical forest, the history of science is written as if it were a logically consistent architecture. Thus he claims the following philosophical thesis

concerning the organized chaos in science and tries to explain it as the central question of the history of science: “This is one of the cases, so often found in all fields of human history, where the ‘arbitrariness,’ ‘accidentalness,’ ‘uncertainty,’ etc. of actual individual phenomena are paired with the irresistible impression of ‘regularity,’ ‘uniformity,’ ‘necessity,’ etc. of the totality grasped by observers.”１５ He argues that the activity of different schools, on the one hand, is too shortsighted to shape a well-ordered history of science, and the logic prescribed by the philosophy of science, on the other, is too unrealistic to depict an actual history of science. Nevertheless, Schumpeter considers the possibility that the logical direction of science is approximately realized. How is such a belief possible? He emphasizes the existence of given facts we cannot change, which consist of historically given objects and apparatus of science, namely the

problems and methods of science. Intellectual innovation must struggle with the tradition and routine of science. Sooner or later, the new is absorbed into the old to accomplish a new equilibrium. Schumpeter called the inevitable forces by which individual conflicts and diversities in science are coordinated into a totality so as to form a uniform development in a certain direction “the logic of things” (Logik der Dinge).１６ The same view is shown, though more concisely, in the concluding part of his earlier work on the history of economics.１７ This argument is an application to scientific development of Schumpeter’s notion of the static-dynamic interactions based on the distinction between adaptive and innovative forces in economic development. “The logic of things” provides a scenario for the history of economics with the modus operandi of the history in question. He defines the “classical situation” in the history of economics as “the achievement of substantial

agreement after a long period of struggle and controversy---the consolidation of the fresh and original work which went before.”１８ This is comparable with the establishment of Kuhn’s normal science in terms of paradigm through the play of sociological factors. The establishment of the “classical situation” is an analogy with the adaptation of the economy through business cycles to the introduction of technological innovation. This is neither an accident nor an analogy; it is the outcome of the methodology of Schumpeter’s universal social science. For Schumpeter, the scope of a scenario in the history of economics covers his tripartite 13 Source: http://www.doksinet classification of substantive theory (economic statics, economic dynamics, and economic sociology). In fact, History of Economic Analysis traces the developments of the trinity Here we can see how he practiced the Hegelian thesis on the history of economics as economics. Hic Rhodus, hic salta. According to

Schumpeter, static economics was first accomplished by Walras after the efforts of the classical and neoclassical schools through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The first half of the twentieth century was devoted to the pursuit of economic dynamics, where a keen rivalry developed between Keynes and Schumpeter in a competition for alternatives to neoclassical economics, although Schumpeter’s name was effaced from his text. He must have been confident that his theory of economic development was a real contribution to dynamic theory. To his regret, largely owing to the sociological reasons, Keynes gained a victory. However, Schumpeter referred to the development of Keynesian economics as aberrations leading to what he called “Ricardian vice.” A scenario cannot be written without selective affirmation and critique of past thought, as Nietzsche’s critical history indicates. With regard to economic sociology, Schumpeter tried to evaluate grand theories with the names of

economic sociology, unitary social science, universal social science, and the like, going beyond the boundaries of economic statics and dynamics. Vico, Comte, Marx, Schmoller, Pareto, and Weber among others were discussed against the background of his idea of universal social science. The three branches of economics have developed with different speeds on different tracks, and sometimes experienced “relative maturity” and “relative immaturity” due to sociological reasons. １９ In the trend of the specialization of sciences in the first half of the twentieth century, the comprehensive orientation of economic sociology lost its appeal. As the time went on, the work of economic sociology was on the decline For Schumpeter, however, in the perspective of the eternities (sub specie aeternitatis) a success or failure of science in the short-run is a triviality. ２０ For him, “a century is a ‘short run’”２１ Rising interest in Schumpeter’s dynamic theory and economic

sociology since the 1980s might be a tribute to the return to the “logic of things” inherent in his scenario of the history of economics. Thus, he practiced the history of economics as economics in the sense that the panoramic view of the entire history of economics was constructed by the building blocks of the trinity of economics according to the scenario based on the “logic of things.” The History of Economic Analysis is a distinguished achievement among the studies of 14 Source: http://www.doksinet the history of economics. For fifty years after its publication, nothing has taken its place; nothing has equaled it. However, historians of economics seem to pay not so much attention to the underlying scenario of the entire volume as to short descriptions of specific figures, utilizing the volume as an encyclopedia or a dictionary. In his introduction to the Routledge edition of History of Economic Analysis, Mark Perlman challenges to decipher the vision of Schumpeter’s

volume which I call here the scenario. He suggests that “the vision that Schumpeter really sought was one involving something akin to a theological paradigm---integrating fundamental, non-changing, ethical and social values and the dynamic workings of an evolutionary economy.”２２ He concludes that Schumpeter failed to find it In my interpretation, Schumpeter was based on the philosophy of science as the standards of knowledge, on the one hand, and described historical movements of science in zigzags, on the other. Perlman thinks that this causes incoherence But he does not need to conclude so, because science is unfinished eternal efforts to search for completion. VI. Conclusions The title of this paper is followed by a question mark, meaning the question whether the history of economics is economics in accord with Hegel’s thesis for philosophy. My answer was drawn out through two steps. First, yes, the history of economics is economics, as judged from the didactic point of

view. Economists should take into account all the approaches recorded in the history of economics as their proper subject matter; at the same time, historians of economics should be acquainted with the current state of economics. Second, no, the history of economics is more than economics because it is metatheory addressed to economics. To substantiate the dual conception of the history of economics, I formulated a panorama- cum-scenario model, which emphasizes the totality of diverse economic thoughts in history and the subjectivity of writing stories for history. From the viewpoint of this general model, together with Nietzsche’s anti-historicist principle, I examined four approaches to the history of economics: (1) complete neglect, (2) the antiquarian and monumental approach, (3) the “Whig” approach, and (4) the anti-mainstream approach. Is it possible for historians of economics primarily working by the approach (2) to avoid both Hegel’s charge against “the gallery of

follies” and Nietzsche’s charge against “an excess of history”? For all the diminished role the history of economics has been given in the training of economists, the field in question might appear strangely vibrant 15 Source: http://www.doksinet and growing, because in Nietzsche’s view, “the superfluous is the enemy of the necessary,” given the time and resource available to the human beings.２３ After finishing textbook economics, historians of economics perhaps get interested in the subject rather than advancing the frontiers of economics because they are inspired by works of individual authors in the past. They are no doubt fascinated with unique ideas of past individual authors in different processes of the development of ideas. Their mental state is described as historicist and amenable to the paradigm of Continental philosophy. The history of economics is originally the German doctrine and is a stronghold of historicism in social science. Given the concerns

for particulars and evolution of thought cherished by historians of economics, there are two preconditions for the desirable practice of the discipline: first, the historians should explicitly refer to a panorama-cum-scenario model in which to locate their work; and second, they should justifiably believe in the positive value of historical knowledge with reference to the present state of economics. If the requirements were fulfilled, we do not have to worry about a bleak prospect of the discipline. We could then entrust Nietzsche with answering the question whither the future of the history of economics: “There exists in the world a single path along which no one can go except you: whither does it lead? Do not ask, go along it. Who was it who said: ‘a man never rises higher than when he does not know whither his path can still lead him.’?”２４ １ E. Roy Weintraub (ed), The Future of the History of Economics, Durham: Duke University Press, 2002. ２ For the contrast

between Continental philosophy and analytical philosophy, see Simon Critchley and William R. Schroeder (eds), A Companion to Continental Philosophy, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998. ３ Ernst Troeltsch, Der Historismus und seine Probleme, 1922. Friedrich Meinecke, Die Entstehung des Historismus, 2 vols, 1936. ４ Frederck C. Beiser, “Hegel’s Historicism,” in FC Beiser (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Hegel, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 277 ５ G.WF Hegel, Introduction to the Lectures on the History of Philosophy, translated by TM Knox and A.V Miller, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985, p 15 ６ G.WF Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, translated by TM Knox, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967, p. 11 16 Source: http://www.doksinet ７ Ernst Mach, Die Mechanik in ihrer Entwicklung: historisch-kritisch dargestellt, 1883. (The Science of Mechanics: A Critical and Historical Account of Its Development by Mach, translated by T.J McCormack, La Salle, Ill: Open Court

Publishing Co, 1960, p 316) ８ Maria Christina Marcuzzo and Annalisa Rosselli, “Economics as History of Economics: The Italian Case in Retrospect,” in E.Roy Weintraub (ed), op cit ９ Friedrich Nietzsche, Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen, 1873-76. (“On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life,” in Untimely Meditations, translated by R.J Hollingdale, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 59) １０ For the details of Schumpeter’s approach to economic sociology, see Yuichi Shionoya, Schumpeter and the Idea of Social Science: A Metatheoretical Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, Chapter 8 (A Methodology of Economic Sociology). １１ J.A Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, New York: Oxford University Press, 1954, p. 7 １２ For the details of Schumpeter’s history of economics, see Shionoya, op. cit, Chapter 10 (The Historical World of Economics). １３ J.A Schumpeter, “The Instability of Capitalism,” Economic Journal, September

1928, p 363. １４ J.A Schumpeter, “The Present State of Economics or on Systems, Schools and Methods,” Kokumin Keizi Zasshi, May 1931, pp. 7-8 １５ J.A Schumpeter,Vergangenheit und Zukunft der Sozialwissenschaften, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, p. 94 １６ op. cit, p 102 １７ J.A Schumpeter, Epochen der Dogmen- und Methodengeschichte, Tübingen: JCB Mohr, 1914, p. 124 １８ J.A Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, p 51 １９ op. cit, p 463 ２０ J.A Schumpeter,Vergangenheit und Zukunft der Sozialwissenschaften, p 96 ２１ J.A Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York: Harper & Brothers, 3rd. ed, 1950, p 163 ２２ Mark Perlman, “Introduction,” in J.A Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, London: Routledge, 1994, p. xxxiv ２３ Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life,” in Untimely 17 Source: http://www.doksinet Meditations, p. 59 ２４ Friedrich Nietzsche, “Schopenhauer as

Educator,” in Untimely Meditations, p. 129 According to the English translator, the maxim in the quote is that of Oliver Cromwell, as quoted in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “Circles.” 18