A Companion to the History of Economic Thought - Chapter 29 pps

HISTORIOGRAPHY 491
CHAPTER TWENTY- NINE
Historiography
Matthias Klaes
29.1 INTRODUCTION
The term “historiography,” literally “the writing of history,” carries two distinct
meanings. On the one hand, it refers to historical accounts of the past, in contrast
to the past itself. On the other hand, the term is used in a meta-theoretical sense
as the reflection on how historians account for the past. Historiography in this
second sense has two aspects. It may refer either to the particular historical
methods employed by the historian, or to a broader reflection on the methodo-
logy underlying her historical research. According to the broader interpretation,
historiography is to the practice of the history of economics what the methodology
of economics is to the practice of economics. An additional complexity arises
because both history and methodology of economics are meta-discourses (cf.,
Emmett, 1997) in respect to the discipline of economics, which increasingly draw
upon one another. For the remainder of this contribution, the term “historio-
graphy” will be used to refer to the methodology, as opposed to the methods, of
historical research. Finally, the relevance of historiography as a meta-theoretical
reflection on the methodology of historical research in economics is of course not
restricted to disciplinary history of economics but is equally relevant to economic
history as the history of the economy, although this dimension will not be further
explored here.
Among the various ways in which one could discuss historiographic issues
in the history of economics, two seem to suggest themselves in particular. One
could provide a comparative overview of different historiographies that are
currently employed or hotly debated in the history of economics. Alternatively,
one could embark on a historical account of the development of the various
approaches. The first perspective is much better served by the present volume as
a whole than by any single work of survey. The second, further discussed below,
suffers the handicap that so far at least, it refers to largely uncharted territory.

This chapter therefore follows a different strategy, approaching historiographic
reflection in the history of economics in the context of selected wider debates in
492 M. KLAES
general history, philosophy, and the history of science. The ambition is not to
aspire to comprehensive coverage of these debates, but to eclectically concentrate
instead on a selection of themes that resonate with important recent historiographic
developments in the history of economics. In what follows, the reader should
also be warned that for the most part, historiography is discussed on the basis of
the Anglo-American literature, notwithstanding the rich and longstanding historio-
graphic traditions of continental Europe, for example.
29.2 HISTORIOGRAPHY AS META-DISCOURSE OF
HISTORICAL RESEARCH
Historiographic reflection in the history of economics can proceed in several
directions. What is it that distinguishes history of economics from the history of
science, for example, or from general history, cultural and social history, intellec-
tual history, the philosophy and methodology of economics, economic history,
and, finally, economics itself? Related, although not strictly of a historiographic
nature, are attempts to justify the pursuit of the history of economics, especially
vis-à-vis the economics profession at large. On a more particular level, one may
ask how the history of economics could be pursued, should be pursued, or is being
pursued. Of this triad, the first inquiry typically takes the form of trying to
identify dimensions by which histories of economics could differ from each other
in principle. Historiographic debate has approached this question on the basis of
various binary oppositions, such as relativist versus absolutist history, historical
versus rational reconstruction, presentism versus contextualism, internal versus
external, thick versus thin, or social versus conceptual history (cf., Backhouse,
1994, pp. 1–9).
Once potential differences in historical approach are identified, it is only a
short step to engage in normative appraisal of these differences. Historiography
turns thus into a project of establishing how the history of economics should be

pursued. Answers to this question tend to depend on one’s particular position
regarding the nature of the history of economics, and on one’s underlying philo-
sophical view on economics (Weintraub, 1999). A particular offshoot of this norm-
ative reflection has been the issue of “Whiggism” in the history of economics:
the focus on the progressive perfection of economics as a disciplinary body of
knowledge. Most contributions to this debate have dismissed Whig history of eco-
nomics, but as a genre it continues to be alive and well in the field.
Finally, historiography may engage in positive reflection upon the history of
economics. The question would no longer be how history of economics could
or should be practiced, but how it actually is being practiced. With few excep-
tions (e.g., Popescu, 1964; and more recently Backhouse, 2001) this approach to
historiography has not been pursued at any notable scale in the history of eco-
nomics, in contrast, for example, to the situation in general history (White, 1973).
In many respects, positive historiography follows from the suspicion that many
historians and sociologists of science have developed toward traditional norm-
ative methodology. The equivalent argument within economics has been most
HISTORIOGRAPHY 493
forcefully put forward by the “rhetoric of economics” literature (McCloskey, 1985,
1990; Klamer, 1988). In reflection of these post-foundationalist developments both
in the philosophy of science and the methodology of economics, and in contrast
to the normative strands of the historiography of economics, positive historio-
graphy looks at the writings of historians who are trying to identify empirically
how the ongoing enterprise of history of economics has developed and changed
over time.
29.3 HISTORIOGRAPHY IN GENERAL HISTORY
In general history, introductions to historiography frequently start with a refer-
ence to the Prussian historian Leopold von Ranke (for a commendable short
introduction to general historiography, see Arnold, 2000). Used as an exemplar,
Ranke is typically described as the “father of modern historiography” (in this
context, see Smith, 1995) for his insistence that the task of the historian should

be the strict presentation of facts to establish “what actually happened,” based
on close study of historical sources and abstaining from sweeping attempts to
judge the past (Ranke, 1874 [1824], pp. v–viii; and abused, see Repgen, 1982).
This appeal to historical evidence and the historical method, reacting to German
idealism, was meant to place history on a scientific footing and distinguish it
from a more liberal attitude toward historical detail by Enlightenment thinkers
such as Voltaire.
Fidelity to its sources is still regarded as the virtue sine qua non of professional
historical scholarship. In that respect at least, Ranke’s program of objective history
has survived to this day. Whether a continuous detailed unearthing of historical
facts will accumulate to historical truth is a more controversial issue. Once a
distinction between the past and the account of it in historical scholarship is
acknowledged, a one-to-one mapping between the two must become problem-
atic. All that is ever accessible to the historian are the records of the past, not the
past itself. Arguably, due to the complexity of the available source material,
historians are likely to find more than one plausible way to reconstruct the past
from its archives. Moreover, it is debatable whether the compilation of a chron-
icle, as a mere compilation of historical facts, exhausts the objective of historical
scholarship. To the extent that the historian is supposed to provide a richer
account of the past, be it in terms of historical context, interpretation of periods
of transition, or historical explanation, she has to decide on the relative signific-
ance of particular events of the past. Let us refer to this one-to-many relationship
between the corpus of historical sources and the historian’s rendering of the past
as the “historiographic hiatus.”
Rankean historiography has had an important impact on the history of eco-
nomics through Butterfield’s (1965 [1931]) attack on the “Whig interpretation”
of history. The term “Whig” originated as a term of abuse against political opponents,
in particular in the context of seventeenth-century English reform movements,
where it was applied to supporters of the Calvinist tendencies in the Anglican
Church. Butterfield, in drawing from the traditional usage, employed “Whig”

494 M. KLAES
as a disparaging term against a nineteenth-century historiographic tradition –
epitomized by the historical work of the Whig politician Thomas Babington
Macaulay – which described English constitutional history as the progressive
perfection of liberal parliamentary democracy. In a similar way, “Whiggism” in
the history of economics is typically used to discredit accounts that are informed
by a commitment to rational or scientific progress in the development of eco-
nomic theory, and exhibit a tendency to evaluate past theories in the light of
present-day knowledge. As charges of Whiggism in the history of economics are
in danger of replacing serious debate with ambiguous knock-down arguments,
it is worth bearing in mind from which side of the historiographic debate these
charges were initially made.
According to Butterfield (1965 [1931], p. v), the Whig interpretation of history
consists of “the tendency in many historians to write on the side of Protestants and
Whigs, to praise revolutions provided they have been successful, to emphasise
certain principles of progress in the past and to produce a story which is the
ratification if not the glorification of the present.” The crucial ingredient of Whig
history is its subordination of the past to the present. As the archetypical ex-
ample, Butterfield refers to the Whig historian’s quest for origins as a naive search
of the past for analogies to the present. Proper historical research, according to
Butterfield, should proceed in the descriptive tradition of Ranke. The unfolding
of historical events is too complex to be amenable to macroscopic explanations or
generalizations. Instead of reading the present into the past, the historian should
make the past her present. Accusations of Whig history have thus a certain reac-
tionary connotation, in spite of their use in the history of economics to bolster
“new” historiographic approaches.
With the advent of the linguistic turn in historiography and the emergence
of a “new history” in the 1970s and 1980s, general history is marked by a more gen-
eral opposition between a traditional paradigm on the one hand, and a diversity
of new approaches on the other (Kozicki, 1993; Burke, 2001). This opposition has

provoked a number of traditionally minded historians to paint dark pictures of
intellectual crisis (e.g., Evans, 1997). What is at issue can again be approached
via the historiographic hiatus. What constitutes a historical source needs to be
historicized in the first place (Jenkins, 1995, pp. 16–25). Put differently, the notion
of “source” is not innocent but a historically constructed entity itself.
Traditional history had been concerned with politics, largely based on official
documents located in archives. This traditional constraint can be relaxed twofold.
On the one hand, the question regarding what is central to the historical account
may be answered differently, opening up the whole breadth of different topics
currently found in social and cultural history, such as the history of madness
(Foucault, 1961; Hacking, 1995), the climate (Grove, 2001), truth (Shapin, 1994), or
the body (Porter, 2001). On the other hand, and related to the opening up of the
historical field of investigation, what counts as a legitimate source for historical
inquiry may be interpreted more broadly, extending beyond official documents
to include other types of evidence such as literary sources or oral evidence (cf.,
Burke, 2001). Given that what counts as respectable historical subject matter and
valid source material is subject to historical contingency itself, the more general
HISTORIOGRAPHY 495
point which follows from the observation of such broadening of historical research
is that the historian’s account turns out to be inextricably bound to her own
historical locus, being thus subject to the same processes of social negotiation that
she is studying herself with reference to the past. It is important to realize that
this aspect of the historical hiatus precedes any hermeneutic issues involved in
accessing the past.
The reaction to the traditional paradigm of descriptive historical research can
furthermore be divided into two different branches, depending on how historians
have approached the tension stemming from the historiographic hiatus. Historians
associated with the French Annales school for example, one of the most important
challengers of traditional history, emphasized long-term structural change over
myopic event history (e.g., Braudel, 1949; cf., Burke, 1990). The goal of the histor-

ian turns into the quest of the underlying reasons for a particular development.
Depending on the status given to the explanations obtained in this way, one may
thus arrive at a historical project distinct from Rankean history, but nevertheless
with a claim to scientific objectivity.
Objective history may also be regarded as unattainable in principle. This under-
current in the new approaches to history has led to unsettled calls of a looming
intellectual crisis. Traditional historiography shows awareness of the limitations
inherent to uncovering historical facts in a comprehensive and unbiased way.
Nevertheless, striving for an incremental uncovering of the truth about events
of the past remains the guiding ideal. In contrast to this, the literary branch of
the reaction to historical objectivity, for example, maintains that historical writ-
ing is subject to an inescapable fictional component. Similar to the rhetoric-of-
economics literature, this branch has emphasized the narrative aspects of historical
research, and in particular the role of figures of speech, such as analogies and
metaphors (White, 1973; cf., Megill and McCloskey, 1987). This second branch is
typically regarded as the “postmodern” successor to the modernist projects of
both the Annales school and Rankean historiography (cf., Jenkins, 1995).
Postmodern historiography has provoked sharp reactions (Monas, 1993). Liter-
ary approaches to historiography are often accused of promoting an “anything
goes” approach to the past, in which historians, and ultimately society, replace the
reconstruction of the past with its invention. Although few historians with post-
modern sympathies are committed to an anti-realist position regarding events of
the past, these charges of idealist history have received renewed attention in the
context of “holocaust denial” (Shermer and Grobman, 2000). If history has a fic-
tional component that is essential to it, and not merely accidental, then the tension
between traditional history and some of the more recent approaches appears
indeed to reduce to a binary opposition between idealist and realist commitments
to the past, quite in the same way as it is found in recent disputes in the philosophy
and sociology of science (cf., Bloor, 1996). But, similar to the realist sociologist
of scientific knowledge (Bloor, 1999), or Mäki’s (1988) realist position in the

methodology of economics, historians may accept inescapable fictionality in their
accounts of the past without having to give up a realist commitment to the past.
It is interesting to note at this point that the most overtly idealist approach in
general history, intellectual history or the history of ideas, has little to do with
496 M. KLAES
the “new” histories of recent years. With the advent of the descriptive approach
to history advocated by Ranke and his followers, the history of ideas developed
as a pursuit distinct from general history, continuing the more broadly oriented
and speculative elements found in the historical writings of the Enlightenment
scholars from whom Ranke tried to break away. In the history of ideas, concepts
are regarded as the “immutable mobiles” (cf., Latour, 1987, p. 227) of historical
analysis.
Take, for example, Lovejoy’s (1960 [1936]) classic study of the history of the
idea of the “great chain of being,” which starts with Plato and ends with Friedrich
E. D. Schleiermacher and eighteenth-century German romanticism. As a stable
entity, the idea is traced through time and space in its journey from one author to
the next. Residing in the collective mental realm, it catches the attention of the
historian only once it has manifested itself in particular expressions or concepts.
These vary across contexts, literatures, and epochs. The historian is thus bound
to tie the heterogeneous appearance of concepts in her corpus together into a
coherent whole. The only criterion that she can apply is a prior understanding
of the idea the history of which she wants to trace. Thus, her historiographic
approach may closely resemble the Whig interpretation of history that Butterfield
had so vehemently criticized (see, however, Samuels, 1974).
From the perspective of the history of economics, intellectual history provides
a crucial link to the more general historiographic debate. The 1960s act as a
watershed in this regard. This period saw the emergence of new approaches to
history, some of whose proponents fiercely attacked the history of ideas (e.g.,
Foucault, 1969). In addition, several historians of political thought, notably
Skinner (1969), called for a rethinking of how their discipline approached intellec-

tual history. Many historians of economics studied their subject from a perspective
of traditional conceptual history. Closely related to the history of ideas, this
historiography concentrates on locating precursors of currently relevant concepts
and theories. The more general discussions around intellectual history were thus
of direct relevance. So were the contemporary events in the history of science,
where Kuhn’s (1970 [1962]) analysis of the role of paradigm shifts created suffi-
cient upheaval to itself induce a paradigm shift. For more detailed appreciation
of historiography in the history of science, in particular regarding the cross-
connection to intellectual history and the history of ideas, the reader is referred to
Kragh (1987).
The first issue of History of Political Economy reflected these currents of the
1960s. The founding editors, conscious of their responsibility in shaping the self-
understanding of the emerging subdiscipline, were adamant that the journal
should not just be dedicated to “history of economic thought” (Goodwin, Spengler,
and Smith, 1969, p. 1): “We wish to count among our contributors not only those
devoted to unravelling the intricacies of the development of economic analysis
but also scholars who explore the relations of theory and analysis to policy, to
other disciplines, and to social history in general.”
This spirit was most clearly expressed in the lead article of the first issue. Coats
(1969, p. 12) criticized his colleagues in the history of economics for their insuffi-
cient commitment to the past, and their predominant interest in the “succession
HISTORIOGRAPHY 497
of particular theorems, theories or individuals.” Kuhn’s influence was openly
acknowledged, and Coats tried to convince his readers that “[f]or the present
generation of scholars the most fruitful research topics are the relationship of
economic thought to policy and the sociology of economics.” (Coats, 1969, p. 14).
The consolidation of the field around the new journal went thus hand in hand
with an acknowledgment of and dissatisfaction with the different way of pursu-
ing the history of economics which went before.
29.4 THE SYSTEMATIC RELEVANCE OF DISCIPLINARY HISTORY

While the promotion of new approaches to the history of economics formed an
important impetus to the 1970s emergence of the history of economics subdiscip-
line in the Anglo-American realm, the underlying motivation was a growing loss
of interest in the field by economic practitioners. More than four decades ago,
Paul Samuelson (1954, p. 380) noted with contempt that it was those economists
who were not sufficiently competent to follow the mathematical revolution of
postwar economics who were seeking shelter in the history of economic thought.
A little later, Donald Winch (1962) wrote a well-known essay expressing the
worry that the history of economics was becoming as irrelevant for the discipline
of economics as the history of physics for the practicing physicist. For Boulding
(1971), it was of little surprise that postwar economics, with its aspirations to copy
the style and success of the natural sciences, had turned away from the study
of the “wrong opinions of dead men.”
According to a common perception, the history of economics formed an essen-
tial part of economics in the 1930s and before (cf., Samuelson, 1987, pp. 181–2).
The decline of the disciplinary standing of the history of economic thought, while
an interesting phenomenon in its own right, points to the underlying question
of the relationship between a given discipline and its history. On the one hand,
one can cite the case of the natural sciences. The history of science has become
an independent academic discipline and is largely housed outside the science
faculties. There is little controversy over the question of whether an aspiring
young physicist should read Newton’s Principia, for example. The consensus is
that she is better advised to invest her intellectual energies in more contemporary
pursuits, leaving Newton to the historians, although even this very clear division
of labor has not provided for a trouble-free relationship between scientists and
historians of science (cf., Reingold, 1981). In philosophy, on the other hand, no
student will escape detailed study of the classical authors.
It is interesting to note, though, that the relationship between philosophy and
its history is as controversial as in the case of economics. Gracia (1992) has pro-
vided a comprehensive analysis of this debate. His classification of the different

reasons for doing history is applicable beyond the realm of philosophy and will
serve as the framework for the present discussion. Gracia points out that by asking
for a justification of the history of philosophy one implicitly acknowledges that
philosophy and history of philosophy are compatible in principle. He distinguishes
this position from incompatibilism and historicism.
498 M. KLAES
Incompatibilists deny any relation between philosophy and its history. Philo-
sophy is concerned with the truth-value of propositions, while its history is con-
cerned with the beliefs of past philosophers, independent of their truth-value.
According to this view, the past is an obstacle to clarity. Philosophy should not
be concerned with the errors of the past, but should always start from scratch.
Historicists, on the other hand, deny a cut between the present and the past.
Philosophy is concerned with the continuous rearticulation of a view about
ourselves and the world. In order to get over the presumptions of the model in
which one operates, it is necessary to uncover its origins. In its extreme form, this
position holds that philosophy is inextricably trapped in its history. To do philo-
sophy means to study past philosophers.
Applying Gracia’s further discussion to economics, it will be granted for a
moment that economics and its history are neither incompatible nor identical
pursuits. This makes it possible to ask for the value of the history of economics
from the perspective of a practicing economist. According to what Gracia calls
the “negative” view, the history of economics does not offer more to economics
than does the history of physics to physics. It is of little value for economic
research because it stultifies creativity, encourages antiquarianism, and takes up
precious time – which is already too short for keeping up with the rapid develop-
ments of the present, and, if one is lucky, with some relevant aspects of economic
history. The history of economics is thus only of interest to historians of eco-
nomics, and possibly to historians of science and related fields of general history.
This view is exemplified in economics by Hahn (1992, p. 165): “What the dead had
to say, when of value, has long since been absorbed, and when we need to say it

again we can generally say it much better.”
The “affirmative” view, on the other hand, defends the value of history for
practicing economists. Gracia distinguishes among three different strategies of
justification. The rhetorical justification sees history as a source of inspiration,
support, and respectability (cf., Landreth and Colander, 1994, p. 16). Past eco-
nomists can serve as role models for the current generation or may teach us
humility. Moreover, “by standing on the shoulders of giants we can appear to be
very tall indeed” (Gracia, 1992, p. 142; cf., Schumpeter, 1994 [1954], p. 4). According
to the second strategy, which Gracia calls the “pragmatic” justification, history
provides case studies of good and bad reasoning from which we can learn, or
which we can utilize to teach the subject to students (cf., Screpanti and Zamagni,
1993, p. v). Furthermore, those who do not know the past are condemned to
repeat it (cf., Blaug, 1985, pp. vii, 711). Finally, history may play a liberating role
in making us aware of our presuppositions (Roll, 1992, p. 2). It may even offer a
therapy in the face of a sick and confused present (Gracia, 1992, p. 148), which
may partly explain the strong interest in history of economics among heterodox
schools.
Gracia’s third strategy of justification provides theoretical reasons for the
beneficial nature of history. A systematic study of the past may give us important
clues for the understanding of present trends and future developments in eco-
nomics, which may influence our personal research strategy. Investigations of
this kind could perceivably be pursued within the new economics of science if
HISTORIOGRAPHY 499
applied to economics itself (cf., Sent, 1999). Furthermore, there are positions that
justify the history of economics independently from its systematic relevance.
Apart from references to human curiosity, there is the example of Schumpeter
(1994 [1954], p. 5) who suggests that the study of disciplinary history reveals the
working of the human mind. Backhouse (1985, p. 2; 1995, pp. 44–5) defends the
view that history can and should be used to evaluate and appraise the economics
of both the present and the past.

Returning to Gracia’s initial distinction between incompatibilism, compatibilism,
and historicism, there is one way to argue in favor of the history of economics
which constitutes an important variation of the last of those three positions.
According to the historicist position, present thinking is inextricably bound to
its past. In other words, the only way to philosophize would be to engage in
the history of philosophy. Similarly, the only way to do economics would be to
engage in history of economics. While no historian of economics would want to
subscribe to such a radical formulation, historicism in the historiography of eco-
nomics may be defended in a qualified sense. The historicist points out that even
the present that we study is already part of the past. In the history of economics,
Boulding (1971, p. 227) has reversed this position by introducing the “principle of
the extended present.” The disciplinary present is defined as that interval during
which a given debate is not yet closed. To the extent that the historian of eco-
nomics works within this interval, she actually engages in the current discussion.
This amounts to the following “weak” version of the historicist position. While
studying the past is not the only way, it nevertheless represents one way to do
economics, at least in the confines of the extended present.
One precondition for contributing to an ongoing economic debate is, however,
that the work of the historian exhibit a “conceptual” dimension (cf., Klaes, 2001).
A second prerequisite relates to the type of history being pursued. A social his-
tory of the discipline of economics that pays little or no attention to economic
content is an unlikely candidate for contributing directly to a debate. This is not
to deny, though, any indirect influences that such an account may eventually
have on the self-understanding of the profession. On the other hand, there are
examples like Sraffa, whose close reading of the works of Ricardo led him to form-
ulate a new interpretation of his theory of value and distribution that inspired
a neo-Ricardian tradition in modern economics.
29.5 (RE)CONSTRUCTING HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION
As indicated in the introduction, historiographic reflection on how to approach
the history of economics has frequently resorted to mobilizing a number of

binary oppositions. Probably the most prominent one has been the absolutism–
relativism dichotomy: “The relativist regards every single theory put forward in
the past as a more or less faithful reflection of contemporary conditions [ . . . ]; the
absolutist has eyes only for the strictly intellectual development of the subject,
regarded as a steady progression from error to truth” (Blaug, 1985, p. 2; cf.,
Skinner, 1969). An absolutist approach to the history of economics will result
500 M. KLAES
in the writing of history from the perspective of a set of economic insights and
theories that are accepted as valid standards of judgments for the insights and
theories encountered in the historical interval considered. These standards may
be drawn from “state-of-the-art” economics, in which case the resulting history is
likely to read as Whig history. A relativist approach, on the other hand, strives to
assume an agnostic stance toward the validity of past theories.
Within historiographic discussions in economics, there has been an unfortunate
tendency to run debates about the absolutism–relativism distinction together with
the general issue of adequate exegesis of historical source material, and thus with
aspects of the historiographic hiatus discussed above. The historian of economics,
the argument goes, is bound to read the past from the present because her ultimate
frame of reference for understanding the past must be her own temporal location
in the present. Interestingly this argument, intended to support the absolutist
position, unwittingly acknowledges the relativist proposal of a hiatus between
sources and historical account. By rejecting the idea of an “objective” reading of
a given source, the temporal location of the historian becomes decisive for the
unlocking of the past.
For economists and historians of economics, this should not come as a surprise.
Long and arduous debates on the “correct” interpretation of the work of promin-
ent economists abound. But to read past texts from the perspective of a given
theory – as required by an absolutist historiography – is not quite the same as the
requirement imposed on us by the inescapable hermeneutical circle of approach-
ing any given text on the basis of only a provisional level of understanding.

In his influential article, Skinner (1969) has called the tendency of absolutist
historiography to retrieve from sources of the past instances of the putative
application of present-day concepts the “mythology of doctrine.” In the history
of economics, the mythology of doctrine has been forcefully exposed by Tribe’s
(1978) study of the sharp discontinuities of interpretation between, for example,
the economic concept of “labor” in the seventeenth and twentieth centuries, which
puts into question absolutist historicizing in its attempts to construct an a priori
continuity of understanding between the present and the past. Properly con-
sidered, this continuity should be regarded as a hypothesis that must stand up to
historical scrutiny itself, lest the absolutist reconstruction of the past risks turning
into an ahistorical construction.
A further confusion easily results from uncritically running together Whig
history with absolutist historiography. While Whiggism presupposes absolutism,
an absolutist stance as such contains no commitment to a history of progress. By
relaxing Whiggism to teleological historicizing one may, for example, engage in
a project inverse to Whig history by describing historical developments in terms
of progressive decline, but still judged from an absolutist perspective. Heterodox
histories of economics occasionally come near this temptation of telling the emer-
gence of modern economics from the perspective of a past Golden Age.
To complicate matters, many historians, following Blaug (1990; cf., Rorty, 1984),
have begun to replace the absolutist–relativist terminology with that of rational
versus historical reconstruction. Historical reconstruction should interpret past
theories such that their original authors would recognize and accept them
HISTORIOGRAPHY 501
(Skinner, 1969, p. 28), while rational reconstruction should ideally be able to
convince them that – and where – they went wrong. This acknowledges the
fundamental hermeneutical circularity of historical exegesis in that any reading
is caught in acts of “reconstruction” of something bygone and needs to be aware
of its own horizon of interpretation.
As a result of what has become known as the Popper–Kuhn debate (for its

general reception in the history and methodology of economics, see Blaug, 1992;
Caldwell, 1994), these terms have acquired a distinct and rather more specific
meaning in the history and philosophy of science. For Popper (1959), science
comprises a rational pursuit for knowledge that, while fallible, merits trust be-
cause it consists of conjectures that have so far withstood our attempts to refute
them. In contrast, Kuhn (1970 [1962]) celebrated the path-dependent cultural
enterprise of normal science, where refutations of the scope envisaged by Popper
play only a marginal role. Kuhn’s account has stirred trouble. Allegedly, it
depicts science as an irrational undertaking based on the dangerous doctrine of
relativism. As a response, Lakatos (1970, 1971) expanded Popper’s framework
into a historiography aimed at reconciling the rich material forthcoming from
historical case studies, with the portrayal of science as a rational pursuit.
At the same time, the Popper–Kuhn debate also served as inspiration for a new
(i.e., post-Mertonian) sociology of scientific knowledge, based on a productive
reception of Kuhn’s account of normal science (cf., Bloor, 1976; Barnes, 1982),
which has been attracting increasing attention in the history and methodology of
economics (Mirowski, 1989, 1994; Weintraub, 1991; Mäki, 1992; Hands, 1997). The
Mertonian program was premised on a distinction between a disinterested search
for truth on the one hand, and the influence of social factors external to this
rational process on the other hand. While Merton emphasized that these external
factors had some role to play in steering the general direction of scientific devel-
opment, he regarded the short-term problem-solving activity internal to science
as largely autonomous (Merton, 1938, p. 75). The task of the historian of science
was thus to follow the internal development of science, while the sociologist of
science should study the influence of external factors (cf., Shapin, 1992).
Lakatos’s rational reconstruction can be regarded as a particular interpretation
of the rationalist commitment underlying both Mertonian “internal” history and
Blaug–Rorty rational reconstruction. It is precisely Lakatos’s aim to make the
criteria explicit by which the historian decides how to reconstruct past science.
Rational reconstruction rests on a particular philosophy of rational progress in

science: the historian adopting such an approach “will omit everything that is
irrational in the light of his rationality theory” (Lakatos, 1971, p. 106). If the
historian happens to implement Lakatos’s methodology of scientific research
programs, she will thus concentrate on the development of the hard core of these
programs.
Conversely, it would thus seem that the sociology of science and its domain
of external factors correspond to Lakatos and Blaug–Rorty historical reconstruc-
tion. The crucial distinction between the Lakatosian interpretation of historical
reconstruction and Mertonian externalism, first noted by Kuhn (1971), was that,
in the framework of Lakatos, external factors, by definition, distort the rational
502 M. KLAES
scientific quest for truth. Historical reconstruction has in fact turned into the
residual category of rational reconstruction. The task of historical reconstruction
is to recount “how actual history ‘misbehaved’ in the light of its rational recon-
struction” (Lakatos, 1971, p. 107). The historical reconstruction of “actual history”
is thus unintelligible without reference to the rational reconstruction of the latter,
in the same way as footnotes – an analogy very aptly chosen by Lakatos – relate
to the main body of a text.
It is here that the move from the absolutism–relativism distinction to rational
versus historical reconstruction becomes problematic. Rational reconstruction as
inherited from the absolutist approach is committed to an underlying continuity
in the history of economics, stretching backward from the present. Lakatosian
rational reconstruction proposes a particular interpretation of that continuity.
However, Lakatosian historical reconstruction is discontinuous to the relativist
reading of the past. Its scope is restricted to account for error and irrationality,
and thus it is clearly in conflict with Skinner’s criterion for Blaug–Rorty historical
reconstruction, as an account intelligible and acceptable to the author of the past.
Only with the hindsight of rational reconstruction should this author be able
to recognize her errors: “We need to think that, in philosophy as in science, the
mighty dead look down from heaven at our recent successes, and are happy to

find that their mistakes have been corrected” (Rorty, 1984, p. 51).
Historical reconstruction in the Lakatosian sense is thus something quite dif-
ferent from historical reconstruction as inherited from the absolutist–relativist
distinction. It is not at all relativist, but depends on an absolutist reading of
the past. Take away the main text, and the collection of footnotes becomes unin-
telligible. Lakatos has in fact turned the sociology of scientific knowledge into
a sociology of scientific error (Bloor, 1976, p. 12). It has been the legacy of the new
sociology of science (Barnes et al., 1996) to reverse this conclusion, by reading
Kuhn as demonstrating the inherently social nature of the internal processes
hitherto ascribed to the operation of disinterested scientific rationality. As a
result, the internalism–externalism divide of Mertonian sociology of science
dissolves (Barnes and Shapin, 1979, p. 9; Shapin, 1992), as does the foundation for
Lakatosian rational reconstruction. Instead of being a sociology only of error,
historical reconstruction would turn into a relativist account of both error and
truth.
29.6 CONCLUSION
Where does this leave the opposition of rational versus historical reconstruc-
tion and thus of absolutism and relativism in the history of economics? Even if
one accepts Lakatosian rational reconstruction as a convincing conceptualization of
the broader usage of “rational reconstruction,” the two contrasting interpretations
of “historical reconstruction” that we have identified, in terms of a sociology
of scientific error on the one hand, and a sociology of scientific knowledge on the
other, strongly suggest that a more consistent terminology is advisable. While
“absolutism” may, with the just-mentioned proviso, translate into Lakatosian
HISTORIOGRAPHY 503
“rational reconstruction,” “relativism” fails to translate into the Lakatosian pend-
ant of “historical reconstruction.” Given the relatively infrequent invocation
of Lakatosian historical reconstruction, the onus should be on those who are
discussing it to flag their narrow interpretation of the term, so that Blaug–Rorty
historical reconstruction, in the sense of contextualism, and with possible relat-

ivist implications, may reign. We could then generally speak of the reconstruc-
tion of past economics, with the terms “historical” and “rational” indicating
which horizon of understanding we have tried to approach. Depending on the
dimensions of the relevant “extended present” and our conceptual focus or its
absence, we might on that basis aim to directly contribute to economics or to
appraise it, and in that respect we would quite happily endure possible charges
of Whiggism.
Incidentally, Butterfield (1949) himself displayed surprisingly Whiggish tend-
encies when writing on the history of science, as opposed to general history.
This only reinforces the suspicion that the more pressing historiographic ques-
tion is whether or not to embrace a relativist position, similar to the debates
surrounding the historiography of the “new” approaches in general history. And
similar to the sense of crisis provoked there, the “science wars” that followed the
Sokal affair have polarized current discourse (cf., Anon., 1997). Again, at stake is
what counts for real, there in terms of our access to the past, here in terms of our
access to the present and future. At the bottom of the Popper–Kuhn debate lurks
the same challenge, of confronting the idealist dimension that is present in any
relativist account of knowledge. As in general history, some versions of relativism
in the history of science are compatible with a fundamentally realist commitment.
Unfortunately, in the heat of what is frequently an emotionally highly charged
debate, the finer points and distinctions risk getting lost.
Compared to these debates in general history and the history of science,
historiographic discussion in the history of economics has been encouragingly
heterogeneous and peaceful. Real differences exist (cf., Klaes, 2001), and occa-
sionally do come to light in public debate – see, for example, the Birken (1988,
1994)–Lipkis (1993) exchange, or the online discussion in reaction to Henderson
(1996). On the other hand, defenders of the rationalist cause in the history of
economics have, at least so far, displayed an attitude of open-mindedness that is
deplorably lacking in the more viciously fought controversies in general history
and the field of science studies. There are, however, some indications of a grow-

ing and worrying rift between prominent economists and the historians studying
them and their work, which can largely be attributed to conflicting views on
historiography.
Be this as it may, one important corollary follows from Weintraub (1999). Due
to their underlying philosophical commitments, historiographic choices are never
innocent. Even if they do not force their proponents ultimately to one side or
the other of the Popper–Kuhn debate, or one of its more recent or ancient
incarnations, the upshot is that the historiographies that we adopt as individual
historians of economics, while certainly there for us to study and self-critically
investigate, are less the result of a disinterested matching of means from the plur-
alist historiographic toolbox to our research ends than we might like to admit.
504 M. KLAES
Note
Thanks to Roger Backhouse, Mark Blaug, Tony Brewer, Annette Fräger, Martin Kusch,
Heino Heinrich Nau, and the three Editors for crucial feedback on draft versions of this
chapter.
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