IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eujhet/v13y2006i4p571-605.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Frank Knight and pragmatism

Author

Listed:
  • D. Wade Hands

Abstract

One of many controversies surrounding the work of Frank Knight involves the question of whether, or to what degree, his ideas were consistent with those of American pragmatism. Substantive textual evidence can be found to support almost any simple answer to the question. This paper argues that while Knight was quite (often aggressively) opposed to a particular set of pragmatic ideas alive in the scholarly and social debates of his day, this fact says more about Knight's historical context than it does about the broader relationship between his philosophical position and pragmatism. Knight was opposed to the social control pragmatism of his day, but at the same time his general philosophical position has much in common with the features of the pragmatic tradition that are most emphasized in the recent philosophical literature.

Suggested Citation

  • D. Wade Hands, 2006. "Frank Knight and pragmatism," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 571-605.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:13:y:2006:i:4:p:571-605
    DOI: 10.1080/09672560601025779
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09672560601025779
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09672560601025779?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rosenberg, Alexander, 1992. "Economics--Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns?," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226727233, October.
    2. Stigler, George J & Becker, Gary S, 1977. "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 76-90, March.
    3. Stephen John Nash, 2003. "On pragmatic Philosophy and Knightian uncertainty," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 61(2), pages 251-272.
    4. Amadae, S.M., 2003. "Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226016535, October.
    5. Ross B. Emmett, 1999. "The Economist and the Entrepreneur: Modernist Impulses in Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 31(1), pages 29-52, Spring.
    6. Hands,D. Wade, 2001. "Reflection without Rules," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521797962, January.
    7. J. Daniel Hammond, 1991. "Frank Knight's Antipositivism," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 359-381, Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luca Fiorito & Massimiliano Vatiero, 2021. "Frank H. Knight on social values in economic consumption: an archival note," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(1), pages 126-141, January.
    2. Marek Loužek, 2019. "Zakladatel chicagské školy Frank Hyneman Knight [Frank Hyneman Knight, the Founder of the Chicago School]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2019(2), pages 198-214.
    3. Luca Fiorito, 2015. "A Certain Amount of ‘Recantation'. On the Origins of Frank H. Knight’s Antipositivism," Department of Economics University of Siena 705, Department of Economics, University of Siena.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ole Røgeberg & Morten Nordberg, 2005. "A defence of absurd theories in economics," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 543-562.
    2. Yefimov, Vladimir, 2014. "Constructivisme social, évolution de la profession d’économiste, et projet pour sa réforme radicale [Social constructivism, Evolution of the economics profession, and design for its radical reform]," MPRA Paper 54594, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Vladiir Yefimov, 2015. "Two Disputes Of Methods, Three Constructivisms, And Three Liberalisms. Part I," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(1), pages 29-38.
    4. Yefimov, V. M., 2015. "Two Disputes of Methods Three Constructivisms and Three Liberalisms. Part I," R-Economy, Ural Federal University, Graduate School of Economics and Management, vol. 1(1), pages 24-33.
    5. Ross B. Emmett, 2014. "Economics Is Not All of Life," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 11(2), pages 144-152, May.
    6. Andrea Salanti, 2020. "All That Glitters Is Not Gold: The Case of Mainstream Pluralism," Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Economics, History and Political Science, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino (Italy), vol. 54(2), pages 287-310, December.
    7. Yefimov, Vladimir, 2014. "Two disputes of methods, three constructivisms, and three liberalisms," MPRA Paper 56499, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont, 2014. "Onblog Economics Muddle Busting," MPRA Paper 60543, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont, 2012. "The rhetoric of failure: a hyper-dialog about method in economics and how to get things going," MPRA Paper 43276, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Giandomenica Becchio, 2020. "The Two Blades of Occam's Razor in Economics: Logical and Heuristic," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-17, July.
    11. Aaron Wildavsky, 1994. "Why Self-Interest Means Less Outside of a Social Context," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 6(2), pages 131-159, April.
    12. Thunström, Linda & Nordström, Jonas & Shogren, Jason F., 2015. "Certainty and overconfidence in future preferences for food," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 101-113.
    13. Carl Christian von Weizsäcker, 2011. "Homo Oeconomicus Adaptivus – Die Logik des Handelns bei veränderlichen Präferenzen," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2011_10, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    14. Suzuki, Tomo, 2003. "The accounting figuration of business statistics as a foundation for the spread of economic ideas," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 65-95, January.
    15. Kanazawa, Satoshi, 2005. "Is "discrimination" necessary to explain the sex gap in earnings?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 269-287, April.
    16. Dhaval M. Dave, 2013. "Effects of Pharmaceutical Promotion: A Review and Assessment," NBER Working Papers 18830, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Steven N. Durlauf, 1996. "Statistical Mechanics Approaches to Socioeconomic Behavior," NBER Technical Working Papers 0203, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Manolis Galenianos & Rosalie Liccardo Pacula & Nicola Persico, 2012. "A Search-Theoretic Model of the Retail Market for Illicit Drugs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 1239-1269.
    19. Gordon Burt, 1997. "Cultural Convergence in Historical Cultural Space-Time," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 21(4), pages 291-305, December.
    20. Meier, Stephan & Sprenger, Charles, 2010. "Stability of Time Preferences," IZA Discussion Papers 4756, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:13:y:2006:i:4:p:571-605. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REJH20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.