ABSTRACT

Prior to Terence Hutchison’s introduction of positivism in the late 1930s, the dominant methodological viewpoint in twentieth century economic thought stressed subjectivism, methodological individualism, and the self-evident nature of the basic postulates of economic theory.1 This particular vision of the appropriate methods for economics is eloquently expressed in Lionel Robbins’s classic tract, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. Though first published in 1932, his 1935 revision is a more comprehensive statement and will be the edition treated here. The marked contrast between the views of these two English economists makes Robbins’s study a fitting starting point for our investigation of twentieth century methodological thought.