ABSTRACT
It is difficult to summerize McCloskey's argument briefly and fairly, given the wide range of topics he covers and the distinctiveness and force of his literary style. The conscientious critic faces the task of separating the grains of cognitive wheat from the polemical and declamatory chaff; of exposing and assessing the central argument without being unduly distracted by the accompanying rhetorical embellishments and the parade of sources and authorities unfamiliar to many methodologists, let alone humble workaday practising economists.
