Hutchison versus Machlup—On Indirect Testing and the Rationality Postulate

Though Milton Friedman’s essay, which will be reviewed in the next chapter, was written three years before the exchanges between Hutchison and Fritz Machlup which occurred in the mid-1950s in the pages of the Southern Economic Journal, I will review that debate first for the simple reason that, while Friedman’s work can easily stand as an independent contribution to the methodology of economics, Machlup’s case is explicitly directed against the views outlined in Hutchison’s book.