ABSTRACT
The kinematics of intellectual history would make a field in its own right. There may be some universal laws governing the speed and trajectories with which the ideas of one field permeate another. Casual observation of the introduction of a sequence of philosophies (those of Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos) into methodological discussions in economics suggests that it takes ten to twenty years to make the transition between fields. The rule is borne out in the introduction of pragmatism into economics with a long lag from its revival in philosophy. References to W. V. O. Quine's (1951) pragmatic assault on the dogmas of empiricism are common among economic methodologists (e.g., Cross 1982; Caldwell 1982; McCloskey 1985). Pragmatic philosophy is implicit in the now ten-year-old rhetoric programme in economics. E. Roy Weintraub's (1990, 1991) recent assault on economic methodology is grounded in his readings of Richard Rorty (1979, 1982) and Stanley Fish (1980). Rorty is a self-described disciple of the early American pragmatist John Dewey; while not given to donning philosophical labels, Fish is a literary critic whose general perspective is nearly identical to Rorty's.1 Abraham Hirsch and Neil de Marchi (1990) interpret Milton Friedman as an implicit disciple of Dewey.
