ABSTRACT
Although Nassau Senior and John Stuart Mill earlier laid the groundwork, by common consensus the current practice in mainstream economics of distinguishing sharply between positive and normative economics was introduced by John Neville Keynes in 1890. He declared that “a positive science may be defined as a body of systematized knowledge concerning what is; a normative or regulative science as a body of systematized knowledge relating to criteria of what ought to be” (Keynes 1890, p. 34). He argued further that the objective of a positive science was to establish uniformities, while a normative science was preoccupied with the ideal.
