Economic Science and Economists at the Present Day

Abstract

Exactly fifty-one years ago, a great Italian scholar, Maffeo Pantaleoni, speaking at the University of Geneva, proclaimed a thesis the repercussions of which are still with us: ‘that the history of economic doctrines should contain only the history of economic truths, and not that of economic errors.’ At the time Pantaleoni’s thesis was disputed by the majority; and indeed, a survey of some of the most famous syntheses of the history of economic theory — those of Cossa and Gide, for instance — inclined one to the belief that our scientific works should reflect the battles being fought out in the world’s newspapers, parliaments and market squares.

Address delivered on 5 November 1949 on the occasion of the inauguration of the academic year 1949–50, University of Turin. First published in International Social Science Bulletin, Paris 1950, no. 2, pp. 160–71.