Introduction

Friedman's selection argument in his 1953 essay “The methodology of positive economics” (F53) received little attention in economic methodology. There may be several reasons for this. Friedman's exposition of the argument is so short and hidden in his lengthy defense of marginalism that it might easily have escaped the attention of economic methodologists. Alternatively, methodologists may have noticed the argument, but may have considered it to be too insignificant to Friedman's overall argument, too obviously just a rhetoric trick to savior marginalism, or simply as too obviously flawed to merit any discussion. Whatever the reason for this relative neglect by methodologists, the argument has not gone unnoticed in the economics literature. On the contrary, economists of different stripes and persuasion have taken up the argument and have bent it to their own purposes. Just the fact that this happened by itself warrants taking a closer look both at Friedman's original statement of the argument and the use that other economists subsequently made of it.

What exactly is there in Friedman's selection argument that has been found worthwhile to comment and elaborate upon? One of the aims of this chapter is to point out that different answers are given to this question. Different commentators have different ideas about what it is in Friedman's argument that warrants further consideration. As we shall see, the differences are vast. Different commentators concentrate on different aspects of the argument. Different commentators come up with different interpretations of the argument and of what the argument is meant to establish. And, last but not least, different commentators draw different conclusions as to what implications the argument has for economic theorizing.