Smith and Walras: Two Theories of Science

Author(s): Dusan Pokorny

Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Canadian Journal of Economics / Revue canadienne d'Economique, Vol. 11, No. 3
(Aug., 1978), pp. 387-403
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Canadian Economics Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/134313 .
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Smithand Walras:two theoriesof science

D U S A N P O K O R N Y / University of Toronto

Abstract. Despite appearances, Walras's theory of science is very different from

Smith's. Walras's point of departure is Plato, of whom Smith is sharply critical.
Walras sees economics as a wholy deductive system whose assumptions need not
be true and whose propositions do not have to be confirmed by data before being
applied. Smith stresses empirical testing, although he recognizes that it can never
completely free our knowledge of the influence of conventions whose origin is in the
mind itself. As a result of these differences, the kind of statement regarded as a
theorem by Walras need not be regarded so by Smith.
Smith et Walras: deux theories de la science. Malgre les apparences, la theorie de la
science de Walras differe considerablement de celle de Smith. Ia perspective walrasienne prend ses racines dans Platon que Smith pour sa part critique vertement.
Walras considere la science economique comme un systeme entierement deductif
erige sur des postulats qui n'ont pas a etre vrais et compose de propositions qui n'ont
pas a etre confirmees par l'observation avant de servir. Smith met l'accent sur la
verification empirique meme s'il reconnalt que la connaissance ne peul jamais se
liberer completement de l'influence des conventions qui ont leur origine dans 1'esprit
lui-meme. A cause de ces diffe6rences,la sorte de proposition consideree comme tin
theoreme par Walras n'est pas necessairement tenue pour tel par Smith.
The recent two hundredth anniversary of the Wealth of Nations, coinciding as
it did with the centenary of the Elements of Pure Economics, prompted
economists to ask anew the old question of what Adam Smith and Leon
Walras had in common and where they differed. Of the many facets of such
an inquiry into the diverse origins of modern economics, this article is concerned with only one: the relationship between the theory of science proThe firstdraft of this article was preparedas a part of my comments on William Jaffe's
insightful and thought-provokingpaper, presented during the Tenth Annual Meeting
of the CanadianEconomics Association in Quebec City, and subsequentlypublished
in this JOURNAL. In giving the article its present form, I draw upon comments from the
chairmanof the session, Vincent W. Bladen, and from Professor Jaffe himself. For
further suggestionsand advice, I am indebtedto my colleagues Samuel Hollander and
David Nowlan. Any remaining errors and insufficiencesare, of course, my own.
Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'Economique, XI, no. 3
August/aofit 1978. Printed in Canada/Imprim6 au Canada.

0008-4085/78/0000-0387

$01.50/!1978

Canadian Economics Association

388/ Dusan Pokorny

pounded by the Scottish philosopher, and that put forward by the French
theorist. Since both were no doubt inspired by Newton, the temptation is great
to conclude that in this respect too Walras simply failed to recognize how
close he in fact was to Smith (Jaffe 1977, 27-8). However, I shall try to
show that, appearances notwithstanding, they started from profoundly differing ideas about the nature of scientific inquiry.
ADAM

SMITH

In outlining his theory of science, Smith begins with the notion of conventional perception of objects and their sequences, a perception in which 'the
chain of events presented to the senses' appears to 'fall in with the natural
career of the imagination,' so that 'there is no break, no stop, no gap, no interval' (Smith, Astronomy, 40). The mind is at rest and feels no need to inquire
into what it apprehends. Of course, what is thus 'the natural course of things'
to one mind need not appear so to another. Just as a musician develops a 'nicer
ear' which will allow him to discern a dissonance where others hear only harmony, so 'the more practised thought of a philosopher ... will often feel an
interval betwixt two objects, which, to more careless observers, seem very
strictly conjoined.' Thus, the flow of events that was customary and smooth, is
interrupted; and the mind, seeing a gap, requires that it be bridged. But how is
that to be done?
In the first place, the supposition is that we have, so to speak, missed something. That is, the gap perceived in the observed 'train of events' is to be filled
in by a 'connecting chain of intermediate events' (ibid. 43, 44, 41). Since the
'connections' are said to be 'events,' they are thought to 'be there,' even if they
are not observable. However, because of the latter circumstance, to 'reveal'
them means really to 'construct' them - but in such a manner that they fit, as
neatly as possible, the events observed. For Adam Smith, therefore, a theoretical system is 'an imaginary machine invented to connect together in the fancy
those different movements and effects which are already in reality performed.'"
Thus, the 'machine' of theory not only exists 'in the fancy' and is therefore, in
its being different from the reality it aspires to depict: it is also 'imaginary' in
1 Ibid. 50. The impressionthat Smith leaned towards a realistic epistemological position
is supportedby his insistence that 'pressureor resistance [of the objects of touch - DP]
necessarily presupposesexternality in the thing which presses or resists' (1795/1967,
185). The point made here is further stressed in the following passage. 'This power or
quality of resistancewe call Solidity and the thing which possesses it, the Solid Body
or Thing. As we feel it as something altogether external to us, so we necessarily
conceive it as something altogether independent of us. We consider it, therefore, as
what we call a Substance, or as a thing that subsists by itself, and independentof any
other thing' (187). Finally, the 'notion of what has been called impenetrabilityof
matter; or the absolute impossibilitythat two solid resisting substances should occupy
the same place at the same time' is specificallyassociatedwith Leucippus,Democritus,
Epicurus,Gassendi,and Newton (190).

Smith and Walras: two theories of science /389

the sense that the 'laying open' of the hidden 'intermediate events,' necessary
for the establishment of the order and coherence which the mind requires,2
always includes short-cuts, leaps, and flights of human fantasy.
Although the 'intermediate events' are not observable, our minds' attempts
to approximate them must be related to some outstanding, eminent feature of
everyday experience. The unobserved has to be expressed in terms of something intelligible and, at least in principle, acceptable to common sense. This is
the role of Smith's 'connecting principles.' They should be 'familiar' to us; but
they must enable the crucial step from empirical familiarity to theoretical
universality. The classical example of such an explanatory principle is, of
course, Newton's gravity, or rather, as Adam Smith puts it, 'universality of
gravity."3This is the theory which the latter goes on record as considering
superior to all those advanced prior to it. And if we ask why, we learn that
Newton devised 'a system whose parts are more strictly connected together,
than those of any other philosophical system' (107). From the context it is
clear that what is praised is not simply the internal consistency of the theory
but its confirmation by the data at hand.4
An emphasis on the material criterion of truth is suggested also by Adam
Smith's critique of Plato. He first reports without demur that, in the ancient
Greek philosopher's view, philosophy should 'consider the general Essence of
things only and ... abstract from all their particular and sensible circumstances.'
(Smith, Metaphysics, 130, 125-6). But Smith is at pains to stress that 'it was
by the sensible qualities ... that we judged the specific Essence of each object.'
He complains that Plato's postulate of the universals possessing 'an external
existence, independent of the act of understanding,' resulted in 'the fallacious
experiment which showed that a person might be lead to discover himself,
without any information, any general truth, of which he was before ignorant,
merely by asking a number of properly arranged and connected questions about
it' (134, 126, 129). Finally, Smith concludes that Plato's doctrine concerning
'Species or Specific Essence of things' is an 'abstract philosophy' which 'seems
to have arisen, more from the nature of language, than from the nature of
2 Smitlhwrites of 'the natural propensitiesof the imagination'and mentions regularity
and orderliness, repose and tranquility, smoothness and easy coherence (Astronomy,
71, 61; Physics, 110-11). In one of the early systems of astronomy, the 'appearances
of the Planets' are said to 'remainas loose and incoherentin the fancy, as they at first
appearedto the senses' (Astronomy, 64). At the same time, philosophy 'never triumphs
so much as when, in order to connect together a few, in themselves, perhaps, inconsiderableobjects, she has ... created anotherconstitutionof things, more natural indeed,
and such as the imagination can more easily attend to, but more new, more contrary
to common opinion and expectation,than any of those appearancesthemselves' (75-6).
3 Astronomy, 46, 98, 100, 110; 107. As Smith puts it, 'we never act upon it [upon matter]
without having occasion to observe this property,'i.e. gravity (107).
4 'Allow [the] principle, the universalityof gravity, and that it decreases as the squares
of the distance increase, and all the appearances,which he joins together by it, necessarily follow' (107). The view that Adam Smith's methodology was essentially
empirical and inductive, is the central thesis of Bitterman (1940, esp. 497-9).

390/ Dusan Pokorny

things.'5 Thus there are no separately existing, pure universals interposed
between the sensible object and the mind which conceives it; it is through the
intermediation of genuine data that we learn about the organizing principles of
the world around us.
But Adam Smith is also aware of some of the limitations of the empiricist's
appeal to data and experience. He appears to believe that we perceive an
'event' as a whole and therefore try to encompass it by one word. Thus, having
'carved' a unique 'event' out of the totality of our surroundings - presumably
in accordance with our interests, or with our initial understanding of the
'goings on' - our 'natural' tendency is to give it a name, or at least to capture
the whole of it in a single word. Gradually, however, we come to realize the
limits of this procedure - limits inherent in the construction of the human
mind - and have recourse to the device of imposing upon the 'event' a structure
which is 'artificial' in the sense of resulting partly from the properties of our
language, or 'metaphysical' in reproducing only partially the 'real' composition
of the 'event' concerned.6 In short, there is no inherent reason to expect that
procedures founded primarily in human concerns7 and reflecting the limitations
of man's mental faculties8 will necessarily direct us to what nature is 'as such.'
5 For future use, let me quote here the passage in full: 'Such was the doctrine of Plato
concerningthe Species or Specific Essence of things. This, at least, is what his words
seem to import, and thus he is understood by Aristotle, the most intelligent and the
most renowned of all his disciples. It is a doctrine which, like many of the other
doctrines of abstractPhilosophy, is more coherent in the expression than in the idea;
and which seems to have arisen, more from the nature of language, than from the
natureof things' (Metaphysics, 130).
6 'The phrases, Alexander ambullat, Alexanider walks ... divide the event, as it were, into

two parts,the person or the subject,and the attribute,or matterof fact, affirmedof the
subject.But in nature,the idea or conception of Alexanderwalking, is as perfectly and
completely one simple conception,as that of Alexander not walking. The division of
this event, therefore, into two parts, is altogether artificial,and it is the effect of the
imperfectionof our language,which, upon this, as upon many other occasions, supplies,
by a numberof words, the want of one, which could expressat once the whole matter
of fact that was meant to be affirmed.Every body must observe how much more
simplicitythere is in the naturalexpression,plavit,it rains, than in the more artificial
expressions, imber decidit, the rain falls; or temnpestasest pluvia, the weather is rainy.

In these two last expressions,the simple event, or matter of fact, is artificiallysplit and
divided in the one, into two; in the other, into three parts' (Smith, 1761/1967, 239-40).
'In the beginningsof language, men seem to have attemptedto express every particular
event ... by a particularword, which expressedat once the whole of that event. But as
the number of words must, in this case, have become really infinite, in consequence of
the really infinite variety of events, men found themselves partly compelled by
necessity, and partly conducted by nature, to divide every event into what may be
called its metaphysicalelements, and to institute words, which should denote not so
much the events, as the elements of which they are composed' (242; see also 241 and
the discussionof Lindgren'sarticle below).
7 In connection with the origin and development of language, Adam Smith refers to
people's 'wants,'to 'necessary occasion,' and to various degrees of 'experience' (225).
8 We can handle only a limited number of individualnames but we have the ability to
conceive of classes of objects and to denote them by universals (226-9). Similarly, we
can keep track only of a limited numberof variationsof verbs and nouns. However, in
the case of the former, suffixesare replaced by personalpronouns;in the latter instance,
prepositionsare substitutedfor suffixes to express relations and adjectives are added

Smith and Wairas: two theories of science /391

But conventions of language, however important, compose only one species
of a genus. The 'natural career of imagination' which determines what we are
prepared to accept without wonder or question at a certain point of time is
primarily a feature of the social, rather than the individual, psyche: it relates
to the state of knowledge in general, or represents a tacit agreement among
men on what is to be accepted as a 'natural course of things.' The philosopher's
revolt against this complacency, no matter how influenced by the unique traits
of his personality, is a response to this consensus. Even if he rejects it, he still
rejects it: the new hypothesis cannot overcome all the limitations of the
preceding conventional wisdom. Thus, when Adam Smith follows the progress
of astronomy and other fields of systematic knowledge he is in fact revealing
to us how a kind of covenant on what questions to ask and what aspects of
reality to select for investigation, on what formal criteria a hypothesis should
satisfy and what would constitute its confirmation and falsification - how a
covenant on these all-important matters is, time and again, replaced by another
covenant.9 And so it becomes clear that the testing procedures invoked in the
to denote qualities. Of course, pronouns, prepositions, and adjectives are 'general
words'denoting classes of objects, qualities,or relations (231-5).
9 Having defined philosophy as 'the science of the connecting principles of nature,'
Smith writes of its 'revolutions'yielding a sequence of 'differentsystems of nature.'
The first of these funidamentalchanges is associated with man's progress from the age
of savagery to that of early civilizationi.The resulting alteration in the human
perception of the world is characterizedas follows. Attention shifts fronma few
magnificient irregularities'(comets, eclipses, thunder etc.) to many, and even the
smallest irregularities.'Their explanationwas originally in terms of 'intelligent,though
invisible causes'which do not support'the ordinarycourse of things,' but act 'to stop,
to thwart,and to disturbit.' Later, the explanation of 'irregularities'tends to require
'some chain of intermediaryevents' and 'may thus render the whole course of the
universe consistent and of a piece.' Thus, the explanationextends also to the 'ordinary
course of things' which was earlier seen as merely going on 'of its own accord'
(Astronomy, 47-50). Another, albeit relatively more narrow, change in the human
perceptionof the universe is the replacementof the Ptolemaic system by that of
Copernicus. In accounting for this change, Smith stresses the importance of two
factors: the accumulation, over long periods of time, of observational data which
rendered Ptolemy's hypothesis less and less tenable; and the resulting sequence of
intermediaryadjustmentswhich made it more and more complex, and thus 'embarrassing' to the mind which craves for simplicity (64-77). Dealing with further
developments,Smith illustratesthe 'naturalprejudicesof imagination'by the notion of
the Earth's'naturalinertness' (a conviction which militated against the acceptance of
Copernicus'ssystem) and the belief that perfection of the heavens required the orbits
of celestial bodies to be circular (a prejudicewhich delayed the acceptanceof Kepler's
ellipses) (77-80; 86-7). Smith also observes that theories which have succeeded in
gaining 'any general credit on the world' are those the 'connectingprinciples'of which
appear 'familiar to all mankind';while 'chemical philosophy' serves to demonstrate
that systems which explain the order of nature in terms of what is familiar only to
specialists have 'in all ages crept along in obscurity' (46). Thus, there is an intimate
connection between the sketch of the world that the 'generalityof mankind'works out
in their daily life (in productiveactivities as well as mutual contacts between individuals) and both the generation and the acceptanceof scientific theories. In this way, the
progressof systematicknowledgeis clearly seen as a social process which is not limited
to the scientific community itself: it depends on the development of over-all patterns
of world perceptioncommon to both the layman and the 'artist'or theorist. And this

392 / Dusan Pokorny

empirical conception of truth are themselves dependent upon conventions
embodied in the episteme10of the historical period in question.
All this virtually rules out the possibility that Adam Smith accepted the
maxims of simple empiricism. But it does not mean that, in his view, evidence
of our senses reveals nothing at all about nature as it really is. A recent attempt
to portray Smith as a pure conventionalist"1misses one point of his argument
and misreads another.
As we have seen, Smith does contrast the innate wholeness of the event itself
with our language's contrived construction of it. In modern terms, the distinction is rendered as follows: (a) 'Objects,' 'objective states,' or 'objective events'
are said to be unstructured wholes or, at most, to possess only a 'simple
structure.' (b) The object, state, or event is described in an utterance. What
makes a sequence of individual words an utterance, is their mutual relation:
the 'grammatical part' of the utterance, its 'unity' or structure. In accordance
with this structure, the hearer's mind constructs the composite, mosaic-like
image of the event signified. The discrepancy between the natural wholeness
of (a) and the artificial 'complexity' of (b) is then presented as a proof that
'there can be no warrant for even wondering whether the structure of our ideas
corresponds to that of the objective states they represent' (Lindgren, 1969,
908-9). But this extreme view does not do justice to Adam Smith's position.
For, as we have also seen, he is careful to note that, in dividing the 'event' into
'elements,' men are 'partly conducted by nature' (see n. 6). Thus, the real
world does influence the composition of our ideas about it, and to the degree
that such influence is present the structure of the 'event' is not a product of
language conventions alone. This seems to indicate that while our division of
the 'simple event' yields a product which, seen as a whole, is 'artificial' or
'metaphysical,' it contains elements or aspects that are, or at least approximate
what is, 'natural'or 'real.'
So much for what I believe to be the part missing from the conventionalist
developmentitself is of course influencedby the permeationof specializedor theoretical
knowledge into the world-viewof the 'commonman.'
10 This term is borrowed from Michel Foucault. He uses it as shorthandfor 'epistemological field,' or 'positive basis of knowledge,' as we find it employed by various
scientificdisciplines (Foucault, 1966/1973, xxi-xxii). It is also the 'positiveunconscious
of knowledge' (xi) and is explained as 'the pure experience of order and of its modes
of being,' an experience which is 'in every culture between the use of what one might
call the ordering codes and reflectionsupon order itself' (xxi). The ordering codes
themselves are characterizedas 'the fundamentalcodes of a culture - those governing
its language, its schemes of perception, its exchanges, its techniques, its values, the
hierarchyof its practices- [which] establish for every man, from the very first, the
empirical orders with which he will be dealing and within which he will be at home'
(xx).

11 Lindgren (1969, 908) Before Lindgren, Becker (1961) noticed some of the peculiarities of Adam Smith's treatnIentof language. Unlike Lindgren, however, Becker
stressed Smith's 'allegiance to empirical method' (13) and appeared to associate the
latter's concern for language with the belief that 'the rules of ... employment ... of

common language ... would support his needs for consistency and empirical
relevance' (21 ).

Smith and Walras: two theories of science /393

argument. As for the misreading of Smith's text, it is plain to the naked eye.
We are given to understand that Smith himself writes that 'the structure of our
ideas seems to have arisen more from the nature of language, than from the
nature of things' (Lindgren, 1969, 908). However, a glance at Smith's essay
will show that the statement contrasting 'the nature of language' with 'the
nature of things' does not refer to 'the structure of our ideas' but to 'the doctrine of Plato concerning the Species or Specific Essence of things' (see n. 5).
Adam Smith does not affirmthat the way we organize our image of the world is
derivable solely from the properties of our language; on the contrary he criticizes Plato for putting forward a philosophical system which is coherent in
terms of words, but not in terms of ideas, evidently meaning ideas which relate
to something real. And this censure of Plato makes sense only if Adam Smith
himself believed that the human mind is, at least to some degree, capable of
approximating the 'nature of things.'
It is in this light that we have to see also the concluding passage of the
'Astronomy,' which has been cited to support the claim that Smith, in effect,
embraced the epistemological position of a pure conventionalist.12 Let me
quote the two sentences in full:
And even we, while we have been endeavouring to represent all philosophical
systems as mere inventions of the imagination,to connect together the otherwise
disjointedand discordantphenomenaof nature, have insensibly been drawn in, to
make use of languageexpressingthe connectingprinciplesof this one [meaning,of
the system of Newton - DP], as if they were the real chains which Nature makes
use to bind togetherher severaloperations.Can we wonder then, that it should have
gained the general and complete approbationof mankind, and that it should now
be considered,not as an attempt to connect in the imaginationthe phaenomena of
the Heavens, but as the greatest discovery that ever was made by man, the discovery of an immense chain of the most importantand sublime truths, all closely
connected together, by one capital fact [namely, the universalityof gravity - DP]
of the realityof whichwe have daily experience.
Thus, the general public is said to make the mistake of conceiving of a
'connecting principle' as a 'fact.' And Adam Smith himself writes on the
preceding page of gravity as an observable property of matter (see n. 3). In
both these instances, the familiarity of seeing unsupported things fall to the
ground seems to be confounded with the universality of gravity as an explanatory principle. But to draw attention to this kind of error would not be the
same thing as maintaining that there is nothing at all to connect"Newton's
theory with the way nature actually operates. Of course, we do not know which
of his earlier statements Smith wanted to correct and cannot be sure of what
precisely he intended to convey by the two sentences quoted. However, they
may remind us of a passage in which Smith writes of 'the indolent imagination'
whose product 'eludes the grasp of the imagination' - meaning that, 'upon an
12 Lindgrenrefers to this passage (1969, 901, n. 25); the quote is from Smith (Astronomy,
108).

394/ Dusan Pokorny

attentive consideration,' the.,purious notion 'vanishes' as 'incomprehensible."3
To be sure, 'imagination,' especially an unattentive one, may, as we know, go
so far as to substitute 'the nature of language' for 'the nature of things.' But
to say so, or rather to feel entitled to think in these terms, is already to argue
that not all imagination is of this kind: that the connecting theoretical chains
may be imaginary without being wholly, and necessarily, products of individual
'fancies' or historically developed conventions. Therefore, in my view, Smith's
text, taken as a whole, does not support the claim that he was a pure conventionalist, holding that 'the laws which govern events in the extremental order if indeed there are any - can never be known by man' (Lindgren, 1969, 901).
All in all, it seems that, underlying a variety of Smith's statements among
which we do not find an unambiguous commitment to a clear-cut epistemological position, there is a view that can be summarized as follows. We can identify
progress in scientific knowledge: we can judge some theories to be better than
others. The meaning of 'better' is determined by two circumstances. First, that
human mind is capable of obtaining some knowledge of the real structure of
the world. Second, that the historical process of gaining knowledge starts from,
and includes the development of, conventions whose origin as in the mind itself
and of which the mind can never rid itself completely. Empirical tests mnay
undermine some of them, but others will inevitably, and always, underlie any
such test. Therefore, to pass the test is not to obtain the proof of full, absolute
knowledge. But such tests are meaningful in that they guide our mind in its
efforts to extend the jurisdiction of the familiar to the provinces of the hidden.
For they allow us to distinguish between theories that, in doing so, achieve
results compatible with the data obtained by observation, and theories that do
not.14 The first are then judged acceptable in the sense of coming closer to, and
the second are rejected as departing further from, the 'nature' of things
themselves.
From the point of view of pure empiricism and pure conventionalism alike,
this is an inconsistent, eclectic position.'5 In the present context, the important
thing is that Adam Smith's emphasis, in his discussion of Newton versus
Descartes16 (and indeed in his whole history of science), on confirmation, or
13 The passage is a part of Smith's critique of Plato's Specific Essences of things
(Metaphysics, 132).
14 This feature of Adam Smith's epistemological views is stressed by Campbell (1971).
'Smith notes that however well a theory satisfies imaginative and therefore aesthetic
criteria, it is rejected if it does not fit observed data' (41). 'The close relationshipthat
Smith builds up between theory and observationsbegins with the assertion that it is on
account of the wonder and surprise aroused by the visible and tangible world that
scientific explanations are sought in the first place' (41-2). 'We can say, then, that
when Smith moves from explaining the popular progress of scientific knowledge to an
assessment of the reasons which are, in the last analysis, decisive for scientific truth,
he stresses the importance of the detailed correspondencebetween the deductive
consequences of theories and observationsof the phenomena which they purport to
explain' (45).
15 This view is perhapsmost clearly articulatedin Thomson (1965, 219-20).
16 Mini (1974) makes Adam Smith an adherentof Descartes, rather than Newton. More

Smith and Walras: two theories of science /395

falsification, of theories by the data at hand, his critique of Plato and his reference to men, in dividing 'events' into 'abstract elements,' being 'partly guided
by nature,' allows us to conclude that he regarded the human mind as capable
of gaining some knowledge of the real world and empirical tests as serving to
separate, albeit not absolutely, well-grounded hypotheses from untenable
fancies.
LEON

WALRAS

Turning to Walras, we enter a different world. Newton is no longer beheld with

wonder, enshrined in the philosopher's niche: he has been assimilated into
conventional wisdom and, at least in some less demanding ways, has become
the property of all. The task, therefore, is not so much to explicate his system
and present it as the embodiment of a method that is of general validity and to
be followed in a general sort of way. Rather, the stress is on application in a
much more literal sense of the word: on allowing an unduly rationalistic interpretation of Newton's concept of inquiry to penetrate, and 'take over,' other
sciences, believed to be still labouring under the spell of medieval metaphysics.
Originally a student of technical sciences, Walras became committed to this
goal of refashioning social sciences after the miodel of mathematics, geometry,
specifically, he leaves the reader with the impression that Adam Smith accepted
Newton's methodology because, or to the extent that, it followed the prescripts of
Descartes (88). However, a careful readingof Adam Smith'sphilosophical essays will
show that he looked at Descartes through the eyes of Newton and espoused the latter's
method, in part, because it differedfrom that of the former. For instance,Smith writes:
'The system of [Des Cartes], however, though it connected together the real motions
of the heavenly bodies accordingto the system of Copernicus,more happily than had
been done before, did so only when they were considered in the gross; but did not apply
to them, when they were reoardedin the detail. Des Cartes, as was said before, had
ne'ver hiimself observed the Heaviens witli any particular application. Though he was
not ignorant, therefore, of any of the observations which had been made before his
time, he seems to have paid them nio great degr ee of attention. So far, therefore, from
accommodatinghis system to all the minor irregularities,which Kepler has ascertained
in the movements of the Planets ... he [Des Cartes] contented himself with observing
that perfect uniformity could not be expected in their motions ... a remark which,
happily, relieved him from the necessity of applying his system to the observations of
Kepler, and the other Astronomers. But when the

obsercvationas

of Cassini had estab-

lished the authority of those laws, which Kepler had first discovered in the system, the
philosophy of Des Cartes, which could afford no reason, why such particullarlaws
should be observed, inight conitinule to anninse the learined in othter sciences, blut coulld
no longer satisfy those that wi)ereskilled in Astroniomiiy'(Astronomy, 99, emphasis
mine - DP. See also Smith's references to Descartes in Astronomy 42, 89, 105 and in
1755/1967, 17-18). It seems clear, then, that Smith not only noted that Descartes'
system was supersedledby that of Newton; he also criticized the French philosopher's
method of inquiry, namely, his inclination to engage in abstract speculation and his
concomitant disregardfor empirical data. That this is a critique from Newton's point
of view is confirmedby what Mini himself writes about the two thinkers. Descartes
4conceived mathematicsas the unquestionedmistress of the mind-matterrelation ...
Newton held facts to be supreme, to the point of even dictating the speculative interest
of the pure mathematician!That is, mathematicsitself is to be modelled ort experience'
(Mini, 1974, 85-6. Cf. Jaffe, 1977, 28).

396/ Dusan Pokorny

and mechanics17 almost as soon as he began to be concerned with social studies;
and his references to, or discussions of, Newton do not seem to have ever gone
beyond the basic theme of his economics representing a 'consistent application'
of, and ultimately a 'complete analogy' with, Newtonian mechanics."8This is
true even of 'Economics and Mechanics,' one of the last papers he was to
publish, in which he discussed the similarities between the two systems in considerable detail.'9 That essay tried to give a rigorous formal expression to what
he described as a 'striking' or 'perfect' analogy between pure mechanics and
pure economics (Jaff6, 1965, letters 1722, 1735, 1727). This aim would have
oeen best served by showing that the two systems are, at least in their main
theorems, isomorphic - but if this was the goal, Walras did not achieve it. True,
both the equilibrium in the exchange of two commodities and that of a steelyard
are phrased in terms of four variables and invoke the concept of proportionality; in the first case, however, it is direct proportionality and in the second
an inverse one. In terms of values and quantities, the general market equilibrium equation is structurally identical to that of celestial bodies; but this is not
true for prices.20
17 Smith includes astronomy and mathematics among the sciences which, like medicine
and chemistry, 'requireonly plain judgment joined to labour and assiduity, without
demanding a great deal of what is called either taste or genius' (1755/1967, 16-17).
The point, of course, is that these technical disciplines were to his mind quite different
from the humanities,to which political economy belonged.
18 Jaffe (1965). See, for instance, letters 256 (1874) and 81 (1862). Letters 1-599 are
includedin volume 1, letters 600-1322 in volume 2, and letters 1323-1783 in volume 3.
19 Walras ( 1909). I am grateful to Professor Jaffe for lending me his reprintof the paper.
20 Walras (1909) investigatestwo instances of analogy between the two systems. First,
he comparesthe conditions of equilibriumof the exchange of two goods with the conditions of equilibriumof a steelyard. In economics, equilibriumrequires that prices be
directly proportionateto marginal utilities. In mechanics, the weights suspended from
two arms of the steelyard must be inversely proportionate to the latters' lengths.
Both theorems are similar to the extent that proportionalitymust obtain; but the
differencebetween direct and inverse proportionalityexcludes structuralidentity in the
rigorous sense of the term. Second, Walras compares the conditions of general market
equilibriumwith those of the universal equilibriumof heavenly bodies. Here, the basic
basic idea is that values (Va, Vb, VC ...) correspondto accelerations (ca, cf, c-y ... and
quantities of commodities (qa, qb, q, ...) to the masses of celestial bodies (mna, mf,
m-y... ). Then, just as the market equilibriumrequiresthat in any exchange the product
of the quantityand the value of one commodity is equal to the product of the quantity
and the value of the other commodity (q,,va = qbVb= qcvc
...)
so the celestial
equilibriumstipulatesthat, for all the heavenly bodies, the equality of the product of
mass and acceleration (maca - m/3cl3 - myc-y
...).
The two systems are isomorphic - provided they are considered in isolation of the next move which Walras
makes. In economics, quantitiesare measuredin physical units and prices are expressed
in terms of the numeraire (pb - Vb/Va). In astronomy, ca is pictured as playing a
role similar to va; but ma is also a kind of numeraireused for the purpose of expressing
the mass of other celestial bodies (np - mP/ma). Then, in the equilibriumcondition
at the level of prices,the numerairecommodity appears as a quantity(qa = qbpb =
qpc =...).
In the correspondingn-level equilibrium condition in astronomy, the
numerairebody appears, by contrast, as the numeraire acceleration (ca = n,Bc
= n-ycy -...).
This discrepancyshows that the two systems in their final shapes are
not just two interpretationsof the same formal system. (In order to bring out the
structuraldissimilarity,I use a notation which is, in part, differentfrom that employed
=

Smith and Walras: two theories of science /397

However, Walras writes that there exists one, and only one, difference
between the two sets of theorems, and this difference turns out to be substantive.
On one hand there is the exteriority of mechanical phenomena and the objective measurability as well as relative constancy of the forces operating in this
sphere. On the other hand we have the 'intimacy' of economic phenomena and
the lack of objective measurability, as well as considerable variability, of the
psychic 'forces,' or conditions. Despite these differences, however, in concluding his article Walras insists that 'economics has the same clainmto being a
mathematical science as does mechanics or astronomy' (Walras, 1909, 11-13,
2-3). In his mind, the justification of the claim or title being really 'the same'
is likely to have been the 'perfect' analogy he believed he had established
between the central propositions of the two sciences. But their structures were
in fact not altogether identical nor the analogy quite that perfect. As a result,
the message of the piece is not clear. Either the whole tortuous search for
'analogy' ultimately yielded only the meagre result of establishing that economics uses the language of mathematics, and in this rather limited sense is on
a par with mechanics or astronomy, or we have to look elsewhere for what the
words 'the same claim' might have meant for the propounder of pure economics.
If Walras viewed Newton more narrowly, or less philosophically, than
Smith, he was more explicit than the author of the Wealth of Nations in defining his epistemological position. The Elements of Pure Economics include an
item not to be found in the older work, namely, a sketch of the 'general philosophy of science' from which the 'particularphilosophy of political and social
economy' is derived. This piece begins by what is virtually a quote from Plato,
a passage that, with minor variations, can be found also in Adam Smith's
account of Platonic philosophy. It is to the effect that 'science does not study
corporeal entities but universals.' But this is the only thing the two renderings
of the Platonic approach to science have in common. For Walras not only
considers this statement to be 'a truth long ago demonstrated by the Platonic
philosophy,' without qualifying his approval in any way but also allows this
indubitable truth to include an addendum according to which the corporeal
entities are 'manifestations' of universals (Walras, 1874-7/1954, 60-1). Depending on the interpretation of Plato's theory of Forms, this statement may
mean either of the following two things.
Most commentators, including Aristotle and Adam Smith himself, believe
that Plato endowed universals with a separate real existence, independent and
by Walras). It may be added that, as Walras knew, Jevons too had observed the
anology between the conditions of equilibrium in the exchange of two goods, and
those of a lever. In his case, however, the analogy is perfect because in his presentation
prices are replaced by quantities of the goods exchanged (1871/1965, 102-6).
Similarly, it may be possible to rearrangethe elements of the second comparison to
bring the two systems closer together. However, in the first instance the systems
compared are, and in the second they would be, differentfrom those employed by
Walrashimself.

398/ Dusan Pokorny

distinct from mind and sensible objects. If Walras espoused this interpretation,
which was predominant in his time and is still so today, his reference to corporal
entities being manifestations of universals implied an affirmation, in 1874, of
the doctrine of separate, external existence of universals, a doctrine which
Adam Smith, writing in 1750,21 thought had been 'universally exploded' by
the second century AD,2" and a doctrine which Smith himself emphatically
rejected.
The later Platonists and their followers held that universals were not to be
understood as having a separate, external existence in their own right: Forms
were said to be only thoughts in a Supreme Divine Mind. If this is what Walras
meant, he was committing himself to a theologically influenced Platonism,
which abandoned the idea of universals as special existences but retained most
of the other features of Plato's conception of knowledge.
Now, it is always conceivable that the reference to 'manifestation' was a
slip of pen, or a momentary aberration. But the espousal of Plato's concept of
science is another matter and cannot be dismissed so lightly. Even in Walras's
subsequent elaboration on the fundamental 'truth long ago demonstrated by
the Platonic philosophy,' we find no critique of Plato. More specifically, there
is no mention of the point Adam Smith set such a high store on, namely,
'specific Essences' being judged by the 'sensible qualities.' On the contrary,
the emphasis is on divorcing the concepts themselves more and more from
particularities and real-life distinctions.
In what is evidently his crucial methodological pronouncement, Walras
writes that, following the procedure employed in the physico-mathematical
sciences, 'the pure theory of economics ought to take over from experience
certain type concepts, like those of exchange, supply, demand, market, capital,
income, productive services and products. From these real-type concepts the
pure science of economics should then abstract and define ideal-type concepts
in terms of which it carries on its reasoning ... Thus in an ideal market we have
ideal prices which stand in an exact relation to an ideal demand and supply.'
Moreover, he adds that 'the return to reality should not take place until the
science is completed and then only with a view to practical applications.' For
such sciences are expressly said to 'go back to experience not to confirm but
to apply their conclusions' (Walras, 1874-7/1954, 71).
If Walras meant what he said - and there seems no reason to doubt that
he did - we may tentatively identify two areas in which he radically departs
from the methodological principles advocated by Adam Smith.
21 Smith'sphilosophical essays were publishedfor the first time in 1795 but are believed
to have been writtenaround 1750.
22 'The later Platonists,who lived at a time when the notion of the separateexistence of
specific essences were universally exploded ... representedhis [Plato's] doctrine as
meaning no more than that the Deity formed the world after what we would now call
an Idea, or plan conceived in his own mind, in the same manner as any other artist'
(Smith, Metaphysics, 126n). The 'later Platonist' in question is probably Albinos, who
is generally credited with having reinterpretedPlato's theory of Forms in the above
sense. Albinos, now usually describedas a member of the Middle Platonic School, lived
in the second centuryAD.

Smith and Walras: two theories of science /399

First, except for the influence of the conventions inherent in the given
episteme, Smith's argument about the nature of scientific knowledge is conducted in terms of data whose actuality is unquestioned: the 'connecting
principle' is said to join together 'events' and 'appearances.' Indeed, it is through
the intermediation of such genuine data that we gain access to the properties
of universals, which, we are told, are the objects of philosophy, or science.
This conception of scientific knowledge apparently does not preclude occasional
use of thought-experiments, such as the discussion of 'that early and rude state
of society,' or 'that original state of things,' in the Wealth of Nations (47, 64).
But Walras clearly goes much further than that. In the universe of discourse of
pure economics, actual data are replaced by stylized 'data' across the board;
we are confronted with a separate, pure world of model with its own, imaginary
events and appearances. It is not difficult to see that an ideal market with ideal
products and ideal prices is a world of empirically untained universals. Thus,
the affinity with Plato becomes obvious, and so does the difference. The universals populating the mind-constructed world of an economic model are unlikely to be regarded as having an external existence of their own. What is
claimed for them is not a separate ontological posture but a special epistemological status. For the immediate object of investigation becomes the intermediate, artificial reality of the theorist's own creation, a reality whose entities
are in themselves non-observable, representing already the first step in the explanation of the behaviour of the corresponding, observable entities.
Second, Adam Smith's emphasis on 'connecting' actual phenomena led to
a great deal to stress on empirical testing of theories. Alternatively, using the
language of modern logic, we might say that Smith relied to a substantial
extent on the semantic conception of truth, on the material criterion of the
truth or falsity of propositions. In Walras, this concept of truth is absent.
Theories are not confirmed or falsified; they are applied. The presupposition
evidently is that the truth or falsity of theorems is established at the formal, or
syntactical, level; and their logical validity, or syntactic truth, having been
proved, one proceeds directly to putting them to a use or purpose. In this way,
the distinction between 'actual' event and 'imaginary' event becomes, at least
at the level of pure theory, immaterial. But the question is immediately posed
whether or not economics really is, or on precisely what grounds it should be
regarded as, a science whose propositions do not require empirical confirmation or are not subject to falsification by the data at hand.
Some of Walras's crucial pronouncements bearing on this issue are included
in his critique of Adam Smith's concept of economics. Having quoted the
definition of political economy from the introduction to Book Iv of the Wealth
of Nations,23 he contrasts it with his own perception of pure economics:
23 'Political economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesmanor legislator,
proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for
the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence
for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue
sufficientfor the public services"(Smith, 1776/1937, 397).

400 / Dusan Pokorny

Thus when the geometer states that an equilateral triangle is at the same time
equiangularand when the astronomerstates that the planets move in an elliptical
orbit at one of the foci of which is the sun, they are making statementswhich are
scientificin the strict sense of the term ... The primaryconcern of the economist is
not to provide a plentiful revenue for the people or to supply the State with an
adequateincome, but to pursueand masterpurelyscientific truths.That is precisely
what economistsdo when they assert,for example,that ... the rate of interestdeclines
in a progressiveeconomy ... In making statements such as these, economists are
working in pure science. Adam Smith did something of the sort himself. (Walras,
1874-7/1954, 52, my emphasis)
This statement may be summarized as follows: First, propositions of pure
economics are of the same kind as those of geometry; that is why they are
'scientific in the strict sense of the term.' Seconds, Adam Smith's theorem concerning the falling rate of profit may be 'something of this sort.'
Although Walras mentions them in the same breath, astronomy is not quite
the same kind of science as geometry. Mechanics and astronomy apply mathematics; geometry is a part of mathematics itself. The theorems of the former are
usually understood to require empirical confirmation or to permit falsification;
given the postulates, the propositions of the latter are subject to the criterion of
formal validity. If pure economics is a science which goes back to experience
'not to confirm but to apply' its conclusions, then geometry is indeed a perfect
model for it. It is a wholly deductive system in which theorems follow strictly
by formal logic from the postulates.24 If we ask, then, when an argument is
valid, the reply is that it is so if, and only if, its premises tautologically imply
its conclusions.25 This is not to say that the results of deductive reasoning are
trivial or useless; but the ensuing propositions certainly are present already in
their assumptions. It may be worthwhile to make explicit by formulating the
theorems what is, in the postulates themselves, only implicit. But no deduction
can go beyond the confines of this procedure.
Are Adam Smith's statements about the behaviour of the rate of profit to
be understood as the result of a purely deductive reasoning of the above kind?
Let us first summarize his argument. 1/ The market price of things commonly
diminishes as their quantity increases. 2/ This general principle is applicable
also to the stock of capital; as it increases, the profits of its employment necessarily diminish (Smith, 1776/1937, 336). 3/ This trend can be checked or
even reversed (cf. Hollander, 1973, 183) by disturbances such as the acquisition of new territory, or the introduction of new branches of trade (Smith,
24 Walras'sargumentis evidently in terms of Euclidean geometry. In the system of Euclid
himself, the theorems do not quite follow from the postulates. However, some further
postulatescan be introducedto eliminatethis difficulty.
25 This is, of course, true only of sentential logic. In predicate logic, while all tautologies
are valid formulas, not all valid formulas are tautologies. With the exception of
Boole's books, however, all the fundamentalworks of modern logic were published
after the appearanceof the Elements. And Walras'svoluminous correspondencegives
no indicationthat he would have been familiar with the works of Boole, Peirce, Frege,
or Peano. The first volume of Principia Mathematicaby Russell and Whitehead was
publishedonly in 1910, the year Walrasdied.

Smith and Walras: two theories of science /401

1776/1937, 93). 4/ Thus, the establishment of a new manufacture or of a new
practice in agriculture may at first increase profits above the level of the other
trades; gradually, competition will reduce the rate of profit to the general level
(115); but the post-technological change equilibrium profit rate may still be
higher than the pre-technological change rate (Barkai, 1969, 406). It seems
clear that, even if 1 and 2 were shown to be instances of deductive reasoning
from a set of axioms, the disturbing, contraposing forces referred to in 3 and 4
would still belong to the political and technological environment of this system,
to an area which perhaps can be treated in a purely deductive manner in other
sciences, or in other conceptions of economics, but is not so treated by Smith.
But let us return to the implications for Walras's own concept of economics
of his fascination with geometry. I have in mind his contention that the proposition 'the rate of interest declines in a progressive economy' is of the same
kind as the proposition 'an equilateral triangle is at the same time equiangular';
or his indication that 'values are proportionate to marginal utilities' is epistemologically on a par with 'the circumference of a circle is equal to the product
of its diameter and the number ir.'26 We know that geometrical theorems are
logically valid; but we may also want to know whether they are true; or rather,
how they could be known to be true, or whether it is meaningful even to ask
whether they are true or false. The answer to these questions depends partly
on the epistemological status of the postulates employed, partly on our understanding of the primitive terms used.27
a! The traditional position, accepted in Euclid's time and also in Newton's
time, was that the postulates were strictly true, for experience afforded no
ground for doubting them. And this is how the theorems, or logical consequences of the postulates, were also known to be true.
b/ Today, we can 'think of Euclidean geometry as saying merely that if the
Euclidean postulates hold, the Euclidean theorems hold.' From this point of
view, 'all geometries are equally true, for each merely expresses true assertions
about the logical deducibility of theorem from postulates.'
c/ An alternative modern view is that 'the various geometries should be
regarded as uninterpreted systems in which no meaning has been assigned to
the primitive terms and in which, therefore, no question of the truth of postulates or theorems can arise. Then the only proper questions in geometry
pertain to the formal deducibility of uninterpreted theorems from uninterpreted axioms. This view makes any geometry as true as any other, in the
degenerate sense that truth is irrelevant to them all.'
Applied to economics, c yields the somewhat disconcerting result that the
symbols used in our equations, or in any other formalization of economic
discourse, are regarded merely as abstract 'shapes,' one of which is recogniz26 'La science enconce des verites que 1'experiencene saura confirmer (r ... la proportionalite des valeurs aux raretes).' From Walras'snote entitled 'a Pareto' (see Jaff6,
1965, letter 1145, n. 8).
27 Points a, b, and c summarizethe discussionof the subject in Barker (1967, 286-7).

402 / Dusan Pokorn'y

ably distinct in relation to others but is not given any interpretation, or has no
connection whatsoever with economic concepts or terms as they are usually
understood. Even b turns economics into a study of certain kinds of abstract
order, so abstract indeed that it really does not matter which set of if-clauses
is selected as the basis of the deductive system outlining it. Thus, both c and b
lead to the conclusion that pure economics has no connection with an inquiry
into economic phenomena - except perhaps for the historical link (Barker,
1967, 288) to, say, Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill.
Of course Walras may be seen as having adhered to the traditional view a.
In this case, however, his economics would have to be based on assumptions
that are strictly true and absolutely universal, a priori and synthetic (286). It
is difficult to imagine that even Walras himself would have believed that the
postulates of his pure economics satisfied these exacting conditions.28 After
all, his theory relies heavily on assumptions that are even less obvious than
those used by his predecessors. For instance, they include such clearly counterfactual postulates as that of an ideal market in the form of a gigantic nationwide auction of consumption goods and production services, with prices cried
initially at random, information perfect as well as costless, and arbitrage immediate. The logical implications of assumptions of this kind can hardly have
the stature with which the traditional interpretation of geometry endowed its
theorems.
All things considered, one can scarcely escape the impression of an epistemological position which is neither very clear nor very consistent. Walras
failed to realize that making economics an analogue of mechanics was not the
same thing as presenting it as epistemologically on a par with geometry. He did
not see that even the latter approach did not allow him to bypass the question
of the truth or falsity of propositions. Nor did he apparently perceive that his
own theory did not satisfy the standards he might be understood as setting
forth for the assumptions on which a deductive system was to be built.
Nonetheless, it is easy to see what is the core of his thought on the nature
and method of economics. It consists in a combination of a surprisingly rigid
adherence to Plato's concept of science, a stress on the shift from real-type
concepts to ideal concepts, and an insistence on regarding economic propositions as geometrical ones. This shows that the thrust of his methodological
argument was in the direction of making economics a wholly deductive system,
unconcerned about either the epistemological status of the assumptions underlying it or the material truth or falsity of the propositions derived from these
postulates. For Le'on Walras, a theorem appears to have been anything that
followed from a set of assumptions by implication and was applied. To me at
least it seems doubtful whether the latter proviso is sufficient to make such
propositions theorems in Adam Smith's meaning of the word.
28 By now it is generally recognizedthat 'the attemptto spell out literally and in detail the
basic postulates of economic theory soon reveals limitations to their obviousness'
(Koopmans, 1957, 136).

Smith and Walras: two theories of science /403

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Philosophical Inquiries; Illustrated By The History Of Astronomy.' Ibid. 30-109
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Philosophical Inquiries: Illustrated By The History Of The Ancient Physics.'
Ibid. 109-22
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Metaphysics.' Ibid. 122-35
Smith, Adam (1795/1967) 'Of The External Senses.' Ibid. 185-223
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Wealth of Nations. Ed. Edwin Cannan. (New York: Modern Library)
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Journal of Economics 79, 212-33
Walras, Leon (1874-7/ 1954) Elements of Pure Economics, or the Theory of Social
Wealth. Transl. William Jaffe. (Homewood, Ill.: Irwin)
Walras, Leon (1909) 'Economique et Mecanique.' Bulletin de la Societe Vaudoise
des Sciences Naturelles 45, 166 (Lausanne)