Friedman's Methodology Essay in Context

Abstract

This essay uses evidence of the context from which Friedman wrote The Methodology of Positive Economics to call into question the standard interpretation of the essay's central message. The standard interpretation gives excessive weight to the choice between testing via assumptions and testing by implications. Interpreters have missed what for Friedman was the more important methodological choice, testing theory empirically versus not doing so, i.e., whether to test empirically. Both testing by the realisticness of assumptions and testing by success of predictions are means of testing empirically. The alternative that Friedman most opposed was foregoing empirical testing altogether.