I’ve never read Milton as a naive positivist, although some of the quotations from his article sound that way. Milton was more of a methodological pluralist and a Marshallian. Do what works.
Bring a variety of kinds of evidence to bear on a problem (it is sad
how neglected this principle is in modern economics), be pragmatic, and
don’t reject a model just because it doesn’t meet one of your
prejudices. I think that is what he meant by not judging a model by
its assumptions. Falsifiability is a chimera, but did Friedman really
seek or advocate that as a standard? Most of all he wanted propositions with empirical content. He understood that no single fact can refute a theory, and that many tests are of frameworks, not single propositions. Data should and indeed must be viewed through the lens of theory, and our goal should be to solve problems.
Was Milton closer to Quine than to Carnap? Here is his classic essay.
Three questions come to mind.
1.) How incorrect, distorted, and false does a model assumptions have to be before we start to question the model?
2.) Exactly how many facts must contradict the model’s predicted results before we discard it, question it, or narrow it?
3.) To the extent that we ignore what goes into a theory (assumptions) and what comes out of it (facts that contradict the theory) doesn’t this make economic theory more like religion and less like science?
send me your e-mail addresses, please!…
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