Uneasiness with Economics in the Encyclopedia of Unified Science

Abstract

In 1937 the University of Chicago ordered the publication of a collection of monographs to be included in the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science. Economics had to be part of the plan. The task was entrusted to the Austrian econometrician Gerhard Tintner. The resulting volume, Methodology of Mathematical Economics and Econometrics, (MMEE, published in 1968), however, has not found a place at the history of economic thought nor in the field of the methodology of economics. In this paper we analyze the path towards the publication of this volume, review the methodological conceptions presented in the MMEE, and evaluate the degree of (dis)satisfaction with the finished product. In order to achieve a better understanding we include a description of the conception of unified science and sketch the ideas of Otto Neurath about Economics. We finally argue that the failure was not on the author but on the Economics project itself, which we consider, then and now, as an almost impossible task.