Clarence Ayres Memorial Lecture: Does Pragmatism Imply Institutionalism
It is old, established knowledge that there are close political and ideological affinities between pragmatistic philosophy and the institutional position in economics. As Rick Tilman has recently expressed the matter, "the political counterpart of institutional economics is the instrumental political theory of John Dewey" (2001, 117). There is all the reason to think so, but I intend to develop the theme further and to show that the affinity between pragmatism and institutionalism is not just of political nature. I wish to make a somewhat stronger case to the effect that there are theoretical and conceptual commonalities between the two positions. In the title of this paper, I use the logical term "to imply"; I do this on purpose and entertain in serious terms the possibility that the affinity between pragmatism and institutionalism comes close to being of downright logical nature. It is, of course, the professionals' job to decide what ultimately implies what in their discipline, and economics is not my profession. What I venture to do, nevertheless, is to say the first word, not so much the last word, about the theoretical kinship between pragmatism and institutionalism; final conclusions may belong to the expertise of professionals. The impression that I get from my reading in institutional economics is that a theoretical zero-sum game seems to be going on between this approach and the neoclas-