Frank Knight and Pragmatism

Abstract

One of many controversies surrounding the work of Frank Knight involves the question of whether, or to what degree, his ideas were consistent with those of American pragmatism. Substantive textual evidence can be found to support almost any simple answer to the question. This paper argues that while Knight was quite (often aggressively) opposed to a particular set of pragmatic ideas alive in the scholarly and social debates of his day, this fact says more about Knight's historical context than it does about the broader relationship between his philosophical position and pragmatism. Knight was opposed to the social control pragmatism of his day, but at the same time his general philosophical position has much in common with the features of the pragmatic tradition that are most emphasized in the recent philosophical literature.

Keywords: Knight, methodology, pragmatism

JEL Classification: B21, B31, B41