Friedman's Methodology of Positive Economics: A Soft Reading.

In his "Methodology of Positive Economics," Milton Friedman aimed to provide a useful heuristic for working economists and not a sophisticated philosophical analysis. Hence, one should be cautious about reading specific philosophical positions, such as instrumentalism, into it. In the context of its time, it was a plea for a positivistic interplay of theory and observation. On such a readin g, Friedman's plea for unrealistic assumptions becomes much more defensible and his essay is broadly consistent with the methodology that most economists now affirm, at least in principle. Copyright 1993 by Oxford University Press.