Ricardo’s Vision

Abstract

In an often-cited passage in his History of Economic Analysis, Joseph Schumpeter wrote of the importance of the ‘preanalytic cognitive act’ that guides the thinking of any great economist. ‘Obviously, in order to be able to posit to ourselves any problems at all, we should first have to visualize a distinct set of coherent phenomena as a worthwhile object of our analytic efforts’. This he termed ‘vision’, which ‘must precede historically the emergence of analytic effort in any field’ (Schumpeter 1954, p. 41).