This revolutionary work taught the world how to systematically distinguish between risk -- randomness with knowable probabilities -- and uncertainty -- randomness with unknowable probabilities -- in order to accurately and properly ascertain a venture's potential profitability. Knight's methodology served as the foundation of the Chicago School of Economics.

Over the last twenty years, Ross B. Emmett has explored the work of Frank H. Knight, the philosopher of the Chicago School of economics. Knight occupies a paradoxical place in the history of Chicago economics: vital to the tradition's teaching of price theory and the twentieth-century re-articulation of the defense of free enterprise and liberal democracy, yet a critic (in advance) of the empirical and methodological orientation that has characterized Chicago economics and the rest of the discipline in the post-war period, and skeptical of liberalism's prospects.In the course of his investigation of Knight's work, Emmett has written not only about Knight's economics and philosophy, the nature of Chicago economics, and Knight's place in the Chicago tradition, but also about the application of hermeneutic theory to the history of economics, the relation of the history of economic thought to the discipline of economics, and the relation between economics and religion. His eight-volume collection of primary-source material on "The Chicago Tradition in Economics, 1892-1945" was published by Routledge in 2001.

Frank H. Knight (1885-1972) was a central figure in the development of the "Chicago School of Economics" at the University of Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s, where he taught future Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, George Stigler and many others. It was Knight's embedded scepticism about the reach of economic knowledge that set the stage for the laissez-faire economics that matured at the University in the 1950s and 1960s. But as important as Knight's technical economic contributions were, he never strayed far from his broad philosophical interests and concern for the state of modern liberal democracy. Ross B. Emmett's selection of Knight's essays offers a picture of the work of this social scientist over the span of his career. Included are not only Knight's most influential writings, but also a number of uncollected papers. The essays illustrate Knight's views on the central debates regarding economics, social science, ethics, education and modern liberalism. Volume 1: "What is Truth in Economics?" contains 15 of Knight's papers up through 1940.

Frank H. Knight (1885-1972) was a central figure in the development of the "Chicago School of Economics" at the University of Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s, where he taught future Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, George Stigler and many others. It was Knight's embedded scepticism about the reach of economic knowledge that set the stage for the laissez-faire economics that matured at the University in the 1950s and 1960s. But as important as Knight's technical economic contributions were, he never strayed far from his broad philosophical interests and concern for the state of modern liberal democracy. Ross B. Emmett's selection of Knight's essays offers a picture of the work of this social scientist over the span of his career. Included are not only Knight's most influential writings, but also a number of uncollected papers. The essays illustrate Knight's views on the central debates regarding economics, social science, ethics, education and modern liberalism. Volume 2: "Laissez Faire: Pro and Con" contains 14 of Knight's papers from 1940 through 1967, including "Socialism: The Nature of The Problem" and "The Sickness of Liberal Society".