CiteULike: heraclitus' rhetorical

Recent Developments in Economic Methodology: The Rhetorical and Ontological Turns

PA Lewis — 2008-06-01T18:13:11-00:00

Foundations of Science, Vol. 8, No. 1. (1 March 2003), pp. 51-68.

Recent developments in themethodology of economics have drawn uponpragmatist and realist philosophies of socialscience. These recent developments areoutlined. It is argued that a specific variantof realist philosophy known as critical realismcan provide the basis for a prescriptiveeconomic methodology that is not susceptible topragmatist criticisms.

The Rhetoric of Economics

Donald Mccloskey — 2007-05-24T13:30:21-00:00

Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 21, No. 2. (1983), pp. 481-517.

The Market: Ethics, Knowledge and Politics (Economics As Social Theory)

John O'Neill — 2006-01-17T17:40:45-00:00

(09 April 1998)

<P>Following the failure of "really existing socialism" in Eastern Europe and Asia, the market is now generally perceived, by Left and Right, to be supreme in any rational economic system. The current debate now focuses on the proper boundaries of markets rather than the system itself. This book examines the problems of defining these boundaries for the recent defences of the market, and shows that they highlight major weaknesses in the cases made by its proponents. The author draws on considerable research in this area to provide an overdue critical evaluation of the limits of the market, and future prospects for non-market socialism. The issues discussed cross a number of academic boundaries including economics, philosophy and politics.</P>

Economics and Language (Economics As Social Theory)

Willie Henderson — 2005-05-18T16:51:06-00:00

(07 January 1993)

Beyond Rhetoric and Realism in Economics: Towards a Reformulation of Methodology (Economics & Social Theory)

Thomas Boylan — 2008-06-01T18:01:19-00:00

(08 June 1995)

******_Beyond Rhetoric and Realism in Economics_** provides a clear introduction to some of the major debates taking place within the philosophy of economics. The book analyzes two methodological positions that have undermined the hegemony once enjoyed by positivist philosophies. The first position explored is rhetoric, which attacks imperiously prescriptive methodologies and attempts to expand the economic dialogue, often by introducing work from other disciplines. In contrast, the realists take issue with the relativizing tendencies of the rhetoric school and argue that scientific realism is the more compelling framework for economics. While exploring both of these positions, Boylan and O'Gormon demonstrate why neither position is a satisfactory resolution to the methodological issues facing economics. In direct opposition to these positions, the authors construct and develop an alternative framework, which they term "causal holism". With its origins in the work of Quine and van Frassen, this position shifts the focus of attention onto the role of economic models, especially their descriptive adequacy and provides a challenging analysis of economic theory, causality and explanation.

How to Be Human: Through an Economist

Deirdre Mccloskey — 2008-06-01T17:59:37-00:00

(30 November 2000)

In this thoroughly engaging book Deirdre McCloskey puts the "dismal science" under the microscope. She offers advice to young economists, offering models from the old; and she lambastes the middle-aged who have allowed economics to become, as she puts it with characteristic verve, "a boys' game in a sandbox." McCloskey deploys her wit and style to serious purpose: to bring economics back to science. Anyone can learn about the field of economics from _How to Be Human_. She can learn how economics works as a discipline and as a piece of sociology, who the heroes are and the villains, how a career in economics relates to matters of ethics and epistemology. She can learn what it is like to be a new woman in a boys' subject, a subject that avoids at all costs the word "love." During the 1990s Deirdre McCloskey established herself as the main internal critic of the economic mainstream. Her quarterly columns in the _Eastern Economic Journal,_ many of which are collected here, have become a handbook for reform. Trained in economics herself, she knows the normal science of the field from the inside: she has done it as a distinguished economic historian; and has watched it work from the faculties of Chicago (for twelve years) and Iowa (for nineteen), and now at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her criticism from the inside is that the two methods on which economics has depended since the 1940s--existence-theorem mathematics and significance- testing statistics--are nonsense. They have, she claims, nothing to do with economic science, and have massively diverted economists from finding out how the economy works. McCloskey's book is written for anyone interested in economics, whether trained in it or not--anyone who cares about the economy but is not taken in by the boys' game. Deirdre McCloskey is University Professor of the Human Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago.

The Rhetoric of Economics (Rhetoric of the Human Sciences)

Deirdre Mccloskey — 2008-06-01T17:59:09-00:00

(30 April 1998)

Deirdre N. McCloskey teaches economics and history at the University of Iowa and is the Tinbergen Distinguished Professor at Erasmus University of Rotterdam. Author of a dozen books in economics and history, she was formerly known as Donald. Her experience in changing gender is reflected in the new edition, but the message remains the same: economics needs to get serious about its rhetoric, and back to science. *Completely revised *Three new chapters, two new bibliographies *Publishing history: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985

What Do Economists Know?: New Economics of Knowledge (Economics & Social Theory)

Robert Garnett — 2008-06-01T15:05:02-00:00

(26 August 1999)

This volume rethinks the classic question of what, how and for whom economics is produced. Drawing from a range of perspectives it casts fresh light on the relationship between the producers and consumers of economic knowledge.

The Economic Conversation

Arjo Klamer — 2008-06-01T10:40:31-00:00

(17 March 2009)

_ _“It is only by argument, by conflict if you like, that economics makes progress." John Maynard Keynes. ****_ _The Economic Conversation, by Arjo Klamer, Deirdre McCloskey and Stephen Ziliak, is a groundbreaking new first-year undergraduate principles of economics textbook that does far more than teach the basic principles. It uses entertaining and insightful dialogues in the text to actively involve and engage students in the debates surrounding economic arguments. _ _The dialogues take the form of candid and lively conversations among the three authors and a group of student characters, who give voice to the kind of probing questions and insights made by real students as they grapple with this challenging subject for the first time. Through these conversations, students are memorably introduced to the assumptions, goals and values that underlie economic principles in a manner that actually shows them how to make economic arguments themselves._ _Innovative pedagogical features, including technical workshops and concept checks interspersed throughout the text, ensure that students gain a firm grasp of the subject matter. These features, combined with the authors’ clear and entertaining writing style, make this book an exceptionally accessible and engaging text that will inspire and excite students’ interest._ _The Economic Conversation is designed for full-year economics courses covering micro- and macroeconomic principles, but it is priced to be competitive with “split” editions, making it suitable for semester, quarter or modular courses in introductory microeconomics or macroeconomics._ _For more information and for an introduction to the "conversation" please visit: http://theeconomicconversation.com/students.php_ _

Love and money: A comment on the markets debate

Deirdre Mccloskey — 2008-05-11T20:48:43-00:00

Feminist Economics, Vol. 2, No. 2. (1996), pp. 137-140.

It is true that economics needs a theory of moral sentiments along with an account of the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. Economics is damaged analytically by ignoring love, or care. But love is not always nice, and is sometimes a threat to freedom.

The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce

Deirdre Mccloskey — 2008-05-03T17:06:47-00:00

(15 October 2007)

<DIV><DIV>For a century and a half the artists and intellectuals of Europe have scorned<BR>the bourgeoisie. And for a millennium and a half the philosophers and theologians of Europe have scorned the marketplace. The bourgeois life, capitalism, Mencken’s “booboisie,” and David Brooks’s “bobos” all have been, and still are, framed as responsible for everything from financial and moral poverty to world wars and spiritual desuetude. Countering these centuries of assumptions and unexamined thinking is Deirdre McCloskey’s <I>The Bourgeois Virtues</I>, a magnum opus offering a radical view: capitalism is good for us.<BR><BR>McCloskey’s sweeping, charming, and even humorous survey of ethical thought and economic realities—from Plato to Barbara Ehrenreich—overturns every assumption we have about being bourgeois. Can you be virtuous and bourgeois? Do markets improve ethics? Has capitalism made us better as well as richer? Yes, yes, and yes, argues McCloskey, who takes on centuries of capitalism’s critics with astonishing erudition and range of reference. Applying a new tradition of “virtue ethics” to our lives in modern economies, she affirms American capitalism without ignoring its faults and celebrates the bourgeois lives we actually live, without supposing that they must be lives without ethical foundations. <BR><I><BR>High Noon</I>, Kant, Bill Murray, the modern novel, van Gogh, and, of course, economics and the economy all come into play in a book that can only be described as a monumental project and a life’s work. <I>The Bourgeois Virtues </I>is nothing less than a dazzling reinterpretation of Western intellectual history, a dead-serious reply to the critics of capitalism—and a surprising page-turner.</DIV></DIV>

The Vices of Economists-The Virtues of the Bourgeoisie

Deirdre Mccloskey — 2005-05-18T16:46:58-00:00

(01 August 2000)

Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics

Deirdre Mccloskey — 2005-05-18T16:46:15-00:00

(05 May 1994)

If You're So Smart : The Narrative of Economic Expertise

Donald Mccloskey — 2005-05-18T16:46:37-00:00

(15 May 1992)

The Consequences of Economic Rhetoric

Arjo Klamer — 2005-05-18T16:49:45-00:00

(27 January 1989)

Economics and Hermeneutics

Don Lavoie — 2005-05-18T16:50:07-00:00

(02 May 1991)

The Moral Rhetoric of Political Economy (Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy)

Paul Turpin — 2008-05-03T14:59:14-00:00

(18 July 2009)

McCloskey's Economic Thought: The Rhetoric of an Economist (Routledge Inem Advances in Economic Methodology)

Benjamin Balak — 2008-05-03T14:30:48-00:00

(13 January 2006)

Deirdre McCloskey is rightly one of the most recognizable names in economics. She views economics as a language that uses all the rhetorical devices of everyday conversation and therefore it should be judged by aesthetic and literary standards and not the criteria of mathematical rigor that is espoused by the mainstream. This controversial standpoint has been hugely influential and this examination of the methodological and philosophical consequences of her work is overdue, and very welcome.