A RESPONSE TO DASGUPTA

@article{citeulike:2770988, abstract = {The present note will be concerned only with Sir Partha Dasgupta's recent article in this journal (Dasgupta 2005). What is more, it will concentrate on those parts of the article which contain a serious misreading of Hilary Putnam's position on the entanglement of facts, theories and values. These philosophical matters can perhaps be clarified for economist readers (they should require no clarification for philosophers) by considering, to begin with, Dasgupta's interpretation of the Bergson\&\#8211;Samuelson position. What (Bergson) Burk (1938) and Samuelson (1947) were doing, according to Dasgupta, was to establish \&\#8216;the ethical foundations of the subject.\&nbsp;.\&nbsp;.over five decades ago\&\#8217; (Dasgupta 2005: 221\&\#8211;2).² Thus a major theme of the article is heard at once: economics is supposedly based on sound <em>ethical foundations</em>, and these can be traced (it is supposed) to specific work written long ago, and hence needing no augmentation. These ethical foundations, it is claimed, \&\#8216;are now regarded to be a settled matter\&\#8217; (2005: 222).}, author = {Putnam, Hilary and Walsh, Vivian }, citeulike-article-id = {2770988}, comment = {Putman responds to the earlier article claiming that yes economics was based on values, but these were settled and rightly so.}, journal = {Economics and Philosophy}, keywords = {economics, ethics, fact-value-distinction}, number = {03}, pages = {359--364}, posted-at = {2008-05-08 13:21:01}, priority = {2}, title = {A RESPONSE TO DASGUPTA}, url = {http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online\&aid=1411764}, volume = {23}, year = {2007} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:2770988 L3 - citeulike-article-id:2770988 TI - A RESPONSE TO DASGUPTA JF - Economics and Philosophy VL - 23 IS - 03 SP - 359 EP - 364 N2 - The present note will be concerned only with Sir Partha Dasgupta's recent article in this journal (Dasgupta 2005). What is more, it will concentrate on those parts of the article which contain a serious misreading of Hilary Putnam's position on the entanglement of facts, theories and values. These philosophical matters can perhaps be clarified for economist readers (they should require no clarification for philosophers) by considering, to begin with, Dasgupta's interpretation of the Bergson&#8211;Samuelson position. What (Bergson) Burk (1938) and Samuelson (1947) were doing, according to Dasgupta, was to establish &#8216;the ethical foundations of the subject.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.over five decades ago&#8217; (Dasgupta 2005: 221&#8211;2).² Thus a major theme of the article is heard at once: economics is supposedly based on sound <em>ethical foundations</em>, and these can be traced (it is supposed) to specific work written long ago, and hence needing no augmentation. These ethical foundations, it is claimed, &#8216;are now regarded to be a settled matter&#8217; (2005: 222). KW - economics KW - ethics KW - fact-value-distinction N1 - Putman responds to the earlier article claiming that yes economics was based on values, but these were settled and rightly so. AU - Putnam, Hilary AU - Walsh, Vivian PY - 2007//02/ UR - http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=1411764 ER -