Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Rhetoric of Economics
- Be Not Afraid
- The Alternative
to Modernism is
not Irrationalism
- The invitation to
rhetoric is 'an
invitation to leave
the irrationality
of an artificially
narrowed angle
of arguments and
to move to the
rationality of
arguing like
human beings.'
- The
Barbarians
are not at
the Gates
- There is no Good
Reason to Wish to
Make "Scientific"
as Against
Plausible
Statements
- Rhetoric is
Disciplined
Conversation
- What is rhetoric?
- Rhetoric is "the art of
probing what men believe
they ought to believe,
rather than proving what is
true according to abstract
methods". - Wayne Booth
- It is also
exploring
thought by
conversation.
- What is disciplined conversation?
- The Official Methodology of
Economics is Modernist
- What is modernism?
- There are two attitudes to the methodology of Economics.
One of which being that Economics is a modern form of
science. Others believe that Economics is not a science.
- Economics may be
seen as a science for
many reasons. One
example of this is
that Economics, like
other sciences, is
based upon
prediction and uses
measurements.
- Modernism is a Poor Method
- What is
wrong with
modernism?
- Some may question
whether economics is a
science, as economists also
use literary methods too.
- McCloskey argues
that other 'proper
sciences' also use
literary methods. An
example of this is
that physicists use
metaphors in their
worth such as the
string theory and
billiard balls on
curved billiard tables.
- Falsification is not
Congent
- Some argue that falsification is
unclear when making economic
hypothesis and tests e.g. "Your
experiment was not properly
controlled." and "You have not
solved the identification problem"
- Prediction is
impossible in
economics
- Subjects are often
defined as sciences when
predictions can be made.
- Modernism itself
is impossible, and
is not followed
- 'Modernism
promises
knowledge
free from
doubt.,
metaphysics,
morals and
personal
conviction'
- Any method is
arrogant and
pretentious
- "Modernism is a method.
It sets up laws of
argument drawn from an
ideal science or the
underlying history of
science or the essence of
knowledge."
- Other sciences do
for follow modernist
methods
- Other
sciences also
do not fit the
assumed
definition of
a science.
- The
Unofficial
Rhetoric is
Honourable
but
Unexamined
- What is the
unofficial
rhetoric?
- Econometric
Rhetoric is
too Narrow
- "Any economist believes
more than his evidence of
a suitably modernist and
objective sort implies."
- The
Controversy
over Purchasing
Power Parity Is
an Example of
Unexamined
Rhetoric
- Economics is Heavily
Metaphorical
- Models are
Metaphors
- One key example of this is
game theory. Economists
heavily use metaphors in
order to create economic
models of real life situations.
- 'The world is said
to be "like" a
complex model,
and its
measurements
are said to be like
the easily
measured proxy
variable to hand.'
- Metaphors in
Economics are
not Ornamental
- 'An important
metaphor in
economics has the
quality admired in a
successful scientific
theory, a capacity to
astonish us with
implications yet
unseen.'
- Economic
Metaphors
Constitute
a Poetics of
Economics
- 'What is successful in economic metaphor is what is
successful in poetry, and is analyzable in similar terms.'
- Even Mathematical Reasoning is
Metaphorical
- 'The critical question
is whether the
opposite trick,
modifying human
behaviour with
mathematics, is also
metaphorical.'...'But
mathematical
theorizing in
economics is
metaphorical, and
literary.'
- Literary Thinking Reunifies
the Two Cultures
- McCloskey
claims that
metaphors
are essential
to economic
thinking.
- The Good
of Rhetoric
- Better Foreign
Relations
- Better Writing
- Better
teaching
- Teachers do not
recognise the 'tacitness
of economic knowledge,
and therefore teach by
axiom and proof instead
of by problem-solving
and practice.'
- Better
Science
- The modernist
notion is that
common sense
is nonsense,
that knowledge
must somehow
be objective'
- Better
Dispositions
- The
Rhetoric of
Economics
is a Literary
Matter
- Even a Modernist
Uses, and Must
Use Literary
Devices
- 'The purpose of
literary scrutiny of
economic argument
would be to see
beyond the received
view on its content.'
- Most of
the Devices
are Only
Dimly
Recognized
- Legal reasoning is often the basis
of economic debate. Booth states
"the processes developed in the
law are codifications of
reasonable processes that we
follow in every part of our lives,
even the scientific." (1974, p.157)