The Rhetoric of Economics [Anglais] [Broché]

Even though this isn't the intent of the book (it's a persuasive work about the role of rhetoric in economics), I found this to be a really useful read when trying to write better economics papers of my own. It's ironically better in this regard than McCloskey's more explicitly instructional books, particular "Economical Writing," because of its emphasis on ideas rather than on rules; it advances a way of thinking about economics that makes economics easier to write about. For example, to McCloskey, economic models are metaphors, and I've found that writing about an economic model as a kind of metaphor rather than as some sort of idealized version of the truth is much easier. I don't pretend to have understood all of its insights (it's a challenging read), but the ones I understood were very helpful.

Deirdre McCloskey is a passionate advocate of rhetoric in economics as opposed to "big M" Methodology. She likes to project the image of a "tough New York broad" and the result is a style that obscures her message. The bluster and smart-alec citations actually undermine the core of her case which is (I think) that we need to lift our game in critical arguments (which she calls rhetoric) instead of being over-awed by defective statistical analysis and especially by the ruling fashions in the positivist philosophy and methodology of science.

One of the best sources to support that case is Karl Popper but you would never know that from reading this book.

"I started again to read philosophy of science (I had stopped in graduate school, just short of the Karl Popper level). More important, around 1980 I came upon history and sociology of science that challenged the reigning philosophy. Scientists, these crazy radicals claimed, were not the macho saints that Popper said they were." (xi)

Not sure what it means to stop just short of the Karl Popper level, possibly it means she stopped short of reading Popper. She would have encountered the sociology of science (which Ian Jarvie called "the social turn") in chapter 23 of The Open Society and its Enemies, where Popper wrote:

"Everyone who has an inkling of the history of the natural sciences is aware of the passionate tenacity which characterizes many of its quarrels. No amount of political partiality can influence political theories more strongly than the partiality shown by some natural scientists in favour of their intellectual offspring..."

So much for Popper's description of scientists as "macho saints". To round out Popper's point, whatever objectivity science enjoys does not come from the "objectivity" of individual scientists but from the quality of the discussion (rhetoric) in the profession. This is probably the point that McClosky is trying to make and it is a pity that she did not make it as clearly as Popper did.

In a critical section on modernism (essentially the positivism of the Vienna Circle and the logical empiricists who followed them) she "The logical positivists of the 1920s scorned what they called `metaphysics'. From the beginning, though the scorn has refuted itself. If metaphysics is to be cast into the flames, then the methodological declarations of the modernist family from Descartes through Hume and Comte to Russell, Hempel and Popper will be the first to go." (147)

However Popper was talking about the uses and the value of metaphysical theories in print since the mid 1950s and in lectures since the 1940s. McCloskey was 30 years behind the play and she could have draw on his work to support her case, especially the Metaphysical Epilogue to the third volume of Popper's Postscript to the LSD.

Pressing on with the critique of modernism she wrote "The intolerance of modernism shows in Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) which firmly closed the borders of his open society to psychoanalysts and Marxists - charged with violating all manner of modernist regulations." (158)

I don't recall Popper writing very much about psychoanalysis in the OSE and his main target was not Freud or Marx themselves but people who refused to contemplate any criticism of the master. That does not close the borders to psychoanalysis because Popper considered that there was probably a lot of truth in Freud's ideas if only they were developed under the control of various forms of criticism.

The same applies to Marxism. Popper reacted against doctrinaire and fadist Marxism in the same way that he reacted against doctrines and intellectual fads of all kinds. Of course he regarded Marxism as much more than a fad and so he devoted several hundred pages of analysis to bring out the strong and weak points of it. So where did McCloskey get the idea that Freud and Marx would be banned from Popper's open society? Not from reading The Open Society and its Enemies.

These carping comments do not detract from the positive core of the book if only you can find it amidst the distracting rhetoric, but it seems that she was more concerned with showing off her wide reading than making a clear and helpful case. The silly comments on Popper indicate that none of her friends and associates, or the publishser's readers, or the reviewers of the first edition, know better, which is a sign of something seriously awry in the US house of intellect.

I first read this book as an undergrad economist, well over 10 years ago now. I discovered the book, in the course of writing about the evolution of the Phillips curve. What the Phillips curve offered, initially at least, was the embodiment of empirically-based economic theory, yet it metamorphosed, into the New Classical 'expectations-augmented' model, and the New Business School model with each, in turn, becoming accepted 'truth' by mainstream economics. What could account for this shift? Clearly it was not based on anything related to 'positive' economics or empiricism, since the theory behind the 'curve' (which was no longer a curve)had long since been wrung dry of any meaningful empirical content.

While I don't recall all of the details, this book, and McCloskey's other writings on the same theme, support the idea that, while Truth (to be differentiated from trivialities, things that are true 'by definition', for example), does exist, WE HAVE NO WAY OF COMING TO RECOGNISE IT - there are no objective criteria for doing so, that is distinguishing truth from falsity. It may come as a shock to some, but there is no dissenting from this point - if you know of any such criteria, let me know.

The slightly controversial, but logical, point that follows is, therefore, to disregard Truth as a 'useful' concept, with any explanatory power. The key to the acceptance of theory (as if it were the Truth), not just in economics, lies ultimately in its 'persuasiveness', something that is engendered through the use of 'mere rhetoric'. McCloskey is not arguing that this is how things 'should' be, but how they are - in grubby, messy reality.

If you doubt this to be so, try thinking about the recent Gulf War and arguments about WMD, as an illustration - it was Bush and Blair's ability to 'persuade' people, and politicians, that made the threat from Iraq real, or 'True'. That is, the threat might have existed independent of their pronouncements, but because we had no objective means of evaluating that, their pronouncements BECAME REALITY.

This is a text about the philosophy of economics that is extremely thought-provoking. It succeeds in challenging preconceptions of what is True and how we come to know it as such, that has implications far beyond economics. For anyone with an interest in philosophy, or economics, this is well worth reading, a real eye-opener.

Lord Chimp, the relativists will inherit the world, my friend. Like it or not, there is no black or white, only shades of grey, and neither is counterintuity synonymous with absurdity.