Our Standard Bearers
Pat Gunning has repeatedly asked: who sets the standards? In my eyes, this
issue belongs to epistemology. However, the HES forum may wish to consider
it because at least one strand of historical scholarship involves evaluation
of past ideas according to some (often unstated) standards.
I guess that it will be helpful to divide the issues of standards in a four
part scheme. I will call them worldview, epistemology, methodology and
rhetoric because if there are standards, they pertain to one of the four
items above. The reason I want to categorize them is that there are four
different classes of concerns as we try to assess the validity of an
argument. Let us begin at the beginning: what do we perceive we are talking
about?
I seem to see two very distinct perceptions in regard to worldview. The
classical perception seems to be that there is a reality called the economy,
exemplified by a national economy such as that of Canada. In this economy,
observable economic events of production and consumption and exchange
happen, with many events associated with the exchange process that links
production to consumption.
The neoclassical worldview in contrast does not consider a national economy,
but the household economy of an isolated individual. Analytically, it is
concerned with the abstract principle of economy (economizing,
optimization). There is no exchange at all, but substitution in both
production and consumption. In this world, there is no selling other than
the very act of production, that is, nobody sells something without
producing it. There is also no buying other than consumption, that is,
nobody buys something without the intention to consume it.
To me the classical perception seems to make more sense. It is more
complete, and more amenable to empirical validation. It is clearer.
Let us now try to see if we are dealing with any kind of standards here.
First, it seems that the word standpoint is more meaningful than the word
standard here. An individual economist has a choice between adopting one of
the two alternative worldviews or standpoints, and there is no superior
standard to tell us which to choose. It is inevitable that instead of
adopting some universal standard, we are free to succumb to a clan structure
of like-minded fish joining a school swimming together. It is not a choice
between truth or error, but an emotional sense of satisfaction or comfort:
one may feel more comfortable swimming with the classical or the
neoclassical school of fish. By some miracle, an all new school may also
emerge someday.
The reason I bring up images of fish is that the fish of a school may not
necessarily be foraging for the same food like other schools, but may have a
different foraging zone called epistemology, which describes what a
particular school wants. Methodology describes what method a particular
school adopts to carry out its epistemological goal. I do not see how to say
that one school is underfed or starving while another is eating well.
Now I have pushed myself to a bad corner, supposing that there are no
standards, but merely standpoints. There is a great lot in the history of
ideas to suggest that indeed economic thinking developed in diverse strands.
All that remains then is to embark on a rhetoric war of words: I told you I
know better, while the prospective listener is not even listening.
I do not feel happy to admit that I am doomed to take a stand somewhere and
fail to see the world from other standpoints. My aspiration is to look at my
world from many angles and gather a more satisfying or clearer view. Hence
I come back to a very old dream: I cannot hope to find the truth, but please
grant me better vision to see the world a little more clearly.
Then of course it is back to the same old quarrel. The neoclassical
worldview seems to be nearly blind to me, and things are not clear, but
jumbled up in a horrendously unclear and indistinct mass. My opponent my say
with equal disdain that I am blind.
I am struggling to comfort myself that greater clarity is a kind of standard
that makes me feel more at ease. Secretly, I wish to hope that more and more
fish would like clearer vision. My hope is that if I see things more
clearly, I have greater confidence in what I believe I am seeing. That
gives me ammunition to confront stray fish from other schools, and I tell
them: hey, you are not seeing what you think you are seeing. There is little
chance that such advice from my side will convince anybody not on my side.
Well, it is not that desperate. It is possible to develop portraits that
have clearer descriptions, and may be such portraits can attract unsure fish
to my school. So may be the New Years old resolution is to say: this year, I
wish to see better and paint clearer pictures.
Happy New Year
Mohammad Gani
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