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Gunning writes, in reply to Henderson:
>
> It seems wise to begin my comment on Professor Henderson's editorial by
> identifying the class of ideas with which I assume the history of economics
> is concerned. The fundamental idea is that of how normal human beings
> interact under the conditions of the market economy.
He also writes :
> I have no particular interest in
> the people unless they are in some way related to what I identify as
> contributions to the growth of ideas.
He goes on to caution us that:
> however, that [Henderson's] aim comes very close to RELATIVISM.
> In its most
> extreme form, relativists aim to convince us that all ideas are relative
> and that others who claim that ideas are absolute are misinformed and
> likely to be pompous and elitist.
For me, reading Henderson's piece made me want to vote for him to be
President of HES -- then I realized I had already done that. His
recognition that "doing economics" is, and has been, a human activity
compels recognition that to study the history of economics forces us to
attend to the context in which that activity takes place, the
institutions which support it, the local and contingent conditions in
which the people and their activity occurs, and the activities
themselves, meaning the processes and products of their doing of
economics.
The two issues of Whiggism, and intellectual history to the exclusion
of broader historical work, are separate though. The former concerns
attending to the past constructed by or conditioned by the needs of the
present. The latter issue is one of scope. It is unremarkable that
both themes resonate with historians of economics who themselves are
trained for the most part as economists. As working producers of
today's economic-knowledge products, one's eye turns to the past from
a socialization of concern with today. And training in close readings
of texts -- articles, data sets, etc. -- conditions one first to ask of
history "what does the text mean?". That for economists the two
issues are often linked results I suspect because "meanings" are
found in, or constructed from, the connection of the historical
document with today's concerns.
Thus I read Henderson as seeking a double broadening of concern by
historians of economics; he calls for attending to social history,
sociology, anthropology, history of science, history of mathematics,
economic history, etc. and the implications are worth noting.
Particularly, historians of economics will interest themselves in
matters that go beyond the "great books". Conversely, or perversely,
Gunning asks us to restrict our attention to those matters which he
considers important. Henderson is inclusive, Gunning is exclusive,
drawing a fence around a small set of questions in intellectual
history, and telling us to garden only within the fenced area. I
would suggest that there is much fertile land beyond his quite
mineral-depleted soil, and many flowers are a-blooming there.
(And finally, quite beside the point of Henderson's posting, can we
not avoid the culture wars crap about RELATIVISM and its
THREAT TO ALL WE HOLD TRUE AND WORTHWHILE.
HES is really not a good venue for such musings ...)
E. Roy Weintraub, Professor of Economics
Director, Center for Social and Historical Studies of Science
Duke University, Box 90097
Durham, North Carolina 27708-0097
Phone and voicemail: (919) 660-1838
Fax: (919) 684-8974
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.econ.duke.edu/~erw/erw.homepage.html
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