A contrast between archival histories versus living inheritance may provide
an analogy to see two different approaches to history of ideas. First, out
of sheer curiosity, we may visit a museum or archive and wonder at the stone
arrows and wooden shoes or look at papyrus documents and such things. And
surely, there is demand for archives.
However, we may also be living in the houses our forefathers built, and
there, we may be looking for things that are still useful, out of pressing
need to solve problems of our day. And we may be trying to find flaws that
make the house less than ideal living quarters.
My preference is the second category: to take history of ideas as an
inheritance that we are apt to use in our day.
A philosopher may exist only as a surreal entity, his muse forever moving
the cursor from something to its precursors in his museum, and his digits
forever dusting old dictionaries and manuscripts. And we may not learn much
from the museum visitor or the archival bookworm about solving the problem
of our day.
Philosophers will be amused by the indifference to their contributions as
shown by students of science. The development of a science is the work of
its scientists and not by philosophers. I do not know which grand idea of
economics or solution of a tricky economic puzzle came from philosophers. Is
there a philosopher, for example, who could show how to connect prices and
payments to entrepreneurship, and then put it in a model to become a part of
economic science? And I have yet to find a politician who has provided much
useful scientific insight for economists.
I think it is the other way round. I am sure Adam smith was also a
philosopher, certainly of moral philosophy, but I am surer that he has
inspired philosophy by being an economist. I am saying that Smith as
economist is the bigger source of inspiration compared to Smith as
philosopher.
And I think that economic science has lent much to politics and has borrowed
little back from it. Amartya Sens notion of entitlement for example ought to
be a major element in a new political philosophy. Even Arrows Impossibility
Theorem has helped politicians get clearer notions of voting choices. And I
will not recite what Keynes said about who and what matters.
So, I would much rather stick to my inheritance, and worry less about old
dictionaries and precursors, but by golly, write a new dictionary and create
a new and improved version of old things. I would much rather greet the
living economic scientists than be taking a lonely walk in a cemetery
reading epitaphs. Of course it remains a possibility that I may retire and
being unable to do any more work visit the cemetery to carry on a one-way
conversation with the dead. A philosopher at last, sighing in loneliness,
amazed still that the dead have left traces that they were once alive. On
that day, I may even congratulate myself for being somewhat holy, the word
meaning nearly dead.
Hope you all stay alive long, and philosophize only after I am gone out of
reach of the curious cursor.
M Gani
|