Subject: | |
From: | |
Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:19:08 2006 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
================= HES POSTING =================
Roy Weintraub writes:
>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.
As a gardener, to use Professor Weintraub's metaphor, I seek fertile soil
anywhere. However, when I set out, I have a clear idea of the crops I want
to harvest.
We should be careful with this metaphor. Weintraub's gardener aims to plant
flowers that he/she likes. Like all wise consumers, he/she recognizes that
he/she does not fully know his/her preferences. So he/she happily
experiments, his/her only goal being to expand his/her consumption benefits
or range of experiences.
The historian of economics does not aim to plant a consumption good.
His/Her business is the discovery and elucidation of cases in which
knowledge has been produced -- cases in which less adequate ideas have been
replaced by more adequate ideas. To him/her a "soil is fertile" only if it
promises help in this goal.
Of course, the historian of economics must select the class of knowledge
that he/she aims to study. My posting sought to enclose that class.
--
Pat Gunning
http://stsvr.showtower.com.tw/~gunning/welcome
============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]
|
|
|