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Piggly Whigglish
Mike, perhaps it is once again time to raise the question of whether a
history of economic thought is possible if it does not make some judgment
about the nature of economics. Judgments about which texts to choose and
which material to cover must be made on some basis. One cannot escape this
by deferring to tradition; for tradition itself implies a set of judgments,
at least implicitly.
I have no doubt that Professor Samuels presented a "well-balanced" and
stimulating course. However, one should not infer from this that his
choices did not reflect his own particular set of judgments.
Beyond this, if we grant that a set of judgments must be made -- i.e., that
all history of thought is whiggish -- then shouldn't the whole idea of
whiggish history be regarded as a greasy, slippery way of concealling one's
own views of the judgments made by others?
Pat Gunning
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