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Brewer said that: 
 
> I want to amplify my previous comment on Henderson by taking up a 
> similar argument used by Roy Weintraub, who wrote: 
> 
> > 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. 
 
Brewer goes on to state that: 
 
> This looks like a syllogism, but is a non-sequitur. I have no objection 
> at all to looking at context, but don't try to say we have to do so, 
> when we don't. 
> Example: music is a human activity, but I don't have to know anything 
> about Beethoven's life to enjoy his music. I do need to be familiar 
> with the harmonic conventions, etc., but that is 'internal history'. A 
> musician who wants to play the music better will do better to analyse 
> the structure, harmonic devices, etc., than to worry about what 
> Beethoven ate for breakfast. 
 
I admire Tony Brewer, and his work, but find this line of reasoning 
distressing. Brewer's "enjoyment" of Beethoven's music is more 
complex, and socially connected, than he appears to understand. That 
the BBC plays Beethoven more than Ravi Shankar is not unconnected to 
his familiarity with, and pleasure in, the music. That Brewer knows 
how embedded Beethoven is within the standard British performance 
canon is knowledge he was not born with, nor is his knowledge of 
harmonic structure independent of his not having grown up on a 
Hopi reservation. Brewer's understanding of Beethoven's music is 
fully contextual, and the contingencies of his personal and social 
history cannot be "abstracted out" to locate his _real_  or _deep_ 
understanding. 
 
The point is that "understanding" the "Spring Sonata" is not different 
from "understanding" Ricardo on rent, or Samuelson on comparative 
statics. The strategies that we scholars employ to "aid  understanding" 
operate at many different levels, with many different "hooks" to 
each of us who inquires "what does it mean?" To rule out, a priori, 
_any_  such hook is to condemn us to a life of reading explanations 
that fail to explain, of hearing arguments that fail to convince, 
and of obeying rules that we cannot respect. 
 
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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