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SSK as a Resource for the History of Economic Thought
D. Wade Hands
Department of Economics
University of Puget Sound
I want to focus on the question of using the sociology of
scientific knowledge (SSK) as a resource for the history of economic
thought. Should we do, or what would it mean to do, the history of
economic thought "in the same way" that "they" (those writing in SSK) do
the history of natural science? In a sense this question relates to all
three of the earlier guest editorials. Jim Henderson explicitly endorsed
the SSK approach, and while neither Roy Weintraub nor Phil Mirowski
explicitly discussed SSK in their editorials, their own work certainly
demonstrates its influence (e.g. Mirowski 1992 and 1994, Weintraub 1991,
Weintraub and Mirowski 1994). Although my remarks will bear directly on
the questions of whether we should apply SSK and/or what it would mean to
do so, my approach will be indirect. I will simply offer "seven points" --
seven points that are quite relevant to the question of applying SSK to the
history of economic thought, but seven points that I do not think have been
given sufficient attention in the existing literature (by either supporters
or critics).
I will assume quite a bit of familiarity with SSK. For those
interested in a more general introduction I would recommend classics such
as Bloor (1991), Collins (1985), Knorr Cetina (1981), Latour and Woolgar
(1986) or Shapin and Schaffer (1985); some of the influential collections
such as Jasanoff, Markle, Peterson and Pinch (1995), Knorr Cetina and
Mulkay (1983), or Pickering (1992); and for various contact points with
economics, Coats (1993a, 1993b), Collins (1991), Davis (1997), Hands
(1994a, 1994b), Knorr Cetina (1991), M=E4ki (1992), and McClellan (1996) in
addition to the above works by Mirowski and Weintraub. The order in which
the seven points are presented does not reflect their relative importance
(I am not certain that I even have a stable attitude about their relative
importance).
1. SSK is less radical when applied to a social science like
economics than when applied to natural science. SSK says that "scientists'
beliefs are caused by social factors." Well, of course economists' beliefs
are caused by social factors; they are caused by social factors like the
observed rate of unemployment or the rate of growth in the money supply.
SSK says society, not nature, causes the beliefs of scientists; since "the
economy" is social, not natural, it is hardly surprising (or very radical)
to say that the beliefs of economists have social causes. In the case of
economics, an SSK-inspired history would point to things that were
traditionally considered to be the "wrong kind" of social factors (like the
social interests served) rather than to things that were traditionally
considered to be the "right kind" of social factors (like rates of
unemployment and inflation). While such an SSK-inspired study would retain
some of its debunking tone, almost everyone, including practicing
economists, would admit that it is far easier (for even the epistemically
well-intentioned) to slip from the "right social" to the "wrong social,"
than to slip from "nature" to "society." This may make SSK-inspired
studies in economics more acceptable to a wider audience than such studies
in natural science, but it also makes them less radical and potentially
less interesting.
2. SSK is most powerful when it is juxtaposed against a Whiggish
historical record. Or, put alternatively, SSK works best when the existing
historical literature is thin and self-congratulatory. Given this, it is
not surprising that the most successful book-length social constructivist
work in the history of economic thought focuses on Walrasian general
equilibrium theory (Weintraub 1991).
3. SSK is not equivalent to "rich, deeply textured, thick
history." Most work in SSK is much thicker than the available Whiggish
alternatives, but "SSK-inspired" is neither necessary nor sufficient for
"thick." It is possible to have SSK histories that are relatively thin
(particularly where the alternative literature denies the presence of any
social influence), and it is possible to have a thick history that does not
explicitly involve "the social" as an explanandum (say one based on the
psychological characteristics of a particular scientist).
4. SSK-inspired history is not identical to the "instantiation of
historians' values" endorsed in the Weintraub editorial; it is more an
instantiation of a particular subset of sociologists' values. Now SSK is
certainly much closer to the type of work that would reflect historians'
values than the standard Whiggish history, but they are not exactly the
same. SSK focuses on the social determinants of scientific belief; studies
in the history of science that reflect the traditional values of the
history profession would certainly include such social factors, but they
might also include other things as well.
5. SSK is not "discourse analysis" (or in economics, the
"rhetorical" approach). There was a time in science studies when the
sociological approach (SSK) and discourse analysis (studies based on the
way that scientists organized their talk) appeared to be intertwined
(Mulkay, Potter, and Yearley 1983, Gilbert and Mulkay 1984), but that time
seems to have passed. Now most of those writing in SSK (including some
one-time supporters of discourse analysis) would say that "discourse
analysis has been largely abandoned within SSK" (Collins and Yearley, 1992,
p. 305).
6. SSK has both contributed to and benefited from the general
anti-foundationalist and anti-essentialist trends in late twentieth century
intellectual life. One should be wary of viewing SSK as a new type of
foundationalism: as the one true universal path to our knowledge about
knowledge. Most of those doing SSK-inspired work in the history of
economics are rather careful about this, but it is important to keep in
mind that deprivileging nature need not imply reprivileging society (or
some particular aspect of society). As Collins and Yearley recently put
it, we are not in the position to claim that SSK has "touched bedrock"
(Collins and Yearley, 1992, p. 304).
7. SSK is becoming the site for the re-emergence of long standing
debates within the philosophy of social science. A functionalist will do a
different kind of SSK than a Marxist or a rational choice theorist. There
are many different approaches within SSK and the differences can often be
traced to long-standing debates about which social factors are, or should
be, the relevant factors in a good social explanation. During the time
when the emphasis was on "SSK versus the philosophy of science" and/or "SSK
versus the views of the scientists themselves" the presence of a common
enemy helped to blur these differences, but now that SSK has become a
viable independent discipline the old debates have started to re-emerge.
Again quoting Collins and Yearley, "epistemological problems are not
resolved by empirical discoveries" (Collins and Yearley, 1992, p. 303).
This becomes an important issue in the history of economic thought where
the social theories employed in the study are often conditioned by the
economic views being investigated.
In closing I want to make it clear that none of these seven points
are being offered as a critique of the use of SSK as a resource in the
history of economic thought. I personally think it is a very useful and
under-employed resource -- I have used it myself (Hands 1994a, 1994b; Hands
and Mirowski 1997) and will certainly do so in the future. My argument is
only that we need to be clear about what SSK is and what it is not, and to
be aware of the many roads already traveled by sociologists. It is my
(minority) view that a decade or so ago when we were "applying" the work of
various philosophers of science to the history of economic thought (Popper,
Lakatos, etc.) we did a very poor job with the relevant texts; I do not
want to see this repeated with SSK.
REFERENCES
Bloor, David (1991), Knowledge and Social Imagery, 2nd edition, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Coats, A. W. (1993a), "The Sociology of Knowledge and the History of
Economics," in The Sociology and Professionalization of Economics: British
and American Economic Essays, Vol II. London: Routledge, 11-36.
Coats, A. W. (1993b), "The Sociology of Science: Its Application to
Economics," in The Sociology and Professionalization of Economics: British
and American Economic Essays, Vol II. London: Routledge, 37-57.
Collins, Harry M. (1985), Changing Order: Replication and Induction in
Scientific Practice. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE.
Collins, Harry M. (1991), "The Meaning of Replication and the Science of
Economics," History of Political Economy, 23, 123-42.
Collins, Harry M. and Steven Yearley (1992), "Epistemological Chicken," in
Science as Practice and Culture, A. Pickering (ed.), Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 301-26.
Davis, John B. (1997), "New Economics and its History: A Pickeringian
View," in New Economics and Its Writing. Durham, NC: Duke University Press
[forthcoming].
Gilbert, G. Nigel and Mulkay, Michael (1984), Opening Pandora's Box: A
Sociological Analysis of Scientists' Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hands, D. Wade (1994a), "The Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: Some
Thoughts on the Possibilities," in New Directions in Economic Methodology,
R. E. Backhouse (ed.), London: Routledge, 75-106.
Hands, D. Wade (1994b), "Restabilizing Dynamics: Construction and
Constraint in the History of Walrasian Stability Theory," Economics and
Philosophy, 10, 243-83.
Hands, D. Wade and Mirowski, Philip (1997), "Harold Hotelling and the
Neoclassical Dream," in Economics and Methodology: Crossing Boundaries, R.
Backhouse, D. Hausman, U. M=E4ki, and A. Salanti (eds.), London: Macmillan
[forthcoming].
Jasanoff, Sheila; Markle, Gerald E.; Peterson, James C.; and Pinch, Trevor
(eds.) (1995), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Thousand Oaks,
CA: SAGE.
Knorr Cetina, Karin (1981), The Manufacture of Knowledge: An Essay on the
Constructivist and Contextual Nature of Science. New York: Pergamon.
Knorr Cetina, Karin (1991), "Epistemic Cultures: Forms of Reason in
Science," History of Political Economy, 23, 105-22.
Knorr Cetina, Karin and Mulkay, Michael (eds.) (1983), Science Observed:
Perspectives on the Social Study of Science. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE.
Latour, Bruno and Woolgar, Steve (1986), Laboratory Life: the Construction
of Scientific Facts, 2nd ed., Princeton: Princeton University Press.
M=E4ki, Uskali (1992), "Social Conditioning in Economics," in
Post-Popperian
Methodology of Economics, N. De Marchi (ed.), Boston: Kluwer, 65-104.
McClellan, Chris (1996), "The Economic Consequences of Bruno Latour,"
Social Epistemology, 10, 193-208.
Mirowski, Philip (1992), "Looking for Those Natural Numbers: Dimensionless
Constants and the Idea of Natural Measurement," Science in Context, 5,
165-188.
Mirowski, Philip (1994), "A Visible Hand in the Marketplace of Ideas:
Precision Measurement as Arbitrage," Science in Context, 7, 563-89.
Mulkay, M., Potter, J. and Yearley, S. (1983), "Why an Analysis of
Scientific Discourse is Needed," in Science Observed: Perspectives on the
Social Study of Science, K. Knorr Cetina and M. Mulkay (eds.), Beverly
Hills, CA: SAGE, 171-203.
Pickering, Andrew (ed.) (1992), Science as Practice and Culture. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Shapin, Steven and Schaffer, Simon (1985), Leviathan and the Air-Pump:
Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Weintraub, E. Roy (1991), Stabilizing Dynamics: Constructing Economic
Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Weintraub, E. Roy and Mirowski, Philip (1994), "The Pure and the Applied:
Bourbakism Comes to Mathematical Economics," Science in Context, 7, 245-72.
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