My dear and intimate friend, the late Paul Heyne, was not a philosopher and had no pretension whatsoever in that direction. (Indeed one might well say, he had no pretensions of any kind.) He was thoroughly trained as a Lutheran ordinand at St Louis, took an MA in economics at a local university, and proceeded to Chicago for his doctorate. His entire professional career was spent in departments of economics. But he had no 'research interests in economics' and quite deliberately -- almost ostentatiously -- eschewed 'research', which he regarded as a mere academic game. He regarded himself, and was regarded, as a teacher. A convenient summary of his life and work may be found in the Introduction to the  volume of his essays edited by Geoffrey Brennan and myself: '"Are Economists Basically Immoral?" and Other Essays on Economics, Ethics and Religion, edited and with an Introduction by Geoffrey Brennan and A. M. C. Waterman'. Indianapolis: LIberty Fund, 2008.

A. M. C. Waterman



On 27/02/2011 5:19 PM, Samuel Bostaph wrote:
[log in to unmask]" type="cite">
Two other philosophers whose research interests are in economics are Jim Otteson at Yeshiva University and Paul Heyne (unfortunately deceased) at the University of Washington.

Samuel Bostaph, Ph.D.
Champaign, Illinois

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."--Winston Churchill

--- On Sun, 2/27/11, Eric Schliesser <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Eric Schliesser <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [SHOE] FW: [SHOE] application for an assistant professor position-Milan (Italy)
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Sunday, February 27, 2011, 10:12 AM

I have advocated in print (one may recall my 2008 JHET article) that history of economics may find a home within philosophy departments (especially because there is a lot of shared history between philosophy and economics).
But there is no doubt that there are very few professional philosophers in the English speaking world who also work in history of economics. Here are a few names that spring to mind (with affiliation and major research area):
Erik Angner (Alabama) Hayek; Jordi Cat (Indiana) Neurath; Thomas Uebel (Manchester) Neurath; Margaret Schabas (UBC) Hume/Smith; Stephen Turner (USF) Max Weber/Parsons are among the few who keep returning to history of economics. (Of course, there are quite a few Adam Smith & Mill scholars within philosophy, but most of these are really not so interested in economics.)
Kevin Hoover can also be included in this list.
 Brian Weatherson (Rutgers--one of the top ranked department in the world) was briefly interested in Keynes/Ramsey.
In Europe David Teirra (Madrid) Chicago; Jack Vromen (Rotterdam) evolutionary economics; Uskali maki (Friedman's methodology essay) can also be included.
No doubt we can add a few more. But I agree with Alain that for the time being this is not a very promising survival strategy.
Eric
BOF Research Professor, Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, Ghent, B-9000, Belgium. Phone: (31)-(0)6-15005958
http://www.newappsblog.com/
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=649484
http://philpapers.org/autosense.pl?searchStr=Eric%20Schliesser


From: Alain Alcouffe <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sat, February 26, 2011 5:47:16 PM
Subject: Re: [SHOE] FW: [SHOE] application for an assistant professor position-Milan (Italy)

Le 25/02/2011 17:28, Womack, John a écrit : 
I think the best revenge may be to join or create a department or program of the history of sciences, to work alongside historians of chemistry, biology, physics, etc., who now try to understand historically why very smart "scientists" in the past so often got matters in their disciplines so stupidly, disastrously wrong.

Revenge ? Really?
The same kind of situation exists in France and history of economics is also downgraded and/or excluded from curriculums, hence  positions for historian of economics  are becoming fewer and fewer. But if we consider the number of positions for historians of sciences (aactualy the category encompasses epistemology, history of sciences and techniques), there are only 76 while positions for economists are around 1900. That's why I am convinced that the future of history of economics depends upon safeguarding  positions in economics.