I must admit that I am consequently puzzled as to why Paul Heyne bothered to obtain a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago (perhaps this is just a rumor) and published articles on the question of the bifurcation between "positive" and "normative" economics.
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 Mon, 2/28/11, Anthony Waterman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: Anthony Waterman <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: [SHOE] FW: [SHOE] application for an assistant professor position-Milan (Italy)
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, February 28, 2011, 9:46 AM
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:
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.