Hello to all who have written about Scott,
Scott Gordon was my last surviving contemporary who was also a friend.
As a fresh graduate just with my honours BA from UBC in 1950, one of my professors, Bill Merritt, took me to Toronto and then to Kingston where I attended the economics meeting at the Royal Military College. One of the papers that made most impression on me was by Scott using a philosophical approach that was far from the mechanical economics I had been tought as an undergraduate. I was influenced for the rest of my life by his approach. Later, we became friends when he taught summer school at Queens in Kinston. I well remember not only great discussions about economics, but flying with him in his small aircraft that he piloted with great skill. I will miss him greatly.
Richard Lipsey
From: Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Steve Ziliak
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2019 10:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] H. Scott Gordon
Dear John,
Many thanks for your excellent review and words about my late professor, H. Scott Gordon.
I couldn't agree more!
Sadly, most economists today have never even met, let alone learned from, an economist-scholar
such as Scott Gordon.
Steve Ziliak
Roosevelt University and University of Newcastle
From: Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Davis, John <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2019 9:22:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SHOE] H. Scott Gordon
[Sent by an External User]
I reviewed Scott Gordon’s impressive History and Philosophy of Social Science many years ago:
https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1153&context=econ_fac
He was of a generation of scholars now largely gone who wrote comprehensive, synthetic accounts of the history and philosophy of economics. The book, or sections of it, can still be used in teaching in the field today and is particularly useful because it places economics’ history fully within the development of social science.
John Davis
Marquette University and University of Amsterdam
From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Wade Hands <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Saturday, June 15, 2019 at 7:22 PM
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [SHOE] H. Scott Gordon
It is with great sadness that I inform you that H. Scott Gordon passed away on May 17th. Scott was a Professor in both the Department of Economics and the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University for many years. He was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1924. He began his career at Carleton University (then Carleton College) in Ottawa and organized the Economics Department there in 1948. Later, while he was at Indiana, he would return to Canada during the summer to teach the history of economic thought at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Although Scott's most well-known research was his 1954 JPE paper "The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery," he spent most of his career teaching and writing in the history and philosophy of economics, including the books Welfare, Justice, and Freedom (1980), The History and Philosophy of Social Science (1991), and Controlling the State: Constitutionalism from Ancient Athens to Today (2002), as well as numerous journal articles on a wide range of historical and philosophical topics (many published in the JPE). Scott was an important teacher and mentor to many people – both economists and philosophers – who went on to participate in the literature and the professional organizations of the history and philosophy of economics, including, but certainly not limited to, Margaret Schabas, Robert Leonard, Harold Kincaid, and Wade Hands. He was profoundly appreciated and will be long remembered.
D. Wade Hands
Department of Economics
University of Puget Sound
Tacoma, WA 98416
D. Wade Hands
Journal of Economic Methodology
John B. Davis and D. Wade Hands Editors