================= HES POSTING ================= 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), Maeki (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. Maeki, 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. Maeki, 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. ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]