Saturday, October 6, 2012

A paper that would be fun to write I have no time for and would not directly advance my career right now

Posted by dkuehn at 10:45 AM
"How should economists do pragmatism: Posner or McCloskey?"

6 comments:

  1. UnlearningeconOctober 7, 2012 at 11:16 AM

    Might want to insert (early) before McCloskey.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Daniel KuehnOctober 7, 2012 at 11:27 AM

      Why is that? Is there a late repudiation I'm not aware of?

      Delete
    2. UnlearningeconOctober 7, 2012 at 7:46 PM

      No repudiation, but seeing as she began writing stuff like this:

      http://bleedingheartlibertarians.com/2012/06/factual-free-market-fairness/

      ...I think she has lost it.

      Delete
    3. Blue AuroraOctober 7, 2012 at 9:25 PM

      To quote Dr. Michael Emmett Brady, who has reviewed Deirdre McCloskey's works, "[McCloskey] wants to have her cake, and eat it too".

      http://www.amazon.com/review/R4VE9ENBUA0U2/

      Delete
  2. UnknownOctober 12, 2012 at 11:47 AM

    Dears,

    Huh? I'm not sure why you object to Christian libertarianism, if that's your problem. Do tell.

    Regards,

    Deirdre McCloskey

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    Replies
    1. Daniel KuehnOctober 12, 2012 at 11:59 AM

      That is pretty much restricted to Unlearningecon. While I'm not so sure about Christian libertarianism and I'd dispute some parts of your BHL post, I personally agreed with the general thrust of the point about "free market fairness".

      I was thinking more about the different ways of thinking about pragamatism and economics. Rorty on the one hand sounds an awful lot like what you call a "Max U" kind of guy, and I think he appreciates Posner for that reason: thinking in terms of utility maximization should be paramount for understanding human beliefs and actions.

      But there's obviously also a linguistified Rorty that is more akin to how you approach things. If language interposes itself in human relations than the social sciences ought to take account of that.

      These are quite different issues for Rorty, of course, and I think both you and Posner embody elements of what pragmatism ought to mean for economics.

      I'm still thinking about it... I'm concerned your attacks on Max U threaten a lot of what Rorty was trying to say. But as I said I'm still thinking about it. Perhaps I'll post more on this later.

      Delete

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