The many faces of unification and pluralism in economics: The case of Paul Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis.
The history of modern economics abounds with pleas for more pluralism as well as pleas for more unification. These seem to be contradictory goals, suggesting that pluralism and unification are mutually exclusive, or at least that they involve trade-offs with more of one necessarily being traded off...
| Publicado en: | Studies in History & Philosophy of Science Part A Vol. 88; pp. 209 - 220 |
|---|---|
| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Elsevier B.V.
Aug2021
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=152004282&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 152004282 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00393681 HPS jtl: Studies in History & Philosophy of Science Part A issn: 00393681 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Aug2021 vid: 88 pid: 2410 pub: Elsevier B.V. artinfo: ui: 152004282 10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.06.008 ppf: 209 ppct: 11 formats: tig: atl: The many faces of unification and pluralism in economics: The case of Paul Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis. aug: au: Hands, D. Wade affil: Department of Economics, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, 98416, USA su: Samuelson, Paul A. (Paul Anthony), 1915-2009 Pluralism History of economics Development economics Modern history Philosophy of economics sug: subj: Samuelson, Paul A. (Paul Anthony), 1915-2009 Pluralism History of economics Development economics Modern history Philosophy of economics keyword: Explanation in economics History of modern economic thought Mathematical economic models Scientific unification ab: The history of modern economics abounds with pleas for more pluralism as well as pleas for more unification. These seem to be contradictory goals, suggesting that pluralism and unification are mutually exclusive, or at least that they involve trade-offs with more of one necessarily being traded off against less of the other. This paper will use the example of Paul Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947) to argue that the relationship between pluralism and unification is often more complex than this simple dichotomy suggests. In particular, Samuelson's Foundations is invariably presented as a key text in the unification of modern economics during the middle of the twentieth century; and in many ways that is entirely correct. But Samuelson's unification was not at the theoretical (causal and explanatory) level, but rather at the purely mathematical derivational level. Although this fact is recognized in the literature on Samuelson, what seems to be less recognized is that for Samuelson, much of the motivation for this unification was pluralist in spirit: not to narrow scientific economics into one single theory, but rather to allow for more than one theory to co-exist under a single unified derivational technique. This hidden pluralism will be discussed in detail. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for more recent developments in economics. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|