a reply to maki

8/3/2019 A reply to Maki

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American Economic Association

Modern Epistemology Against Analytic Philosophy: A Reply to MkiAuthor(s): Donald N. McCloskeySource: Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 1319-1323Published by: American Economic AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2729124 .

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A Journal of Economic Literature,Vol. XXXIII (September 1995), pp. 1319-1323

Mode rn Epistemologyg a i n s tAnalyt ic Philosophy: A R e p l y t o M a k i

By DONALD N. MCCLOSKEYUniversity f Iowa

JAPPRECIATE the care and sympathywith which Uskali Maki has read mybooks on how economists persuade. Thenonphilosopher may find his analysis abit elaborate for what are after all simpleideas-the ideas have to be simple forme to be able to hold them in mind. Butoverelaborate or not, his reading is nota-bly accurate. I've had worse readers.Much. (The misreadings, by the way,make my point. Incompetent reading-the reading for example that gives a so-called Coase Theorem which is the op-posite of what Coase said; or the readingthat turns statistical significance into away of telling whether a coefficient islarge or not-is the trouble with not be-ing smart about one's rhetoric.)I agree therefore with most of whatMaki says. He says for example that mydefinitions of rhetoric are "fragmentedand scattered." That's correct, though I

think justifiably fragmented and scat-tered, as Maki agrees. "Rhetoric" is aword like democracyor freedom or capi-talism, a complicated matter not easilyfitted onto a 3" x 5" card. It is an essen-tially contested concept, which concernshalf of our intellectual culture since theGreeks. Unlike some readers, Maki hastroubled to become acquainted with theother half.Where we disagree is on analytic phi-losophy. In a nutshell, Maki wants to go

on with a project of analytic philosophyc. 1955 that most professionals now thinkis dead. I by contrast would like to movebeyond it, as would many recent philoso-phers, worldly and otherwise.Maki argues that I adopt what the phi-losophers called in 1955 a coherencetheory of truth. Roughly this means thatsomething is true if it hangs togetherwith things we already believe. The phi-losophers in 1955 contrasted this coher-ence theory with a "correspondence"theory, which means roughly that some-thing is true if it corresponds to thefacts of the world. Having analyzed thedefinitions of truth into two sorts, thephilosophers of 1955 and now Makimake a strange rhetorical move: "O.K.:choose between them. Go ahead. Youmust."But we do not need to choose betweenthem. Contraryto Maki, correspondenceand coherence do not have to be "mutu-ally consistent," any more than pepperand salt have to be mutually consistent.We use both theories in scientific argu-ment daily. In particular, I do, and youdo, and Maki does. Makiuses correspon-dence to extract true statements aboutmy writings; and the notions he is able toextract will depend on coherence withwhat he already believes-for example,about epistemology. I use correspon-dence for measuringthe rate of industri-1319


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1320 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXXIII (September 1995)alization in Britain; and I use coherenceto rule out Harberger triangles as a fullexplanation.A "realist" in Maki's definition issomeone who believes (only) a corre-spondence theory of truth. Maki says I'mnot a realist and in his binary world Isuppose I'm not. But someone who wasnot a realist at least part of the timecould not cross the street without gettingrun over. Maki does not acknowledgethat there are people calling themselvesrealists, such as Rom Harre (1986) andHilary Putnam (1990) and I myself, whowould reject the on-off definition. Idon't hold, as Maki claims, a coherencetheory of truth, alone. I hold both coher-ence and correspondence theories (and,while we're at it, 20 other theories: thevocabulary of persuasion is richer thanone plus one). I don't see why scientistscan't hold both, or 22, and yet remainfree from hassling by old-fashioned ana-lytic philosophers for being "inconsis-tent." I've discussed the question withold-fashioned analytic philosophers(some of my best friends) and they donot seem to have an answer. They soundlike Humpty Dumpty. You need tochoose. Don't argue. No need to discussit. Choose.The two choices are in any case small-tnotions of truth, such as you might use toget across the street. When talking aboutthe other, Big-T Truth, such as youmight use to commune with God, Makidoes not exhibit his usual sophistication.For instance he doesn't understand thatmy talk about "a heavenly mind," as heputs it, is a figure of speech among phi-losophers, meant merely to evoke TheTranscendental in order to laugh at it.William James ([1907] 1949) put it thisway:

What hardens the heart of every one I ap-proach with the view of truth sketched in mylast lecture is that typical idol of the tribe,the notion of the Truth [p. 239] . . .. We

receive in short the block of marble, but wecarve the statue ourselves [p. 247].... Othercontent of truth than this I can find nowhere.If the anti-pragmatists have any other mean-ing, let them for heaven's sake reveal it, letthem grant us access to it! [p. 250].... [Theybelieve in] Reality with the big R, reality thatmakes the timeless claim, reality to which de-feat can't happen [p. 262].

It is therefore not surprising to con-clude, as Maki does after some analyticheavy lifting, that Big-T Truth is not thesame thing as small-t and that I don'tthink much of Big-T. (The reason I don'tthink much of it, incidentally, is its usefor aggression. If I as a Chicago econo-mist believe myself to be in possession ofThe Truth about competition in theAmerican economy I am led to sneer atyou and engage in other nonscientificbehavior. It is belief in a god. The the-ism is what's wrong with some modernsciences, such as ours. On the otherhand if I claim for a Chicago-Schoolviewof competition in the American economymerely truth, small-t, as I in fact do,then you and I have something about thedata to discuss.)After these philosophical preliminar-ies, Maki turns to my sociology of knowl-edge. He tries to convict me of an anti-democratic delight in an "elite." (Iwonder if we are talking about the samesocial world here. Economists an "elite"?)But I have no interest in empaneling a"jury,"or in granting "absolute intellec-tual authority" o the expert over the citi-zen. In 1990 I wrote a book subtitledThe Narrative of Economic Expertisesaying so at length. I'm puzzled there-fore that Maki thinks I'm an elitist, andnot properly postmodern or democraticor whatever. All I have in mind is thatthe people speaking in a conversation ofscience are often worth listening to whena scientific assertion is at issue. I don'tsee how else we can decide whether ascientific assertion is true. If the an-tipragmatistshave any other meaning, let


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McCloskey: A Reply to Mdki 1321them for heaven's sake reveal it, let themgrant us access to it!Maki quite properly emphasizes thatmy sociology becomes ethics when itturns to normative issues, such as whatstandard of persuasiveness an economicscientists should use. Again, I don't seehow else we can talk about normativeissues except by introducing norms.Maki sneers at the introduction of eth-ics-an "angel theory of truth," says he.He calls it "optimistic" and "utopian."But isn't that how one talks about normsof scientific behavior, by holding up autopia for admiration and adopting acertain loony optimism about approach-ing it? That's what ethical talk is, andethical talk permeates the scientificworld. If you don't think so have a lookat the latest controversy over cold fusionor over the elasticity of demand forhealth care.In all seriousness, unless we "imposesevere moral and social constraints onconversation" how are we going to knowif the results from the labs and librariesare to be credited? Like Harre, I believethat in science as in life "seeking truth[that is, Truth] is a hopeless epistemicproject, but trying to live a life of virtueis a possible moral ambition . ... Theconcepts of the moral system appear inthe rhetorical glosses on that life....The trust that scientists claim fromlaypersonsentails a commitment to intel-lectual honesty . . . . It cannot possiblybe based on a naive claim to have thetruth" (Harre 1986, pp. 89-90). Or thephilosopher Nelson Goodman: "The sci-entist who supposes that he is single-mindedly dedicated to the search fortruth deceives himself. He is uncon-cerned with the trivial truths he couldgrind out endlessly" (1978, p. 18). Themoral constraints in Goodman'sview areaesthetic: "He seeks system, simplicity,scope." Or another philosopher, Putnam(1990, p. 115):

In my fantasy of myself as a metaphysical su-per-hero, all "facts"would dissolve into "val-ues." That there is a chair in this room wouldbe analyzed . . . into a set of obligations: theobligation to think that there is a chair in thisroom if epistemic conditions are (were)"good" enough . . . . What I do think, evenoutside my fantasies, is that fact and obliga-tion are thoroughly interdependent; there areno facts without obligations, just as there areno obligations without facts.

Correspondence and coherence are toosimple a vocabulary to describe scientificpersuasion.Maki's main philosophical project inhis comment is to try to convict me of aninconsistency, or more exactly of beggingthe question (the classical rhetoricianscalled it petitio principii). Truth in sci-ence depends on ethics, says McCloskeyand most modern students of the matter(from whom McCloskey stole his argu-ment fair and square). But says Makiwith a tone of discovering somethingshocking, in a naughty world where arethese ethics? Sayshe: McCloskeyand therest are begging the question.I would reply that the petitio is on theother principium. Maki says that for thetruth of my argument the economistsmust be observed acting ethically-"strictly." Oh, oh. His case depends onthat word "strictly." (Close reading isone form of rhetorical care.) If it werenot for the word "strictly" his chargeof inconsistency would not work.McCloskey would merely be saying thatwe should try to be good, aim at living alife of virtue, which is hardly controver-sial. But of course I do not claim thateconomists have lived lives of virtue,strictly. No one does, strictly. There isno inconsistency, no begging of the ques-tion, in arguing that good science has anethical base, though never achievedstrictly. In other words, it is Maki, notMcCloskey, who builds his conclusioninto his premise, by inserting that word"strictly."His claim that I have indulged


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1322 Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. XXXIII (September 1995)in a petitio principii is erroneous. Hehimself has indulged in it. Philosopher,analyze thyself.

More broadly, Maki wants to arguethat there is an inconsistency in a rhe-torical theory of truth. He is mistaken. Arhetorical theory of truth is a theory ofsmall-t not Big-T truth; only in the Big-Tworld is it inconsistent to claim Truthforthe absence of Truth. Small-t truth isabout social agreement, not God's mind.I am urging us to agree not to claimBig-T truth for economic propositions.There's nothing self-contradictory in myplea. As the historian of science BrunoLatour ([1984] 1988, p. 266, nl) put it,

Those who accuse relativists of being self-contradictory can save their breath for a bet-ter occasion. I explicitly put my own accountin the same category as those accounts I havestudied without asking for any privilege. Thisapproach seems self-defeating only to thosewho believe that the fate of an interpretationis tied to the existence of a safe metalinguis-tic level [viz., Big-T truth]. Since this belief isprecisely what I deny, the reception of myown argument exemplifies my point.At another level, Maki finds irritatingmy suggestion that economics is in prettygood shape. He wants me to offer philo-sophically acceptable reasons for sayingit is. But I am a simple economic histo-rian and cannot offer philosophy toprove such a thing. I offer merely theevidence of my writing and reading oneconomic history and the teaching ofprice theory. I think that's where youjudge whether economics is in goodshape, out in the labs and libraries, notin the philosopher's study.In short, Makiwants to go on with theold program of epistemology before1955, the program of finding Big-TTruth independent of history or societyor ethics. I have shown recently inKnowledge and Persuasion in Economics

(Chs. 14-17) that the professionalepistemologists themselves want to aban-

don the old program, though the philoso-phers of economics have not gotten thenews. As the epistemologist Putnam putit, "the enterprises of providing a foun-dation for Being and Knowledge-a suc-cessful description of the Furniture ofthe World or a successful description ofthe Canons of Justification-are enter-prises that have disastrously failed" (Put-nam 1990, p. 19). Or William Rozeboom([1967] 1993, pp. 183-84):

No harmwill be done, I suppose, by retaininga special name for true beliefs at the theo-retical limit of absolute conviction and per-fect infallibility so long as we appreciate thatthis ideal is never instantiated, but such sen-timentality must not be allowed to impededevelopment of conceptual resources formastering the panorama of partial certaintieswhich are more literally relevant to the realworld.

That's what the real epistemologiststhink, as contrasted with the epistemolo-gists imagined in controversies over eco-nomic method.But I am emphasizing disagreementswith Maki, which in truth are minor. As Isaid, Maki and I agree on a lot. We agreethat economics has a rhetorical aspect,that sometimes its rhetoric is good andsometimes not so good. Most of all Ithink we agree what it's time to put awaythe philosophical tools, misunderstoodand misused by most self-described phi-losophers of economics, and pick up thehistorical and sociological and rhetorical

ones. There's more that such nonphiloso-phical tools can tell about what we'resaying and how we're saying it. More,anyway, than the philosophers of 1955shouting at us from their armchairs.REFERENCES

GOODMAN, NELSON. Waysof worldmaking.ndi-anapolis: Hackett, 1978.HARR , ROM. Varieties of realism: A rationaleforthe natural sciences. Oxford: Basil Blackwell,1986.JAMES, WILLIAM. Pragmatism:A new name forsome old ways of thinking, together with four


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McCloskey: A Reply to Mdki 1323essays from The Meaning of Truth (1909).; re-printed (with original pagination of the 1907edition). New York: Longmans, Green, [1907]1949.LATOUR,BRUNO.The Pasteurization of France.Trans.: A. SHERIDAN AND JOHNLAW. Cam-bridge and London: Harvard U. Press, [1984]1988.MCCLOSKEY,DONALD N. If you're so smart: Thenarrative of economic expertise. U. of ChicagoPress, 1990.

. Knowledge and persuasion in economics.Cambridge:Cambridge U. Press, 1993.PUTNAM, HILARY. Realism with a human face.Ed.: JAMES CONANT. Cambridge: Harvard U.Press, 1990.ROZEBOOM,WILLIAM W. "Why I Know So MuchMore Than You Do." Amer. Philos. Quart.,1967, 4, pp. 281-90; reprinted in The theory ofknowledge: Classical and contemporary read-ings. Ed.: Louis P. POJAM. Belmont, CA:Wadsworth, 1993, pp. 175-85.

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