In conversation with

Exordium

The Strangeness of the Discipline

A Good Scientific Conversation

Does the Philosophizing Matter?

Roy Weintraub, my PhD advisor and an economist who switched from general equilibrium theory to history of thought, would insist that the philosophical discussion about truth and all that is of no consequence to what economists do. He got that from Stanley Fish, a literary critic, legal scholar and rhetorician. McCloskey and I invited Fish to a conference at Wellesley College in 1984 to have him tell us economists about rhetoric and all that. "Forget it," was his message, "keep doing what you're doing and don't be bothered." The methodologists among us may resist the conclusion, but practitioners' lack of interest for what they do suggests that Weintraub and Fish are right. (Then again, what are the consequences of the academic economic conversation on policy and business?) The analogy below makes the point.

BOX 5.3 NEAR HERE

Consider the philosopher your therapist. Rorty does not know how to do economics nor do any of the others cited above. (They are all standing on the sidelines of the game, if at all). Then again, you do not expect your therapist to do your life for you. If you realized the mess they probably are making of their own lives, you would not want them to. Even so, they may give you insights into your own life, hand you some concepts, and make you face up to your problems, confusions, and doubts. (Dr Phil: "We all have our doubts. But we want to go with life, don't we?") Philosophy of science is a source for economists who want to understand what they are doing, what this science is all about. It helps the hard-nosed scientists to tone down somewhat. (Dr Phil: "You're a little arrogant, aren't you? And you don't want to be that, do you? So for goodness' sake, change your tune.") And the lazy-dazy people will be encouraged to get more serious about the social character of a conversation.

Truths, Meanings and Interests

A contribution to a conversation is like a pebble thrown in a pond. It will cause little waves that expand and fade; one pebble causes bigger ripples than others. Often your pebble will not stir things at all. There are exceptions. Keynes's The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) caused significant waves. Solow's article on growth caused waves, too, although they took a while to surface. The work by George Akerlof on asymmetric information caused waves. None of these contributions appeared to have caused waves merely because they were true. What made the difference in each case?

It is about meanings, the significant connections that a contribution makes, the values to which it appeals, the associations that it evokes. And it is about interests, the purpose it serves, the action it calls for. Truth is another concern, in some cases more but usually less important than the other two. The questions asked, and therefore the questions to ask, are:
a) How meaningful, how interesting, is the contribution, and then,
b) What are its interests, or implications for research or policy, and certainly,
c) How true, or plausible, is it (and sometimes, how truthful is the person making the contribution).

How practical this is. In a seminar conversation, what constitutes a contribution? Say I note that there are thirteen people in the room. Unless someone believes in ghosts, anyone can quickly assess the truth-value of that statement which, unfortunately, is beside the point. The question is rather what I mean to say with this contribution. Do thirteen people ruin the chance that everyone can be heard? Am I disappointed with the low turnout? Do the thirteen make up a significant percentage of a caucus? These questions expose the meaning of the remark because it, too, must have an interest. What do I intend to accomplish with it? Do I want more people to come or am I telling people to think again before coming next time? In those cases, the remark serves the interest of the seminar. Or am I prefacing a philosophical point to serve the interest of furthering philosophical inquiry? A single remark has all kinds of meanings and serves one or perhaps several interests. All this weighs in on the participants to determine whether my remark made a contribution or not. It is not terribly logical; it is, however, quite complex.

In this context, it is useful to know about speech act theory propagated by the philosopher John L. Austin and further developed by philosophers like John Searle and Jurgen Habermas. Austin made the point that sentences perform in various ways; they are speech acts. The performance is usually more than referring to some reality out there. When I say, "Get out of here!" I do not make a claim about some truth but intend just what I say: "Get out of here!" He called such a speech act a perlocutionary act. A locutionary speech act involves saying that something is the case, as "There are thirteen people in this room." If the speech act intends to make some other point (e.g., thirteen is a low turnout), it is called an illocutionary act. A speech act like the remark about the thirteen people is often all three. While you can talk quite competently without knowing the names of your speech acts, it is important to realize that not all we say has value because of its truth content. There is more.

As soon you realize this, the point is obvious. Claiming the truth about a poem would be presumptuous if not arrogant-as if all other opinions and interpretations are untrue and therefore beside the point. Discussions about relationships are not very different. We associate, muse, argue about what the other really meant. While intimating that it is all about true love, true friendship, we simply are relating to each other. Sure, at times the truth rules, like when you find your partner with your best friend in a compromising position, or when you mistake one artist for another. Even so, any "truth" is subject to interpretation.

Truth is not pivotal in a scientific conversation, either. Truth is not the primary arbiter of debates, nor is it the focal guide in scientific inquiry. In the company of economists, the truth question hardly ever comes up. Rare is the instance that someone will ask, "Is this really true?" Going about claiming the truth is not what you do in a scientific setting. You rather say you have "an interesting result," a "plausible outcome" or a "more fruitful approach." Economists may say that they are right with their theories and others wrong, but woe be to those who dare say their prediction is true. That would be a true faux pas. Virtually all those in the scientific conversation know that the truth is elusive, that new results may prove old results wrong, that theories evolve and change and that uncertainty is ubiquitous. As philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend noted in Against Method, "And as regards the word 'truth,' we can say at this stage that it certainly has people in a tizzy but has not achieved much else" (1975: 230).

So although it is always hard to tell from the outside which contributions will cause waves and which will not, or what their breadth will be, we can say that effective contributions will perform, as Austin would say, locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary functions, and therefore have to truthful, meaningful and of interest. Let me elaborate:

Being truthful. The truth of contribution to a conversation-be it a proposition, a sentence, an entire theory, a gesture, a factual statement or something else-matters. In certain occasions, it matters more than others. This is the realist point. Truth stands here for truth in the sense of logical consistency, correct calculations and proper deductions-and in the sense of correspondence with some reality out there. But a truthful statement does not speak for itself and is not persuasive on its own; it needs more.

Being meaningful. A contribution generates meanings all around. This is the hermeneutic point. Meanings are more or less loose connections of a statement, proposition, emotion, concept, text (or whatever) with other statements, propositions, emotions, concepts, texts (or whatever). The truth, or evocation thereof, is only one meaning. Others may prevail. When one economist mentions, "Nash equilibrium," other economists may think other things: its logical definition, the vexing issues related to it, or Nash's peculiar life. (He went mad, won the Nobel Prize and became the subject of an award-winning movie.) Associations constitute meanings. A contribution to a conversation has to be meaningful to be heard and to become part of it. That is why scientists continually interpret, and why it is so important that they find a contribution interesting. They are not just trying to determine the truth value of a contribution but, more importantly, they are trying to interpret what it means in the context of the ongoing conversation, how it stands in relation to other contributions, whether its meanings are more or less in correspondence with prevailing beliefs, and so on.

Being of interest: A contribution has to serve certain interests, or inspire one or more actions. This is the pragmatic point. You might say the contribution has to perform in certain ways. This makes it of interest, rather than interesting. A contribution is of interest when:
a) It sustains the conversation by suggesting new research and further argument, offering new heuristics or solving a problem that stood in the way of progress.
b) It has consequences for other conversations like those related to policy, management, the stock market, journalism, households, unions.
c) It contributes to the commons, the values that are shared within and without the academic community (as when an argument supports the value of justice, or Rorty argues for greater solidarity and tolerance). When the implied values of a contribution clash with existing values, the contribution may cause waves because of opposition and resistance. (Gary Becker received a lot of attention because many took issue with his economistic view of things personal.)
d) It serves personal and institutional interests in terms of generating research money, personal satisfaction and the like.

Little can be known off hand about just what makes a contribution interesting and of interest outside one's own conversation. Where computer scientists find notions like "inheritance" and "composition" exciting, people on the outside are left to wonder. For insiders, the notions are packed with meanings. They can recount dramas of success and failure, muse about its opportunities and have a feel for the significance of their discussion on the outside world. How interesting it is, how much it is of interest and how valuable it is will be beyond outsiders-including those, coming from what they mistakenly see as a loftier perch, who believe they can step into such a conversation from time to time and judge the essence of it. Likewise, it is almost impossible to gauge from the outside what a new contribution to the literature on cooperative games signifies. The outsider may be dismayed by the wildly unrealistic assumptions in the analysis, but insiders may think it has a profound impact and will therefore be excited when talking about it.

FIGURE 5.1 NEAR HERE

Contributions have to be of interest. "Knowledge is dispositional, a readiness to act on the basis of beliefs," as Popper once wrote. That is why economic arguments often conclude with policy implications and why research foundations want to know the social relevance of what they fund. Often the claims made are window dressing. Economists claim policy relevance even though they know that the chance that policymakers will take notice of their argument is negligible. For a long time, methodologists have claimed their discussion would bear directly on the practice of economists. Now we know that that is highly dubious. (See box 5.3.) Everyone thinks physics research interests lead to inventing things, and medical research interests promote health. The influence takes years to be effectuated and, even then, often occurs indirectly and haphazardly.