In conversation with

Exordium

The Strangeness of the Discipline

A Good Scientific Conversation

Table of Contents

  • Exordium: Getting into the Conversation
  • Chapter 1. The Strangeness of the Discipline
    1. Big + Important = Normal?
    2. Suspicion and Derision in Everyday Life
    3. Suspicion and Derision in Political Life
    4. The Strangeness of the Subject
    5. The Strangeness of the Science
    6. The Persistent Disagreements
    7. Economists are Human, Too
    8. A Strange Lack of Reflection
    9. Why Then Economics?
    10. Further Reading
  • Chapter 2. Economics is a Conversation or Better, a Bunch of Conversations
    1. Strange, Continued
    2. A Proposal and an Image
    3. Getting into the Conversation
    4. Probing the Notion of Conversation
    5. This Metaphor Versus Others
    6. The Character of a Scientific Conversation
    7. So What?
    8. Further Reading
  • Chapter 3. What it Takes to be an Academic Dog or The Culture of the Academic Conversation
    1. Conversation and Function
    2. Introducing the Notion of Culture
    3. Academic Dogs
    4. Academic Versus Non-Academic Culture
    5. The Academic Commons
    6. The Ambiguity of Academic Values
    7. Justifying the Conversation
    8. So What?
    9. Further Reading
  • Chapter 4. It's the Attention, Stupid!
    1. The Name of the Game
    2. Being Busy and Getting Lost
    3. Attention and the Conversation
    4. The Harsh Facts
    5. Is Science a Game of Wasteful Competition?
    6. How to Get Attention
    7. So What?
    8. Further Reading
  • Chapter 5. A Good Scientific Conversation, or Contribution Thereto, Is Truthful, Meaningful and Serves Certain Interests
    1. Responding to Hard-Nosed and Lazy-Dazy Ideas About Economics
    2. How About Scientific Standards? Go to the Practice!
    3. Hope and Prospects for the Science of Economics
    4. The Harsh Facts
    5. Does the Philosophizing Matter?
    6. One Consequence: How to Be Critical
    7. So What?
    8. Appendix
    9. Further Reading
  • Chapter 6. The Art of Economic Persuasion: About Rhetoric and All That
    1. Rhetoric Introduced
    2. What Can Rhetoric Mean For Us?
    3. Argumentation Drives the Scientific Conversation
    4. Getting the Stories Right
    5. Does the Philosophizing Matter?
    6. One Consequence: How to Be Critical
    7. So What?
    8. Glossary of Selected Terms
    9. Further Reading
  • Chapter 7. Why, Why, Why?
    1. Why Indeed?
    2. Part 1. A bunch of conversations is going on and switching from one to another is not as easy as it seems
      • Rhetorical Obstacles
      • Switching Conversations May Require a Conversion
      • That the Message Comes Through: Differences Do Matter
    3. Part 2. Conversations change over time who says the current one will last forever?
      • Look Beyond Economics and See the Parallels
      • All Kinds of ISM's Characterize Historical Phases in Economic Conversations
      • The Advent of Modernism
      • The Modernist Movement Prevailed But Other Movements Were Kept Alive, Making for Lively Scenery and Enduring Differences
      • The Square and the Circle
      • The Problem With the Timing of Modernism
      • Then the Phase of Late-Modernism Sets In
      • Disappearing Acts
      • So Where Is Contemporary Economics?
      • So Where Does That Leave the Economic Conversations?
    4. Further Reading
  • Chapter 8. How and Why Everyday Conversations Differ from Academic Ones and How and Why Academic Conversations Clash with Political Ones
    1. The Stupidity Problem
    2. Look Beyond Economics and See the Parallels
    3. The Gap with Everyday Economics
    4. The Gap with the World of Politics
    5. Further Reading
  • Peroratio: Why the Science of Economics Is Not All That Strange