This book is essentially concerned with how ideas in economics persist, spread, contract or are just simply ignored. It is therefore appropriate to commence the analysis by examining the key ideas and concepts within the Sociology of Science Knowledge (SSK) which is a particular branch of the philosophy of science that seeks to explain the persistence, spread and contraction of intellectual ideas in general. The chapter provides a general exposition of SSK, resisting the temptation immediately to start applying the ideas to economics to any great degree. The application of the ideas will come in the chapters ahead.
SSK seems rather removed from a traditional conception of what the philosophy of science is. Hands (1998, p. 474) points out that the philosophy of science has generally been concerned with epistemic justification for rules that are said to dictate proper scientific method. By contrast, SSK examines a scientific community, first and foremost, as a social group whose behaviour is significantly determined by the same sorts of factors that determine how individuals act within other social groups. This view of science is different from simply assuming that science is a straightforward mechanical process whereby hypotheses or theories are developed, tested against evidence and then discarded or provisionally accepted and where social forces do not impinge.
SSK arose because of the failure of earlier philosophies of science, such as logical positivism and Popperian falsificationism, to provide a rule-based approach for classifying theory as being either scientific or unscientific (see Chapter 3). SSK, along with rhetorical and postmodern approaches, can be seen as constituting a ânaturalistic turnâ whereby we examine what scientists actually do, rather than prescribe what they should do (Hands 2001b). SSK views the old rule-based approach of the received view as being untenable, arguing that observation cannot be âobjectiveâ and needs to be seen as being both theory-laden and social-context laden (Hands 2001a). SSK asserts that socialisation and institutions are crucial to how scientific endeavour plays out. Socialisation and the signals and incentives of particular social structures often lead scientists unquestioningly to believe certain things and look at things in a specific way. Science, for all its claims to be an objective pursuit of the truth, cannot totally transcend the social, even if scientists themselves, or the society they serve, would like to, or feel they need to, imagine otherwise.
SSK originates with the publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn (1962). Kuhnâs book was a landmark and has had a significant impact on both the philosophy of science and economic methodology. The literature on Kuhnâs work is vast, but the essential ideas can be outlined reasonably succinctly. It is argued that most of the time science practice is in a state of ânormal scienceâ, where there is a single ruling paradigm. A paradigm is an overall framework or research programme that defines the thinking and behaviour of a particular community of researchers. Kuhn later refined his idea of paradigm by arguing that it is composed of a disciplinary matrix (Dow 2002). This disciplinary matrix stipulates the models and methods to be used, but also provides a general world-view that includes things such as the values by which theories are to be judged (Dow 2002). Exemplars also form part of the disciplinary matrix, demonstrating an (apparently) impressive solution to a particular problem (Pheby 1987). Within economics, textbooks immediately come to mind as important components of the disciplinary matrix.
Kuhn argued that paradigms are incommensurate with one another. Such an assertion conflicts with the traditional conception that science builds on the knowledge contained in older theories and that later theories will be getting closer and closer to the truth (Boumans et al. 2010). Incommensurability provides some of the explanation of why scientists from different paradigms have enormous problems trying to communicate with each other and to respect each otherâs positions. It was Kuhnâs reading of Aristotleâs Physica that provided the genesis for his main ideas. Kuhn noted that Aristotleâs observations of biology and political behaviour had impressively stood the test of time as searching and profound. However, his study of motion, to Kuhn, read as absurd. Stranger still, was the fact that these absurd ideas of Aristotle were taken so seriously for a very long period of time (Kuhn 1977, p. xi). Kuhn eventually resolved his puzzlement by concluding that Aristotleâs analysis of motion was written within an older paradigm. Aristotleâs writing only seemed preposterous to Kuhn because he was viewing it through the lens of a later paradigm.
Paradigms are resistant to change and have many processes that are conservative in nature. However, they are not permanent and can be overthrown from time to time; notably, this is said to occur via a revolutionary rather than an incremental process (Kuhn 1962; Pheby 1987). The starting point for a revolution is the building up of anomalies and problems that are so serious that they can neither be ignored nor accommodated via minor adjustments to the currently dominant paradigm. This situation is seen as a state of âcrisisâ, which is resolved by scientists abandoning the established paradigm and taking refuge in a new paradigm (Pheby 1987).
Kuhn developed his ideas by looking at the history of the natural sciences rather than the social sciences. It is generally accepted that Kuhnâs ideas do not transfer quite as well to the social sciences as the natural sciences. Backhouse (1998) has outlined some problems in regard to how Kuhnâs ideas apply to the history of economics. First, it is difficult to clearly establish the start and end of particular paradigms: has there been a single paradigm since Adam Smith? Or are there various paradigms, such as the classical, neoclassical and Keynesian? The second problem is that it is difficult to argue that particular paradigms have enjoyed near-monopoly status, as asserted by Kuhn. While there is a dominant orthodox economics, there are also dissident schools that coexist with this dominant paradigm. In the social sciences, paradigms seem to accumulate, rather than replace each other (Hettne 1995).
While Kuhnâs thinking does not map seamlessly on to the history of economics, his concept of a paradigm has broad applicability to economics; in particular that âprior acceptance of a paradigm defines what one will look for and what he/she will seeâ and that âadherents to different paradigms literally live in different worlds and find it virtually impossible to communicate with one another across that perceptual barrierâ (Bartlett 1995 p. 1259). The concept of a paradigm is also particularly valuable in prompting questions and lines of inquiry in seeking to understand contemporary economics. The problem of sharply defining where a paradigm starts and ends is usually difficult, but this does not negate its usefulness.
Developments in SSK since Kuhn
Since the publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, SSK has been extended in various directions. One of the most important of these extensions has been the âstrong programmeâ of the Edinburgh School, which strongly asserts that all scientific knowledge, including SSK itself, should be seen as a social construction (Bloor 1991; Dow 2002). Boumans et al. (2010) argue that the four cornerstones of the strong programme are as follows:
Causality: identify the causal conditions that bring about the beliefs of scientists;
Impartiality: be impartial between true and false, or rational and irrational, beliefs;
Symmetry: the same type of cause should be used to explain both true and false beliefs;
Reflexivity: the explanations offered should also be applicable to the sociology of science.
The strong programmeâs position on the issues of symmetry, causality and reflexivity has had some influence in the case studies undertaken in later chapters, though the analysis is obviously written by somebody who has a commitment to economic pluralism. However, some effort has been made to try to understand how different protagonists appear to understand their situations.
Another key branch of SSK is the anthropological approach of the social constructivists (this variant is sometimes referred to as the âBath Schoolâ â reflecting its origins at the University of Bath). The emphasis of the social constructivists is on micro-studies of what actually occurs in particular settings where science is undertaken, such as a laboratory (for an example of this work see Knorr-Cetina 1981). Indeed, this branch of SSK is sometimes known as the âlaboratory studies approachâ (Boumans et al. 2010). The social constructivist approach is anthropological, as it requires âthe social scientist to spend a substantial amount of time doing fieldwork at the site of the scientific activity and to understand the particular details of the knowledge production process ⌠to follow scientists aroundâ (Hands 1998 p. 476). This book can be seen as having some affinity with the social constructivist approach, through the participant-observation approach that is adopted in Chapter 10, which draws on eleven years of working in economics departments and twenty years working within universities.
This examination of SSK will now be concluded by examining two ideas that are particularly important for the purposes of this study. The first idea is the proposition that new ideas get accepted on the basis of how desirable they are in terms of the current preferences, predilections and interests of particular groups of scientists. The second idea is the proposition that larger social debates and struggles, particularly those concerned with social and political order, are decisive in shaping what is accepted as science.
SSK argues that scientists, particularly social scientists, have no recourse to some privileged and objective process whereby they can uncover the unambiguous truth. They are prone to persist with ideas and concepts that they are attached to and feel fond of and which are advantageous to them_ âthe acceptance of a scientific theory is dependent upon its compatibility with the social interests of the scientific community rather than its success in terms of explaining the state of the worldâ (Boumans et al. 2010, p. 122). There are certainly clear sunk costs of investing in a particular paradigm_ abandoning it may lead to the loss of status and income and may also require people to acquire radically different knowledge and techniques. This could plausibly result in significant psychological stress, as scientists might well have to come to terms with having committed much of their professional lives to a failed project. This might create a strong conscious, or at least unconscious, incentive to remain committed to the status quo. Certainly, a number of dissenting economists have looked to arguments of sunk costs (Freedman 2000) and emotional and psychological distress to help explain the resistance to pluralism (Nelson 2001).
While a focus on how academics think and respond to their self-interest is important, it is also necessary to acknowledge the role that larger political and social forces play in the spread of scientific ideas. To link larger political and social forces to the spread of economics ideas is familiar territory for radical political economists and other heterodox economists (see for example Lee 2009), but it is also a cornerstone of SSK. A classic case study in the SSK tradition that illustrates this is Shapin and Schafferâs Leviathan and the Air-Pump (1985).
Shapin and Schaffer, working within the tradition of the strong programme, undertook an innovative analysis of a well-known scientific dispute that occurred between Thomas Hobbes and Robert Boyle in the 1660s and early 1670s. At the surface level, the dispute was about the scientific legitimacy of Boyleâs air-pump experiments. These experiments involved a suction pump being attached to a glass bulb. The pump would evacuate the air, and thus create what in todayâs terms would be called a vacuum. However, back then, what exactly was created by the evacuation of the air was a matter of intense disagreement between Hobbes and Boyle, with Hobbes strongly attacking the significance and legitimacy of Boyleâs work.
Initially, Shapin and Schaffer make a familiar point from SSK, namely that internal social pressures from within a scientific community are important:
[T]he member who poses awkward questions about âwhat everybody knowsâ in the shared...
