McCloskey's Rhetoric

Benjamin Balak

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• eBook ISBN: 9781134373208
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The rhetoric of economics has long claimed scientific objectivity, however the late, great economist Joan Robinson argued that 'the purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.' This unique book examines the use of rhetoric in economics, focusing on the work of Deirdre McCloskey and other major economic philosophers.

McCloskey is one of the most recognizable names in economics, yet this is the first real attempt to analyze her work in book form. She views economics as a language that uses all the rhetorical devices of everyday conversation, and her controversial standpoint on judging economics by aesthetic and literary standards has been hugely influential.

Utilizing the views of Derrida and Foucualt amongst others, Benjamin Balak analyzes McCloskey's major texts and critically evaluates the linguistic, literary and philosophical approaches they introduce. This long overdue examination of the methodological and philosophical consequences of McCloskey's work will be of interest to philosophers and economists alike.

1
Exordium

The rhetoric of economics

The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.

(Joan Robinson, 1955, quoted in Galbraith, 1973)

Over twenty years after the publication of “The Rhetoric of Economics” in the Journal of Economic Literature (1983), Deirdre McCloskey remains one of the most controversial contemporary economists. In her many texts following this paper, McCloskey has launched a small but vigorous community of economists studying the discipline’s rhetoric along the lines suggested by Joan Robinson (see opening quote). While many of her ideas were borrowed from the humanities, it is in bringing them to bear on the rhetoric of economics that she has intervened in the history, philosophy, and methodology of economics. Many in the academic community studying the history of economics have recognized that McCloskey’s rhetoric has had a significant impact on the field and she is mentioned in almost all texts pertaining in some way to the current understanding of how theories function in the social sciences (otherwise known as meta-theory). Unfortunately, while McCloskey herself is often mentioned, very rarely are her ideas seriously discussed. I will argue that the onus is on the majority of economic philosophers who, to use McCloskey’s tongue-in-cheek terminology, have not done their homework on recent developments in the philosophy of science, literary and linguistic studies, and that bête noir: epistemology. Once this context is developed, McCloskey’s remarkably accessible prose takes on a host of nuances that most of her highly sophisticated critics have missed. My first goal is to situate and clarify the linguistic, literary, and philosophical approaches applied by McCloskey. Second, to present and criticize the language-theories she adopts, and to develop several modifications and extensions. Finally, I will attempt to criticize and evaluate her contributions and their potential consequences for economics and the social sciences in general.

I proceed with a close reading of some of McCloskey’s major texts and the ensuing secondary literature while maintaining my focus on the problem of language. The problem is that language is endogenous to the scientific endeavor at all levels of inquiry. This has been specifically recognized in the 1920s by positivist philosophers of the Vienna Circle, whose initial concerns were with the definition of a scientific language that would ensure metaphysics-free positive sciences. The problems they encountered were never resolved in a satisfactory manner due to the analytical feedback created whenever one tries to analyze language. This is because the language under investigation is necessarily contaminated with the language underlying the analysis. Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction is particularly useful for studying the structure of language. It provides what could be described as a micro approach for looking at the processes of scientific languages in the context of the historical institutions with which they are interdependent. Michel Foucault provides a framework for a macro approach that examines the epistemological history of the social institutions in which knowledge is actually produced. Foucault and Derrida have had a tremendous impact on the humanities and the social sciences but their works have scarcely been explicitly introduced and studied within the context of economics (with some rare exceptions in highly specialized contexts). This omission can go some way in explaining the apparent sterility of several recent debates in the sub-fields of economic philosophy and methodology, such as the status and potential of Critical Realism as championed by Tony Lawson’s Economics and Reality (1997). Much of this important debate is left barren because participants are unaware of the significant work already done on the very same issues by the “continental philosophers.” I am convinced that a degree of familiarity with this extensive body of work is necessary in order to overcome several philosophical hurdles that have been arresting the development of the philosophy of economics as well as the historical interpretations of its intellectual history.

Within the texts mentioning, praising, or attacking McCloskey, little is said about the meta-theoretical implications of her work. I will look at the philosophical foundations of the problem of language in science in order to understand the fundamental difficulties that underlie the debate on the rhetorical project in economics. For this purpose, Uskali Mäki’s influential critique of McCloskey is particularly helpful (Mäki, 1995). I examine the dialectical relationship between Mäki’s analytical reconstruction of McCloskey’s epistemological position, and her seemingly incommensurable non-analytical defense. Epistemological issues are behind the intellectual schism between analytical and postmodern philosophy. Using the insights of Derrida, Foucault, and others to adjust scientific epistemology allows me to argue that analytical and postmodern philosophies are not only compatible but also complementary, and probably even interdependent. Furthermore, I argue that only through a thorough understanding of the essential tensions between these two approaches, can one claim to have explained social phenomena to any satisfactory degree of completeness.

Since rhetoric is a thoroughly contextual affair, it is prudent and fruitful to try to retain as much of the text’s context as possible. This approach has the advantage of directing the critical focus to the method itself and thus benefits from a continual illustration by the text of the points made in the text. I work with pairs of texts because the study of interpretation should seek its objects of investigation within interpretative relations. These relations are, of course, of different kinds. I will conclude this exordium by specifically addressing the three major pairs of texts used:

• McCloskey-Mäki: A seemingly traditional dialectical relation in which Uskali Mäki (critic) rationally reconstructs McCloskey’s arguments (primary source) in order to criticize it externally: with reference to the logical system of analytical philosophy which is Mäki’s but not McCloskey’s. McCloskey’s reply radically departs from the dialectical tradition by rhetorically rejecting it in her analytically frivolous response. The rhetoric dissonance created by the style of her response foregrounds her substantial argument: a deconstruction of the substance/form hierarchical opposition (I’ll discuss hierarchical oppositions in detail below). This interpretative relation is rich in incommensurabilities between antagonistic philosophical traditions. This structural antagonism is illuminating in that Mäki’s relentless drive to diagnose McCloskey yields a detailed diagram of the points of conflict and the specific rhetoric issues driving them.

• Derrida-Culler: Jacques Derrida’s texts are exceedingly difficult to appreciate before embarking on a very long and thorough examination of his own primary sources as well as secondary sources interpreting his almost impenetrable texts. Jonathan Culler is, I believe, the best explicator of Derridian deconstruction. Furthermore, he is surprisingly unknown even though his text On Deconstruction (1982) was the only one Derrida himself ever somewhat endorsed. Culler is pedagogically indispensable for his historical narrative, illustrations, and examples. Bringing him to the attention of readers is an objective in itself.

• Foucault-Deleuze: The relationship between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze is more complicated. Both were eminent philosophers who maintained a close personal and professional relationship. Their individual interests led them to apply many of each other’s approaches to different domains of philosophy: Foucault operated at the historical, social, and anthropological levels, while Deleuze systematized and applied Foucault’s insights at a meta-theoretical level. Such a relationship between the specific and the general will be a major aspect of my analysis. Furthermore, Deleuze is yet to receive the international recognition he deserves as one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century.

Following McCloskey’s elegant rhetoric example in Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics (1994), I structure my text as a classic Greek oration. The Exordium (introduction) is followed by a story, the Narration: McCloskey’s Critiques of Economics, where I reconstruct and interpret McCloskey’s criticism of economic methodology and its failure to capture the rhetorical dimension of economic thought. The Narration also elaborates on the interdisciplinary elements she introduces into economics and develops them in their disciplinary context. McCloskey’s principal antagonist is presented in the Division: The Mäki diagnosis. First, Uskali Mäki’s careful reconstruction and critique of McCloskey’s philosophy is in turn itself reconstructed and then deconstructed. Mäki’s work serves to clarify McCloskey’s ideas since it rephrases them in a more familiar analytical context. Furthermore, since Mäki’s is ostensibly seen as the current philosophical last word on the rhetoric project in economics, he naturally leads to the next section—Proof: The rhetoric of truth—discussing the apparent incommensurable aspects of current methodological and philosophical debates in economics. This section includes discussions on the realistrelativist debate, epistemological versus ontological foundations, anti-methodology, and the confusion surrounding postmodernism. In the Refutation: Beyond ethical neutrality, I examine the potential use of what has come to be called economic criticism for a thicker understanding of the history of economic thought, as well as the problems and oversights that are raised by such an interdisciplinary approach. I attempt to apply the approaches developed elsewhere in this text to the very issues that are raised by it. In other words, I launch a critique that operates in the same methodological context as its object of investigation and thus functions as an internal criticism at the meta-theoretical level.

Finally, I would like to thank Deirdre McCloskey for discussing many of the issues contained herein with me, the University of North Carolina’s Department of Economics, and especially Vincent Tarascio who allowed me to pursue my unorthodox interests unhindered, members of the History of Economics Society and the Eastern Economic Association with whom I discussed many parts of this book, my colleagues at Rollins College who support my research, Rob Langham who is an encouraging and immensely patient editor, and four anonymous referees. I could of course go on to mention many other people without whose direct and indirect help this would never have happened, but will only take this opportunity to apologize for not mentioning them explicitly.

2
Narration

McCloskey’s critiques of economics

Exordium: the vices of economics

The principle arguments of McCloskey’s rhetoric have been developed in numerous journal articles and books since her pioneering 1983 paper in the Journal of Economic Literature. I will focus here primarily on Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics (1994) because it reiterates, reinterprets, and develops the principle arguments that appeared in The Rhetoric of Economics (1985) and several other texts. Knowledge and Persuasion also articulates the philosophical basis of McCloskey’s contribution to the discussion on the rhetoric of economics and includes replies to criticism and further refinements and illustrations.

I will attempt to follow a close but concise reading of McCloskey in order to maintain her general structure, which is that of a classical oration. Applying formal Aristotelian structure is such a bombastic appeal to authority that I suspect it is a rhetorical joke. This is a happily common occurrence in McCloskey’s prose, and indeed the reason why I chose to imitate this structure in my text. To add my own postmodern twist on the joke, I have nested McCloskey’s classically structured argument within the Narration of my classically structured text. In fact, I hope that this specific form is a structural demonstration of the text’s content. Specifically, I am referring to the inescapable and infinitely regressive relationship between argument and its context.

Jokingly or not, classicism immediately establishes the ideas inhabiting this structure as subscribing to the tenets of the most fundamental orthodoxy of western culture: Aristotelian poetics. The choice employs multiple subtexts and is much more productive than most appeals to authority we regularly use. In both the supposedly distinct realms of the scientific and the rhetoric, Aristotle is more than an authority; he is the paradigm of authority. When McCloskey constantly insists that her rhetoric is not radical in any way, who better to legitimize the propriety of her literary tools than Aristotle himself. Finally, there is of course the cultural dimension of introducing continental humanities (i.e. non Anglo) into the Anglo-Saxon halls of science. What better way for a foreign element to disarm xenophobic suspicions, than to pay homage to the local god? In the aforementioned Anglo-Saxon halls of science, that god is still ostensibly a classical Greek.

This structural apologia is part of the strategic progression of the text as a whole, which is crafted to allow a gentle entry into the subject, with controversial or difficult issues well prepared so as not to offend an economist’s sensibilities. Issues are then revisited later in the text, and only then receive a more careful and consequential analysis.

The immediate issue at hand is then to summarize and evaluate McCloskey’s ideas. First, I must decide which of her ideas I will qualify with the adjective major and, even harder, which I will not. Having done that I must endeavor to transcribe an idea I have just recognized as big into a relatively small space without bestowing smallness upon it. I will attempt to escape this burden by letting McCloskey herself do at least part of the job for me: In 1996 she first held the Tinbergen Visiting Professorship at Erasmus University in Rotterdam and presented her ideas in her inaugural address delivered that year. Her The Vices of Economists—The Virtues of the Bourgeoisie (1996) is based on this speech and achieves its goal in 130 pages. In it, she argues that the science of economics suffers from three major methodological ills that she refers to as vices: Incorrect and exaggerated use of statistical significance as a means of establishing scientific relevance, increased focus on theoretical modeling at the expense of empirical science, and a continuing belief in social engineering. These three general ideas may seem almost disa...

Table of contents

• Routledge INEM advances in economic methodology
• Contents
• Illustrations
• 1 Exordium
• 2 Narration
• 3 Division
• 4 Proof
• 5 Refutation
• 6 Peroration
• Appendix I Historical background
• Appendix II The ethical strata in economic theory
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index