Theory of Knowledge - Course Companion for Students Marija Uzunova Dang Arvin Singh Uzunov Dang

case study below considers the example of
The
economics—for better or worse—has strived
how
is sometimes proclaimed the most
Economics
among the human sciences, at least
rigorous
economists. The issue of the supposed
by
of economics is our entry point into the
rigour
about the contestable boundaries
discussion
the natural and human sciences,
between
the exchange between both of them and
and
mathematics.
who believe in the rigour of economics
Some
it reflects a natural order of social reality.
think
might think this false, even bizarre,
Others
the discipline’s repeated failure to predict
given
prevent economic crises. Critics point out
and
this chasing of rigour has led to an over-
that
on abstract mathematical models,
reliance
rather than producing predictions about
which,
couple of decades. Could mathematics help
past
human sciences navigate and make sense of
the
And critics have been saying
methodology.
for several decades, but change has been
this
The 2009 global recession that wiped out
slow.
of dollars of savings, and precipitated
millions
debt crisis in Southern Europe, came just six
a
after a leading economist had proclaimed
years
the “central problem of depressionprevention
that
has been solved” (Lucas quoted in
2009). Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman,
Krugman
of the most trenchant critics among the
one
economists, has summed up as follows:
leading
economics profession went astray because
“the
as a group, mistook beauty, clad
economists,
impressive-looking mathematics, for truth”
in
2009). Why were they impressed by
(Krugman
mathematics?
as a term was devised by Paul
“Mathiness”
an Economics Nobel Laureate, who
Romer,
used it to describe a style of work
originally
“lets academic politics masquerade
that
science” (Romer 2015) by camouflaging
as
arguments in an ambiguous mix
political
words and symbols, natural and formal
of
and theoretical and empirical
language,
He argues that mathiness makes it
content.
to access and critique the economics
difficult
and gives the work an unearned
discourse,
of authority. Both of these—access and
sense
to Krugman, there are strong
According
and business incentives that propel
political
idealized vision of economies composed
an
fully rational agents—despite plenty
of
evidence to the contrary—and “fancy
of
have obscured these less-tenable
equations”
assumptions in both academia and
model
To make his long argument short,
policy.
asserts that mathiness is used
Krugman
defend faulty economics, including the
to
I. Scope
I. Scope
the complexity of the world?
to maintain its legitimacy and authority in the
Case study
Mathiness and physics envy in the
human sciences
There is an implicit pecking order among the
social sciences, and it seems to be dominated
by economics. For starters, economists see
themselves at or near the top of the disciplinary
hierarchy. In a survey conducted in the early
2000s, [David] Colander found that 77 per cent of
economics graduate students in elite programs
agree with the statement that “economics is the
most scientic of the social sciences”. Some fteen
years ago, Richard Freeman speculated on the
origins of this conviction. His assessment was
candid: ‘sociologists and political scientists have
less powerful analytical tools and know less than
we do, or so we believe. By scores on the Graduate
Record Examination and other criteria, our eld
attracts students stronger than theirs, and our
courses are more mathematically demanding’.
(Fourcade et al 2015)
authority—are significant knowledge issues.
the future, actually obscure a pseudo-scientific
neoliberal paradigm.
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