TY - CHAP
T1 - Diversity in the moral sciences
AU - Gaus, Gerald
PY - 2019/10/28
Y1 - 2019/10/28
N2 - Pete Boettke’s “What Is Still Wrong with the Austrian School of Economics?” sketches a program for Austrian economics based on a Kuhnesque analysis of scientific communities. His core recommendations focus on what we might call the Uptake and Diffusion dimensions of the scientific enterprise. If taken as a core commitment, they entail an Integrationist program, a concomitant of which is a reduction in the unique insights of the Austrian approach and, so, an overall reduction of the diversity of perspectives in political economy and moral sciences. A cost of this program is to decrease the diversity of perspectives in economics, which in turn decreases the ability of Republic of Economic Science to explore and solve a wider variety of problems. The author presents the “Fundamental Diversity Dilemma,” according to which there is a trade-off between uptake/plausibility and diversity: as we increase uptake and plausibility, we decrease diversity. The author concludes with a defense of the role of heterodox research programs, and questioning the focus on a small set of metrics to indicate excellent and important research.
AB - Pete Boettke’s “What Is Still Wrong with the Austrian School of Economics?” sketches a program for Austrian economics based on a Kuhnesque analysis of scientific communities. His core recommendations focus on what we might call the Uptake and Diffusion dimensions of the scientific enterprise. If taken as a core commitment, they entail an Integrationist program, a concomitant of which is a reduction in the unique insights of the Austrian approach and, so, an overall reduction of the diversity of perspectives in political economy and moral sciences. A cost of this program is to decrease the diversity of perspectives in economics, which in turn decreases the ability of Republic of Economic Science to explore and solve a wider variety of problems. The author presents the “Fundamental Diversity Dilemma,” according to which there is a trade-off between uptake/plausibility and diversity: as we increase uptake and plausibility, we decrease diversity. The author concludes with a defense of the role of heterodox research programs, and questioning the focus on a small set of metrics to indicate excellent and important research.
KW - Boettke
KW - Categorizations
KW - Diversity
KW - Moral science
KW - Perspectives
KW - Scientific communities
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85073565166&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85073565166&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1108/S1529-213420190000024005
DO - 10.1108/S1529-213420190000024005
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85073565166
T3 - Advances in Austrian Economics
SP - 49
EP - 59
BT - Advances in Austrian Economics
PB - Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.
ER -