Mathematical Modelling and Ideology in the Economics Academy: competing explanations of the failings of the modern discipline?

Economic Thought 1 (1) (2012)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The widespread and long-lived failings of academic economics are due to an over-reliance on largely inappropriate mathematical methods of analysis. This is an assessment I have long maintained. Many heterodox economists, however, appear to hold instead that the central problem is a form of political-economic ideology. Specifically, it is widely contended in heterodox circles that the discipline goes astray just because so many economists are committed to a portrayal of the market economy as a smoothly or efficiently functioning system or some such, a portrayal that, whether sincerely held or otherwise, is inconsistent with the workings of social reality. Here I critically examine the contention that a form of political-economic ideology of this sort is the primary problem and assess its explanatory power. I conclude that the contention does not fare very well. I do not, though, deny that ideology of some sort has a major impact on the output of the modern economics academy. However it is of a different nature to the form typically discussed, and works in somewhat indirect and complex ways. Having raised the question of the impact of ideology I take the opportunity to explore its play in the economics academy more generally.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Economics and reality.Tony Lawson - 1997 - New York: Routledge.
The phoenix of ideology.Gayil Talshir - 2005 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 8 (2):107-124.
Philosophy, Ideology and Educational Theory.Ian Adams - 1987 - Dissertation, University of Durham (United Kingdom)
Mathematics and economics: the case of Menger.Josef Mensik - 2015 - Journal of Economic Methodology 22 (4):479-490.
Imagination and imaging in model building.Mary S. Morgan - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (5):753-766.
Explanatory pluralism in economics: against the mainstream?Jeroen Van Bouwel - 2004 - Philosophical Explorations 7 (3):299-315.
The phenomenology of economics: life-world, formalism, and the invisible hand.Till Düppe - 2010 - Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 3 (1):132.
Ideology, Rhetoric and Argument.Michael Weiler - 1993 - Informal Logic 15 (1).

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-03-12

Downloads
39 (#356,773)

6 months
1 (#1,042,085)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

References found in this work

Ideology.Terry Eagleton (ed.) - 1994 - New York: Longman.
What did mathematics do to physics?Yves Gingras - 2001 - History of Science 39 (4):383-416.
Mathematics in Western Culture.Morris Kline - 1955 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 15 (3):434-436.

View all 6 references / Add more references