Postmodernism, Economics and Knowledge
Edited by Stephen Cullenberg, Jack Amariglio, and David Ruccio
It is only in the past twenty years that the debates surrounding modernism and postmodernism have begun to have an impact on economics. This new way of thinking moves beyond the prior emphasis of the philosophy of science: challenging the belief in the progressivity and modernity of economics and rejecting claims that science and mathematics provide the only models for the structure of economic knowledge. This ground-breaking volume brings together the essays of top theorists including Arjo Klamer, Deirdre McCloskey, Julie Nelson, Shaun Hargreaves-Heap and Philip Mirowski on a diverse range of topics such as gender, postcolonial theory and rationality as well as postmodernism.
Provoking, adventurous, and even charming, the essays in Postmodernism, Economics and Knowledge highlight the 'postmodern moments' in modern economic theory and practice . . . From the masterful introduction to the concluding essays on the gift, the book powerfully demonstrates the epistemological reflexivity and theoretical self-consciousness characteristic of postmodern thought and so absent from modern economics.
Julie Graham, Professor of Geosciences, University of MassachusettsEconomics purports to provide serious knowledge of the economy. Economists have long appreciated the requirements and limits imposed by epistemology and philosophy of science. Now, under the rubric of postmodernism, the limits imposed by the use of language are being realized. This collection provides readily accessible and deep accounts of postmodernism as it pertains to key concepts of economic theory and the history of economic thought.
Warren Samuels, Professor Emeritus, Economics Department, Michigan State UniversityThe editors and authors do a masterful job exploring the intracies and nuances of the modern- postmodern distinction and its connection to the numerous projects collectively called Economics. The book is a most welcome intervention in a serious debate.
E. Roy Weintraub, Professor of Economics, Duke UniversityThis is a book that raises real issues, debates them from a range of contrasted viewpoints, and above all avoids the kind of empty posturing and complacent pseudo-radicalism that have typified so much writing on the topic of postmodernism . . . This book should find a wide readership among economists willing to cross disciplinary boundaries in quest of expanded intellectual horizons and cultural theorists willing to think their position through in response to some exceptionally well-informed and cogent criticism.
Chris Norris, Distinguished Research Professor in Philosophy, University of Cardiff, Wales
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Table of Contents:
Part 1
- Introduction
Part 2: Modernism and Postmodernism
- Modernism and Postmodernism: A Dialectical Analysis
- The Implosion of Modernist intelligent Neoclassicals guide to postmodernism
- An Intelligent Neoclassical's Guide to Postmodernism
- Writing in thirds
Part 3: Reading Symbols Changing Subjects and Discerning Bodies in Economic Discourse
- From unity to dispersion: the body in modern economic discourse
- Categories of exchange: ideality, symbolicity, reality
- Chacun son Goux? Or, some skeptical reflections on flat bodies and heavy metal
Part 4: Gendered Subjectivities in Neoclassical Economics
- Analyzing post-colonial female subjectivities: the problematic limits of the economic notion of choice
- The disavowal of the sexed body in neoclassical economics
- Comment of Charusheela and Hewitson
Part 5: Feminist/Postmodern Economics
- The trouble with 'women and economics': a postmodern perspective on Charlotte Perkins Gilman
- Feminist economics: objective, activist and postmodern?
- Postmodernism and feminist economic thought
- No more nice girls? Feminism, economics, and postmodern encounters
Part 6: Postmodernism, Economic Rationality and the Problem of 'Representation'
- From myth to metaphor: a semiological analysis of the Cambridge Capital Controversies
- Postmodernism, rationality and justice
- A disorderly household: voicing the noise
- Postmodern encounters
Part 7: Is there a (Postmodern) Alternative in Economics? From Markets to Gifts
- Decentering the market metaphor in international economics
- Refusing the gift
- Greek gifts
- Gifts and trade: Mirowskian, Gudemanian, and Milbergian Themes
ISBN: 0415110262 Pub Date: 26 JUN 2001 Type: Paperback Book Price: $35.99 Extent: 512 pages (Dimensions 234x156 mm) Illustrations: 12 line drawings and 3 tables
Author Biography: Stephen Cullenberg is Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of California, Riverside. Jack Amariglio is Professor of Economics at Merrimack College. David F. Ruccio is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame.
Full Contributors: Suzanne Bergeron, University of Michigan, USA; S. Charusheela, University of Hawaii; Brian Cooper, State University of New York, USA, Indraneel Dasgupta, University of Nottingham, UK; John B. Davis, Marquette University, USA; Sheila Dow, University of Stirling, UK; John Dupre, Birkbeck College, UK; Regenia Gagnier, University of Exeter, UK; Jean-Joseph Goux, Rice University, USA; Ulla Grapard , Colgate University, USA; Stephen Gudeman, University of Minnesota, USA; Shaun Hargreaves Heap, University of East Anglia, UK; Gillian Hewitson, La Trobe University, Australia; Arjo Klamer, Erasmus University, The Netherlands; Henry Krips, University of Pittsburgh, USA; Deirdre McCloskey, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA; Judith Mehta , University of East Anglia, USA; William Milberg, New School University in New York, USA; Philip Mirowski, University of Notre Dame, USA; Julie A. Nelson, University of Massachusetts, USA; Jane Rossetti, currently unaffiliated scholar.
