PhilosophyTube

What I'm Reading: Deirdre McCloskey, "The Rhetoric of Economics"

Added 2018-02-20 16:52:09 +0000 UTC

This book could just as easily have been called The Rhetoric of Biology or The Rhetoric of Physics or even The Rhetoric of Science had the examples been swapped out. McCloskey demonstrates that whilst the scientific (specifically economic) methodology of investigation, experimentation, and evidence is one thing, any particular instance of reporting or stating something scientific (for instance in an academic paper) is an attempt to persuade the reader and is therefore open to literary criticism. To that end, as an experienced economist she goes through some of the most famous economic papers of the 20th Century and highlights the rhetoric they use - the metaphors, the authorial voice, the appeals to authority - to better understand how people come to be persuaded of and motivated by economic ideas.

Despite the first edition having come out in 1985 the book is still very relevant today simply because the mistakes it highlights are still being made. People still conflate something’s being statistically significant with its being important or action-guiding, and people still wring their hands or spit venom and brimstone in defence of a stale, flaccid modernism that’s supposedly the cornerstone of Western Civilisation but, as McCloskey demonstrates, the defenders of which can’t help but ignore even in their own work as they trip over themselves to tilt at imaginary postmodern windmills. One particularly lovely paragraph exposes how pointless for all practical purposes is the rot of pseudo-statistics about race and IQ (even accepting all of its dodgy starting assumptions), which no matter how often or hard it’s debunked returns every so often to YouTube like the spectre at the feast of colonial nations, or a boomerang made of frozen shit.

The book is littered with little gems and maintains a down-to-Earth, accessible, and entertaining tone. Thoroughly recommended; you can get it here!

Thank you to Dustin Timmons, who got this for me from my Amazon wishlist!