WHERE ELSE WOULD YOU LOOK? CONSTRUCTIVISM AND THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF ECONOMICS

Abstract

Eleven years ago, at my first HES conference, I attended a session on the historiography of economics. In my naiveté and brashness (not a good combination!) as a grad student, I asked why so much of the conversation about how to do historical work in economics was dominated by reference to methodological categories provided by philosophers of science like Lakatos, Popper, and Kuhn. I enjoyed my own investigations in the philosophy of economics, and was starting to write about Frank Knight, who was certainly not naive philosophically, but I wanted a different reference point as a historian of economics. I remember one member of the panel looking at me somewhat puzzled and asking, “Where else would you look?”Today, we gather to reflect, once again, on the historiography of economics. This time, we are asked to reflect on a new reference point for our work: the sociology of scientific knowledge or science studies. Jan Golinski has provided us with an excellent survey of work in this field, and a synopsis of its relevance over the past fifteen years or so to the history of the natural sciences. His book is not a rallying cry for constructivism, but rather a careful analysis of the benefits and costs to historians of science if they choose to adopt constructivist techniques.