Mainstream Textbooks Research Articles

Book Reviews

In the preface to this book, the author states that it is "intended for students who seek a simple intro- duction to the Fourier principles of modern optics and an insight into the similar role they play in other branches of science and engineering." He also states that it is intended as a supplement to "undergraduate mainstream textbooks on optics."

Values and Modes of Rationality in Economic Science

Virtually since its birth 200 years ago, modern economic thinking has been plagued by the question of what role to assign to values in economic theory and research. The dominant stance, initially set forth by Nassau Senior and rigorously reiterated and sophisticated by J. S. Mill, J. M. Keynes, Lionel Robbins, J. A. Schumpeter and M. Friedman, has been that scientific economics and ethical questions must be kept unambiguously separate. Scientific or positive economics deals with questions of fact or “is” questions, while normative economics deals with value or “ought” questions. As scientists, economists must content themselves with the analysis of positive issues. Values are viewed as beyond the purview of science, and consequently they must be taken as given, determined by social processes in which the economist might participate only as citizen. That this is the dominant understanding of what an appropriate stance toward values must be is attested to by its appearance in the preface or introductory chapter of most mainstream economics textbooks.