The dissertation develops and demonstrates a new Marxist approach to the epistemological problem of cognitive modernism, the problem of knowing the true laws of economic reality. This new approach is an antiessentialist and postmodernist critique of versions of Deweyan pragmatism. In American economics, versions of Deweyan pragmatism provide epistemological justification for the verity and primacy of two different economic theories of the world: the American Institutionalism of Thorstein Veblen and the Chicago School of Milton Friedman. Each school uses Deweyan pragmatism to ground its claim to be a science, and each uses Deweyan pragmatism to prove its contention that it offers the correct scientific analysis and view of the fundamental laws of operation of the economy. The dissertation demonstrates that Deweyan pragmatism cannot provide such justification. The primary reason is that Deweyan pragmatism, like all other philosophies of science, is subject to the epistemological problem of cognitive modernism. It is thus unable to provide objective, transdiscursive, and essential knowledge of economic reality. Chapter 1 is an introduction to modernist methodology in economics. It situates Deweyan pragmatism within the tradition of economic modernism. Chapter 2 examines the Deweyan pragmatism of Veblen's American Institutionalism. Chapter 3 examines the Deweyan pragmatism of Friedman's Chicago School. Both schools offer Deweyan pragmatisms as theories of knowledge which prove the truth of each's theory of society. Chapter 4 offers a postmodern critique of both modernist versions of Deweyan pragmatism. The analysis suggests several conclusions. First, for such different and directly opposed theories to claim a common affiliation to Deweyan pragmatism must mean that they understand that affiliation in fundamentally different ways. Second, by presenting different versions of pragmatism it becomes clear that it is not possible to discover the real Dewey, nor is it possible to evade the partiality of all readings of Dewey's philosophy. Third, by contesting pragmatism itself, I demonstrate that the cognitive modernist quest for certain foundations is a failed one, and that all knowledge products in economics are bound by the cultural conditions and discursive fields in which they are produced.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-1391 |
| Date | 01 January 1996 |
| Creators | Wilson, Lucas B |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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