Faculty Publications

On Three Non-Ideological Consequences Of Specialisation Among Economists

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book/Conference Title

International Journal of Social Economics

Volume

16

Issue

5

First Page

32

Last Page

45

Abstract

The modem history of natural sciences dates back to the time of their “rise in the last half of the fifteenth century… from that mighty epoch which…[the] Germans term the Reformation… the French term the Renaissance and the Italians the Cinquecento…”[l]. It was a time when the religious outlook on nature was being replaced by the scientific frame of mind; when God, if He existed, was either allowed to remain as the Initial Creator (Newton) or simply dissolved in nature (Spinoza); when the theological perception of the whole picture was being challenged. It was the greatest progressive revolution that mankind has so far experienced, a time which called for giants and produced giants — giants in power of thought, passion, and character, in universality and learning… There was hardly any man of importance then living who had not travelled extensively, who did not command four or five languages, who did not shine in a number of fields… The heroes of that time had not yet come under the servitude of the division of labour… with its production of one sidedness…[2]. Those who came after these men were not satisfied with the general approach to nature held by their great predecessors. The descendants felt that “the general character of the picture of [nature] as a whole… [was]… inadequate to explain the details of which this total picture is composed; and, so long as we do not understand these, we also have no clear idea of the picture as a whole”[3]. © 1989, MCB UP Limited

Department

Department of Economics

Original Publication Date

1-1-1989

DOI of published version

10.1108/03068298910133016

Link to Full Text

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