Non-Natural Social Science: Reflecting on the Enterprise of More Heat than Light

Journal of Economic Issues, Sept, 1995 by Brian Eggleston

Edited by Neil de Mamhi. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1993. Pp. iv, 372. Index. $35.00 (cloth).

This collection of 16 essays, the 1993 annual supplement to History of Political Economy, originated in a conference held at Duke University in March 1991 that addressed themes of Mirowski's fillip, More Heat than Light (MHL). The "Mirowski Thesis" (henceforth MT), in a singular and highly abridged form, asserts that neoclassical economic theory was directly appropriated from mid-nineteenth century physics ("proto-energetics") and that repeated inability (unwillingness) to comprehend (accept) the full implications of the inherent conservation principle (invariant) therein ultimately explains the languor of contemporary neoclassicism. There is much support for MT offered herein. There is also a consensus that MT is a bit overblown--at least in some of the details.

Although a close reading of MHL is not a prerequisite to all of the essays, many would be incomprehensible (uninteresting) without that background, Neil de Marchi's excellent (but very succinct) introduction not withstanding. (Bill Waller's review of MHL, in an earlier volume of this journal, provides additional grounding.) The book is divided into five parts, the last of which is Mirowski's rather lengthy response to his critics' assessments presented in the first four. Thus, and also because of space limitations, the present review is primarily expository. I make virtually no attempt to criticize the work of the critics. It likely comes as no surprise that Mirowski quite capably defends himself.

Part 1 (Disciplinary History and the Use of Metapbor), the most loosely tied to MT, is devoted to the work of historians and philosophers of science. I. Bernard Cohen provides an excellent discussion of analogy, homology, and metaphor within the context of intellectual transfers between the natural and social sciences. He offers subtle distinctions between these terms, which are often incorrectly used as synonyms, and notes that Mirowski's use of the term "metaphor" is in fact quite variegated. (I find this somewhat reminiscent of the critics' assessment of Thomas Kuhn's use of "paradigm."

Margaret Schabas ("What's So Wrong with Physics Envy?") claims that Mirowski "downplays the social context" and "subscribes to a very strict internalist history" that is "grossly simplified" [pp. 45, 46]. She finds that beneath Mirowski's purported history of the inappropriate use of metaphor lies something much like "good old-fashioned Marxism: neoclassicism is an elaborate apology for capitalism" [p. 51]. Perhaps. By his own admission, Mirowski learned the most from his fellow students in URPE [Heinonen 1993, 5091. But surely, Mirowski's "most fundamental grievance" is not "that economists lack the sophistication to cloak their power" [p. 52]. (Do I detect a faint whiff of "Philip envy" in this essay?)

Theodore Porter finds MHL to be "in one crucial respect ... quite archaic" [p. 54]. He would much prefer a history of "flesh-and-blood people in concrete political, social and cultural institutions" to one of metaphysical concepts [p. 58]. This challenge is partly met in later essays, including Mirowski's. The bulk of Steve Fuller's brief but rather prosaic essay does not address MHL. Instead, Fuller uses Mirowski's work as a context within which to explore Richard Boyd's question of "what is `metaphor' a metaphor for?" [p. 70].

Part 2 (Economic Problems and Mathematical Formalism) is fairly technical. D. Wade Hands shows that Mirowski's comments on integrability are technically incorrect ("prices do not form a conservative vector field in exactly the way that Mirowski has argued") but illustrates that a slightly weaker form ("prices as compensated prices") holds [p. 129]. Hands does, however, accept the general tenor of MT and, in discussing Harold Hotelling's work, clarifies aspects of the thesis. This partially vitiates Varian's vituperative critique of MHL. Jack Birner argues that Mirowski's "metaphorical hermeneutics" adds little to traditional Meyersonian/Popperian philosophy of science [p. 114]. Marcel Boumans provides a case history of "physics transfer" via Paul Ehrenfest and Jan Tinbergen. Boumans's primary thesis is that this transfer was guided by "an analogy in formalism" rather than slavish imitation of the energy metaphor that constitutes the plot of MHL [p. 131].

Part 3 (The Mirowski Thesis and Three Generations of Neoclassicals) examines MT within the context of Walras, Wicksell, and Samuelson. Albert Jolink finds in favor of one of the accused, arguing that Walras's theory is not one that "slavishly imitates physics" [p. 164]. Clifford Gaddy argues that Knut Wicksell was certainly capable of grasping the physics-as-economics charade and in fact received funding from "true mathematicians and scientists" to support learning and development of neoclassical economics [p. 194]. Avi Cohen's essay--the best in this section--provides convincing support for Mirowski's argument that the Cambridge Capital Controversies (CCC) were in essence the result of conflict between two distinct value theories: the classical substance theory and the neoclassical field theory. As Mirowski himself explained in a passage that apparently gives rise to the title of his book, the clash between eighteenth and nineteenth century physics is at the root of "the oft repeated lament that the CCC shed more heat than light" [MHL, p. 341]. Cohen rejects Mirowski's conclusion that all neoclassical theory is doomed sans a conservation principle.