“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.”
This website seems to be saying that the social sciences are
ineffective and have failed in important ways. Yet Keynes seems to be saying that social
scientists (or economists and political philosophers at any rate) are very
influential. How do I reconcile the two?
Basically, the reason for studying failure is precisely that in important areas - the way we build our cities, the way we intervene to change social problems, the way our economy functions - does indeed seem to be strongly influenced by the spirit of the times, which in turn is profoundly shaped by earlier thinkers.
Is Social Science leading to a positive "encroachment of ideas? Does it, like medicine, first do no harm? What can "practical men" and women learn from the social sciences? This website is devoted to this question.
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Is Social Science leading to a positive "encroachment of ideas? Does it, like medicine, first do no harm? What can "practical men" and women learn from the social sciences? This website is devoted to this question.
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“It is the dead who govern. Look you, man, how they work their will upon us! Who have made the laws? The Dead! Who have made the customs that we obey and that form and shape our lives? The dead! And the titles to our lands? Have not the dead devised them? If a surveyor runs a line he begins at some corner the dead set up; and if one goes to law upon a question the judge looks backward through his books until he finds how the dead have settled it-and he follows that…Why, man, our lives follow grooves that the dead have run out with their thumbnails!
Melville Davisson Post
Uncle Abner
Uncle Abner
“…men make their own history but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it in circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.”
Karl Marx
The Eighteenth of Brumaire
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(On the spirit of the times and intellectual ideas, I ran across this:
Simonton, Dean K. 1976. Philosophical eminence, beliefs, and
zeitgeist: An individual-generational analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34(4), 630-640.
I have only skimmed it but it sounds interesting.
12 hypotheses were proposed that specify the eminence of thinkers to be a function of belief structure, zeitgeist relationships, and sociocultural and political variables. An archival research design was introduced that simultaneously tests individual and generational factors. The sample consisted of 2,012 thinkers from Occidental civilization spanning 124 generations from 580 BC to 1900 AD. The dependent variable was derived from a factor analysis of 10 distinct measures. A multiple-regression analysis indicated that philosophical eminence is a function of (a) breadth, extremism, and consistency of belief structure; (b) zeitgeist representativeness, precursiveness, and modernity; (c) role model availability (but not ideological diversity); (d) political fragmentation and political instability (but neither imperial instability nor war intensity); and (e) historical proximity to the present. However, despite the significance of the regression equation, an overwhelming percentage (78%) of the variance in philosophical eminence remains unexplained. Implications of the results and design for further research are briefly discussed.A later book length treatment - Genius, Creativity, and Leadership: Histriometric Inquiries 1984. Harvard University Press. Link
