By Philip Mirowski Against Mechanism [Paperback]

by Philip Mirowski

'...the history of economic theory at its best.'-EASTERN ECONOMIC JOURNAL

Genres: Economics

Unknown Binding

First published October 18, 1988

About the author

Philip Mirowski (born 21 August 1951, Jackson, Michigan) is a historian and philosopher of economic thought at the University of Notre Dame (Carl E. Koch Professor of Economics and Policy Studies and the History and Philosophy of Science). He received a PhD in Economics from the University of Michigan in 1979, and is a Director of the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values.

Reviews

[Avery · Rating 5 out of 5]

This in my opinion is the best Philip Mirowski book. IT is interesting to read this after reading the other 6 books, as there are many points which appear to be discussed in further detail in More Heat than Light, Machine Dreams, Science Mart, Serious Crisis and the Knowledge We Have Lost In Information.

This book gets into some pretty complicated maths at different points in the chapters, but also gets into pretty complicated theory and philosophy. There is a off beat narrative between these two. Mirowski has a mathematical dissection of Miroshima's neoclassical/Marx synthesis, as well as the Shiller efficient market results in chapter 12. There are also non-math heavy chapters such as chapter 7 which discuss the philosophical foundations of institutionalist economics. Mirowski also argues against the Nelson Winter evolutionary economics book and proposes an alternative actual evolutionary economic approach. One can see a lecture about this on youtube entitled Should Economists be experts in Markets or Human Nature?.

This is worth reading if you have an interest in history of economics, philosophy, history and philosophy of science, and political science.

5/5

[Martin]

The first weakness of this book is it's range. From rhetoric's fall as academic subject, to the american pragmatists, to Hamiltonians and thermodynamics -- it goes on. The second weakness is that this reads more as a series of essays than a cohesive, single argument.

But the strengths of the book are much more numerous. It provides an array of powerful arguments, in great scholarly detail and attention (and style), against neoclassical frameworks and reasoning, some of which you won't hear outside of the book itself because it probably seems too "in the weeds" or "technical" for most heterodox economists to discuss at greater length in more publicly facing arenas. Mirowski is also a solid stylist, and makes pains to avoid the driest and most obnoxious aspects of academic writing.

Thoroughly looking forward to reading more Mirowski, especially where he might be more focused -- as I assume he is in his later works.