Reinterpreting the Motor Car Analogy in Bernard Lonergan’s "For a New Political Economy"

Abstract

Economics as a discipline and as a social science and practice is very hard work to practice well. Many economists are in fact very conscientious in their practice. My own approach to the critique and study of economics has been based, at least in part, upon an adaptation of the Socratic method from the history of philosophy which, in the first instance, can be read as negative, critical, and skeptical. This aspect of philosophy quickly appealed to my desire for independent thinking as a young student, especially in its capacity to expose the ignorance of those who presented themselves as authoritative experts, … to expose what the expert does not know and even further where there may be the pretense of knowledge when in fact there is none. This of course doesn’t mean, in the Socratic tradition, that the critical philosopher or incisive skeptic has more knowledge, but rather he/she may only be discovering the ‘holes’ in the expert’s knowledge without necessarily knowing what might fill that hole. This, as in the story of Socrates, can lead fatefully to serious trouble with the powers that be in any institution or society. This certainly can be the case when from a philosophical perspective one proceeds to criticize the limitations of a venerable and admittedly powerful discipline such as economics.