Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T07:58:57.942Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do Metaphors Affect Economic Theory?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Maurice Lagueux
Maurice Lagueux
Affiliation:
Université de Montréal
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Over the last few decades, theoretical discussions about metaphors have appeared with increasing frequency in the literature and, during the last fifteen years or so, such discussions have become more and more common in the methodology of economics. But what exactly is a metaphor? According to a tradition which dates back to Aristotle, a metaphor is the attribution to one object, A, of the name (and indirectly of the qualities) of another object, B, while this name or these qualities do not properly or normally belong to A. Thus, a metaphor is present when a term used to describe (or even to name) A is a term which is already commonly used to name B (quite a different kind of entity). Defined in such a way, one must admit that metaphors are frequently found in economics as well as in other sciences. Let us consider, for example, a term like ‘elasticity’ which is extensively used by economists. According to the ordinary dictionary definition, this word designates a property of bodies by which they recover their initial form after having been submitted to a pressure; in a less technical sense, it refers to the flexibility of some bodies or to their responsiveness to pressures.

Type
Essays
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , April 1999 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alborn, Timothy L. 1994. ‘Economic Man, Economic Machine: Images of Circulation in the Victorian Money Market’. In Mirowski, (1994, pp. 173–196)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, . 1987. Poetics. Trans. Janko, Richard. Hackett PublishingGoogle Scholar
Bar-Hillel, Yehoshua. 1971. Pragmatics of Natural Languages. D. Reidel PublishingGoogle Scholar
Beardsley, Monroe C. 1972. ‘The Metaphorical Twist’. In Shibles, (1972, pp. 73–91)Google Scholar
Bicchieri, Cristina. 1988. ‘Should a Scientist Abstain from Metaphors?’. In McCloskey, Klamer and Solow, (1988, pp. 100–14)Google Scholar
Black, Max. 1962. Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy. Cornell University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, Max. 1979. ‘More about Metaphors’. In Ortony, (1979, pp. 19–43)Google Scholar
Cartwright, Nancy. 1983. How the Laws of Physics Lie. Oxford University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Bernard. 1994. ‘Newton and the Social Sciences, with Special Reference to Economics, or, the Case of the Missing Paradigm’. In Mirowski, (1994, pp. 55–90)Google Scholar
Cohen, L. Jonathan. 1971. ‘Some Remarks on Grice's Views about the Logical Particles of Natural Language’. In Bar-Hillel, (1971, pp. 50–68)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornell Way, Eileen, 1991. Knowledge, Representation and Metaphor. Kluwer Academic PublishersGoogle Scholar
Fisher, Irving. 1925. Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices. Yale University PressGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1983. This Is Not a Pipe. University of California PressGoogle Scholar
Goodman, Nelson. 1976. The Languages of Art. Hackett PublishingGoogle Scholar
Hausman, Daniel. 1992. The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics. Cambridge University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Henderson, Willie. 1998. ‘Metaphor’. In The Handbook of Economic Methodology, pp. 289–94. Davis, John, Hands, Wade and Mäki, Uskali (eds.). Edward Elgar PublishingGoogle Scholar
Hesse, Mary. 1966. Models and Analogies in Science. University of Notre Dame PressGoogle Scholar
Hesse, Mary. 1972. ‘Scientific Models’. In Shibles, (1972, pp 169–80)Google Scholar
Hoover, Kevin D. 1991. ‘Mirowski's screed: a review of Philip Mirowski's More Heat than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature's Economies’. Methodus, 3:139–45Google Scholar
Israel, Giorgio. 1997. La mathématisation du réel. Le SeuilGoogle Scholar
Klamer, A. D. McCloskey and Solow, R. (eds.). 1988. The Consequences of Economic Rhetoric. Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar
Klamer, Arjo and Leonard, Thomas C.. 1994. ‘So What's an Economic Metaphor?’ In Mirowski, (1994, pp. 20–51)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lagueux, Maurice. 1992. ‘What's Wrong with Metaphors in Economics?: The Case of Hydraulic Metaphors’. In Perspectives on the History of Economic Thought, Vol VIII, pp. 35–50. Lowry, Todd (ed.). Edward Elgar PublishingGoogle Scholar
Limoges, Camille and Ménard, Claude. 1994. ‘Organization and the Division of Labor: Biological Metaphors at Work in Alfred Marshall's Principles of Economics’. In Mirowski, (1994, pp. 336–59)Google Scholar
Marshall, Alfred. 1920. Principles of Economics. MacMillanGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, Donald N. 1985. The Rhetoric of Economics. University of Wisconsin PressGoogle Scholar
Mirowski, Philip. 1989. More Heat than Light. Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature's Economics. Cambridge University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mirowski, Philip (ed.). 1994. Natural Images in Economic Thought. Cambridge University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, James Bernard. 1994. ‘The Kinds of Order in Society’. In Mirowski, (1994, pp. 536–82)Google Scholar
Ortony, Andrew (ed.). 1979. Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar
Pepper, Stephen C. 1942. World Hypotheses, A Study in Evidence. University of California PressGoogle Scholar
Phillips, A. William. 1950. ‘Mechanical models in economic dynamics’. Economica, 17: 283–305CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ricœur, Paul. 1977. The Rule of Metaphor, Multi-Disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language. University of Toronto PressGoogle Scholar
Rumelhart, David E. 1979. ‘Some Problems with the Notion of Literal Meanings’. In Ortony, (1979, pp. 78–90)Google Scholar
Sadock, Jerrold M. 1979. ‘Figurative Speech and Linguistics’. In Ortony, (1979, pp. 46–63)Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1979. ‘Metaphor’. In Ortony, (1979, pp. 92–123)Google Scholar
Shibles, Warren (ed.). 1972. Essays on Metaphors. Language PressGoogle Scholar
Suppe, Frederick. 1977. The Structure of Scientific Theories. 2nd edn.University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Turbayne, Collin Murray. 1970. The Myth of Metaphor. University of South Carolina PressGoogle Scholar
Walker, Donald. A. 1991. ‘Economics as social physics’. The Economic Journal, 101:615–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar