I'm going to be talking for about fifteen minutes on pedagogic metaphors and I guess it's my
fervent hope that the next fifteen minutes will bring a little warmth and sunshine into
your day, but we shall see.
The last fifty years or so has seen an avalanche in scholarly publications on the cognitive
of Role of Metaphor.
Now in the sciences, including economics obviously, metaphors seem to be applauded as a means
to truth and insight, but it is rarely acknowledged that metaphors can also mislead.
So what do we mean by metaphor?
Now linguists have provided actually dozens of definitions, none of which are particularly
But a typical definition would describe the metaphor as the use of a subsidiary subject to make an enlightening reference to a primary subject.
The intended purpose of the metaphor, obviously, is to convey some sort of an insight into an abstract concept.
Now, for example, if our primary subject is a hypothetical firm and its production decisions,
A typical metaphor would be a mathematical function expressing a relationship, a mathematical
relationship between output and the factors of production required to achieve that output.
But more generally we can say that many metaphors in economics include diagrammatic or mathematical
expressions intended to give the impression that one has gained some insight into an economic
concept.
Now, these metaphors become the cognitive framework in learning and thinking about economic concepts,
all thought to be central to the discipline of economics.
But more often than not, these metaphors remain cognitive habits throughout our professional lives.
And over time, the metaphorical basis of these concepts can be forgotten.
The metaphor becomes real, and to the extent that metaphors become so entrenched in our thinking, they set conceptual traps.
Now, economics as a praxeological science is based on the simple axiom that human beings are able to act rationally to choose means to attain subjectively chosen ends.
Now obviously there is no human action without the process of human thought, none of which of course is observable.
Yet traditional training in economics often appeals to visual metaphors in attempting to convey the nature of economic concepts.
The paradox is that if a visual metaphor is successful in conveying an insight into these abstract concepts,
Concepts and now here I'm talking about diagrams, equations, mathematical functions and models.
To the extent that the metaphor is successful, it already runs the risk of denying the praxeological
subjective nature of human choice. The conceptual trap here of course is the illusion of objectivity.
Now while metaphors are critical in economic reasoning, in a praxeological context metaphors
need to be viewed more skeptically. We need to keep in mind that all action is a result
of conscious, subjective thought on the part of the actor. So we can ask what pedagogic
metaphors are useful in conveying legitimate insight into economics. We can also ask what
metaphors are likely to set conceptual traps. Now, in 2007, the Quarterly Journal of Austrian
and Economics published a paper by Peter Phillips titled Mathematics, Metaphors and Economic
Visualization. In this paper, Phillips argued enthusiastically about the benefits of visualization
yielded by mathematical and diagrammatic metaphors in economics. But in so doing, Phillips largely
have really ignored the metaphorical, excuse me, the praxeological nature of economic science.
Now, potentially misleading metaphors are numerous, but I'm just going to mention a very few here today.
And, they of course, include the indifference curve mappings, the supply and demand functions,
which we're all familiar, and the production function.
Now in forgetting about the metaphorical nature of these analytical constructs, economists can be drawn into research agenda that are implicitly reliant on assumptions of measurability and unwarranted absence of change.
However, these metaphors have no significance apart from the immediate subjective choice of individual human beings.
Now, Austrian economists, of course, have not dealt with these issues without necessarily acknowledging the metaphorical basis of the concepts.
In some cases, the Austrians have redefined metaphors in such a way that they have more praxeological legitimacy.
In other cases, they've been able to develop new metaphors.
Now Murray Rothbard, for example, jettisons the indifference curve mapping by noting that indifference cannot be the basis for action.
Following Mises, Rothbard employs as a metaphor the hypothetical unified single scale of relative rankings of value.
Now one might also add here, and this is just a personal view, that there has probably never been a human being on the face of the earth
that has ever made a decision within the context of indifference curve mappings.
That's just me, of course.
Now other examples include the supply and demand curves.
Now these curves are meant to have an ex-ante significance,
that is ex-ante before the fact, in the sense that both the supply schedule and the demand schedule
are intended to indicate the quantities of a good that would be supplied or demanded
are demanded as a function of the market price.
But as Mises has noted, quote,
it is important to realize that we do not have any knowledge
or experience with respect to the shape of these curves.
Always what we know is only the market price.
That is, not the curves, but only the point
at which we interpret the intersection
of the supply and demand function.
That's an end of quote. In other words, the quantities here have no objective existence apart from the prospective, and I emphasize the word prospective, subjective choices made by individuals at a particular moment in time.
Similar comments can be directed toward the neoclassical production function.
Now the neoclassical production function, and I guess I'll just throw in a brief definition here, it's a mathematical expression intended to define a relationship between output and the factors of production required to achieve that output.
It's presented as a set of technological relationships that are intended to have universal validity.
But here again we have a metaphor that has absolutely nothing to do with the
decision of an individual enterprise. However, if the production function is
viewed as a set or range of individual production plans that the entrepreneur,
for example, might choose, well then we have a metaphor that has some
some praxeological significance, some praxeological relevance, and one that has a great deal to
do with the decisions faced by the individual firm.
Now Murray Rothbard in general certainly gets to the heart of the issue in observing that
the mathematical function is totally dismissive of free will and hence out of place in a praxeological
Science. I want to mention the Hayekian Triangle and the Triangle is a
device first presented by Murray Rothbard in the thirties in a book
entitled Prices and Production and it's intended to introduce time into a
with Structure of Production and showing the time that must elapse between the commitment
of resources to the final output that is ultimately achievable.
Now I think we can widely acknowledge that Roger Garrison has been able to glean numerous
valid and interesting insights into the use of the Hayekian Triangle.
Nonetheless, Walter Block and William Barnett have done a critical study noting fourteen different points of criticism, some of which have their bases in the praxeological nature of the underlying economics.
Their paper is unusual. Well, first of all, it's unusual in the sense that it's about a hundred pages long.
But it's also unusual in the sense that each author offers a separate contrasting perspective regarding the merits of the metaphor.
Now, the more Austrian of the two authors, that is Walter Block, concludes that the Structure Production Triangle has enabled generations of Austrians to think more clearly about macroeconomic issues, which it has, obviously.
Now the less Austrian of the two authors states that in addition to alienating mainstream economists,
and I'm not so sure that's a negative, but the Hayekian Triangle fails as a pedagogic metaphor for reasons including the likelihood that it inculcates misleading analytical habits
and that it ignores the immeasurable complexity of the real world economy.
Now here again, I think that it's easy to expect way, way too much out of a metaphor.
And the conceptual trap here lies in the extent to which the metaphor is presented and interpreted as something real.
But the metaphorical nature of the triangle must always be kept upfront.
Now I don't think that Roger Garrison or Frederic Hayek or Stanley Jevons for that matter meant
the triangle to be used as anything other than a simple but useful pedagogic metaphor.
Now William Barnett has gone on to suggest that the triangle itself might be more widely
accepted if it were presented in a more mathematical form.
But one might well note that mathematical economists are as trapped in their own habits
of Metaphor-Forgetting and Entertaining Notions of Objectivity when None in Fact Exists.
I just want to make a few general comments about the nature of conceptual traps.
Most obviously, metaphors can encourage the notions that we are looking at something that
can be measured or quantified.
They tend to reinforce the idea that economics is an empirical science.
Metaphors can also instill the impression that economic processes are static, preferences
don't change, production processes are impervious to planning and innovation, and metaphors
can also encourage the habit of thinking about markets as things or mechanisms that can be
controlled or manipulated.
To the extent that metaphors provide a framework for conceptual thought, they tend to lead
lead one into thinking that efficiency and inefficiency are discernible and correctable,
thus prompting the notion that some sort of intervention is justified or desirable. Metaphors
that appeal to visualization can lead the student of economics into thinking that economic
calculation in terms of value is possible. And finally, visual metaphors in economics
can suggest that economic magnitudes or aggregates can be related to one another without
without special reference to plans and actions of individuals.
Such metaphors suppress a conscious awareness that economic events are motivated by a mental
process of subjective choice.
Now in closing, I want to just note that I don't think we want to try to teach economics
without the use of metaphor.
But the danger always is in thinking within the metaphor and viewing the metaphor as something
This is a habit that linguists have referred to as metaphor forgetting.
Now in this forgetting lies the danger of the conceptual trap.
Now obviously if metaphors are to be employed in economics there must be a greater awareness of their limitations.
I would argue that praxeology itself can act as a screen or a guide in rejecting or accepting certain metaphors in economics.
Economics. So at that point, I'm sure you're anxious to hear more, but I must stop. So thank you for your attention.