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“Truth” and “Discourse” in the Social Construction of Economic Reality: An Essay on the Relation of Knowledge to Socioeconomic Policy

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  • Warren J. Samuels

Abstract

From time immemorial human beings have desired confident,1 if not absolute, knowledge. One is tempted to say that there are two types of people, those who require determinacy and closure, and those who can tolerate ambiguity and open-endedness. Most people seem to be of the former type, notwithstanding the views, first, that the desire for absolutes does not conclusively guarantee that an absolute actually exists, and second, that what people take as ‘fact’ may not actually constitute ‘reality’. This desire for confident knowledge has at least three sources: (1) the belief that action and policy based on knowledge should be predicated on truth rather than error; (2) the use of belief (assumed to be true knowledge) for purposes of social control, to either retain or change institutional arrangements and practices; and (3) the role of belief as psychic balm, to assuage the anxiety consequent to our living in a world of radical indeterminacy (uncertainty) in which, among other things, our importance as individuals and as a species in the universe seems problematic.
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Suggested Citation

  • Warren J. Samuels, 1991. "“Truth” and “Discourse” in the Social Construction of Economic Reality: An Essay on the Relation of Knowledge to Socioeconomic Policy," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 511-524, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:mes:postke:v:13:y:1991:i:4:p:511-524
    DOI: 10.1080/01603477.1991.11489865
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    Cited by:

    1. Rojhat Avsar, 2008. "A Critique of ‘Neoliberal Autonomy’: The Rhetoric of Ownership Society," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 125-134, August.
    2. Elias Khalil, 1999. "Institutions, Naturalism and Evolution," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(1), pages 61-81.

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