{In-Person Event}

Speaker: Sheila Dow

Title: Pluralism meets Diversity in Economics

The purpose of this paper is to distinguish between the discourses in economics around the concept of pluralism and the concept of diversity. We start by outlining the history of pluralism in terms of how knowledge about the economy is understood, an important area of commonality with the discussions of diversity which have emerged more recently. Both literatures emphasise variety in approaches to building knowledge. But while methodological pluralism in economics has been conceptualised primarily in terms of schools of thought, diversity has been conceptualised primarily in terms of social groupings (by gender, race, colonial history, etc.). Further, while schools of thought are each associated with their particular understandings of the nature of the economy, the use of standpoint theory in the diversity discourse conceptualises its foundation in terms of group-specific lived experience. The two literatures are then compared in terms of their handling of values, and the promotion of professional diversity in economics by leading professional bodies is discussed. Particular attention is then paid to feminist economics which, as an exemplar of diversity in economics, allows for an elaboration of the characterisation of diversity developed here. The paper concludes with reflections on how each discourse addresses the shared issue of an absence of categoric criteria for theory appraisal

Key words: philosophy of economics, pluralism, diversity, feminist economics

JEL codes: A1, B40, B50, B54