Ours among Strangers, Strangers among Ours: Why Does Economics Need Critical Thinking?

Abstract

The article analyzes the role of critical thinking in the organization of intra-disciplinary discourse in economics under conditions of fundamental conceptual diversity and radical uncertainty, as well as the organization of dialogue between academic economists and regulators. As a theoretical framework, the article offers an interpretation of economic science as a multitude of coexisting research programs (RPs) in the sense of I. Lakatos. Particular attention is paid to the role of economists' critical thinking as a possible mechanism for ensuring constructive dialogue between different RPs. The article demonstrates the ontological, epistemological, and axiological limitations of critical thinking in academic, expert, and educational spheres. Ontological limitations include the dominance of demand for "one-armed" economists who provide simple answers, as well as the logic of deep specialization within academia, which narrows the space for inter-program reflection. Epistemological limitations are associated with the phenomenon of "doublethink" - the extreme difficulty of fluently mastering several economic languages in the absence of synthetic models. Axiological limitations reflect the risks of criticizing the "hard core" of the RP within which a researcher operates. The article separately analyzes the connection between critical thinking and radical uncertainty and regulatory fundamentalism. Using the example of J. Kay and M. King, it demonstrates how the overestimation of probabilistic calculations in regulation leads to the substitution of radical uncertainty with situations of risk, generating erroneous regulatory requirements. A typology of bearers of economic knowledge is proposed, ranging from a specialist who recognizes the boundaries of their own competence to a non-specialist with decision-making authority who is unaware of the extent of their own incompetence. The thesis of the subject-specificity of universal cognitive skills is substantiated: critical thinking developed within one RP is not automatically transferable to the analysis of alternative approaches. It is concluded that positive intra-disciplinary discourse is impossible through the elimination of conceptual diversity; on the contrary, it requires the institutionalization of such diversity as a resource for more responsible and reflexive scientific and expert analysis, capable of reducing the likelihood of socially unacceptable consequences arising from erroneous decisions.