Title: Economic pluralism: the role of narrative

Authors: Jonathan Warner

Addresses: Quest University Canada, 3200 University Boulevard, Squamish, BC V8B 0N8, Canada; Center for Faith and Human Flourishing (CFHF), LCC International University, Klaipeda, Lithuania; Von Hügel Institute, St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge, UK

Abstract: In a post-truth world of alternative facts pluralism is back in vogue, but for all the wrong reasons. Narrative and story-telling are important to our understanding of the world: facts are placed within a context, and the consistency of the narrative can be tested by appeal to the presuppositions and plausibility of the story. Since the enlightenment, and probably before, the prevailing worldview has tended to assume that there was just one correct narrative, and that determining the truth was via the methods of empirical science. A plea for pluralism in economics, therefore, at first sight seems rather odd. This paper argues for a new meta-narrative for economics - a new framework within which different narratives can thrive. The advantages of such an approach are explained, along with a consideration of the challenges of policy formation within a pluralistic world.

Keywords: narrative; pluralism; modernist epistemology; post-modernism; rationality.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEE.2018.096409

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2018 Vol.9 No.4, pp.358 - 375

Received: 10 Oct 2017
Accepted: 12 Sep 2018
Published online: 27 Nov 2018 *

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