Deirdre Nansen McCloskey

Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication
University of Illinois at Chicago

Professor of Social Thought
Academia Vitae, Deventer

     Deirdre McCloskey is an economist and economic historian who around 1980 got interested in the rhetoric of persuasion in her field, and then wider literary matters, such as literary and social theory. Her main project for the next few years will be writing a four-volume tome on The Bourgeois Virtues. Volume 1 was published as a trade book by the University of Chicago Press in 2006, and widely and on the whole favorably reviewed. She is a free-market economist, and so the book is theologically speaking an "apology" for capitalism. But she tries to be fair to her friends on the left and right. ...
     The oddest personal fact about Deirdre is that until 1995 she was "Donald." She has written on the matter... Read entire text.
Prudentia      Susan B. MacDonald, editor
What is crucial, Amélie Oksenberg Rorty wrote in 1983, is

Our ability to engage in continuous conversation, testing one another, discovering our hidden presuppositions, changing our minds because we have listened to the voices of our fellows. Lunatics also change their minds, but their minds change with the tides of the moon and not because they have listened, really listened, to their friends' questions and objections. A.O. Rorty, "Experiments in Philosophical Genre: Descartes' Meditations," pp. 545-565 in Critical Inquiry 9: 562


NEWS — LINKS — RECENT POSTS

Where in the world is Deirdre?
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New feature from the editors of Prudentia: Launch a random article

Recently released (14 August 2008) draft of vol. 2 of The Bourgeois Virtues (330 pp.) for your review:
Bourgeois Deeds: How Values Made Innovation and the Modern World


NOW AVAILABLE

The Cult of Statistical Significance

How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives
by Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey
University of Michigan Press, 2007

How the most important statistical method used in many of the sciences doesn't pass the test for basic common sense

Purchase | About | Preface | Contents

McCloskey explains why Prudentia (right) holds a mirror and a snake — and why she features so prominently in this online magazine. "Art, Fleeing from Capitalism": A Slightly Sublime Interview/Conversation with Deirdre McCloskey (and Jack Amariglio).


Congratulations to Professor McCloskey on a second honorary degree. (See below for her first.)
She was stunned on December 20th to receive the following:

"Every year the University awards honorary degrees to a small number of individuals who have distinguished themselves in various walks of life. The Governing Authority of National University of Ireland, Galway, at its recent meeting, with my fullest support and recommendation, decided to invite you to accept an Honorary Doctorate. The ceremony will be Friday, June 27, at 12:00."
An Dr Iognáid G. Ó Muircheartaigh, Uachtarán/President

Congratulations to Professor McCloskey on her news from Sweden!

The ceremony took place on October 20th 2007. 		"The School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, takes great pleasure in informing you that the Faculty Board has decided to designate you to an Honorary Degree of Doctor in Economics (doctor honoris causa) at the university."

Other Recent Publications, Podcast

HOT item: [PDF] McCloskey's review of Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms

McCloskey's forthcoming Bourgeois Towns has been split into two volumes. Bourgeois Deeds: How Capitalism Made Modernity, 1700-1848 is available for download and comment; Bourgeois Rhetorics: How Capitalism Became Virtuous, 1600-1848 will be posted on the site in near future.

TheEconomicConversation.com is an interactive website featuring selected chapters of a new principles textbook (The Economic Conversation, Palgrave, 2008) authored by Arjo Klamer, Deirdre McCloskey, and Stephen Ziliak. The book takes a ground-breaking approach to teaching economics, and stresses that economics is in fact a conversation. The authors invite you to become a Guest Lecturer.

 On The Bourgeois Virtues: Andrea Gabor's feature for "The Creative Mind" in Strategy+Business, Deirdre McCloskey's Market Path to Virtue: An idiosyncratic economist preaches the innate morality of business
"The question is not whether greed is natural — or even good — but whether it adequately explains capitalist behavior" more »

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