Neoliberalism’s scientific framing made knowledge and truth political questions
Evidence
Neoliberalism was thus born out of a collision between the controversial importation of the methods and authority of the experimental sciences into politics on the one hand, and the acknowledgement of the social and political conditions for the discovery and justification of knowledge on the other. It made the pursuit of knowledge and truth a political question, and gave the question of social order an epistemological answer: what we can do depends ultimately on what we can know. Nevertheless, this proclivity for epistemological investigations did not imply a unity of views among neoliberals, nor that their conclusions were devoid of political motivations. Moreover, in their contention to reclaiming the mantle of science, neoliberals shared many premises with progressive scientists regarding the position and “function” of science in society. This apparent paradox explains both the fluidity of neoliberal thinking and the inspiration it has drawn from its detractors at a sociological and organizational level, two dimensions still relevant today in accounting for the steadiness of neoliberalism and its success in cannibalizing competing ideas. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 54
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the corrosion thesis in Mirowski’s later work that neoliberalism both claimed science’s mantle and produced a fact-resistant epistemology. — connects to: Neoliberalism is best understood as open questions with a constant goal — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 162; Neoliberal epistemology developed in pre-1935 philosophy-of-science debates as critical conventionalism. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 34; Neoliberalism reframed politics as an epistemological question of what can be known — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 54 (+12 more)
- DEFINE: Frames the epistemological core of early neoliberalism as a deliberate inversion — social order gets an epistemic answer.
Broader Connections
- Neoliberalism reframed politics as an epistemological question of what can be known
#corroborates(0.95) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 54 - Neoliberalism’s knowledge limits are anti-positivist and extend beyond economics
#expands(0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 74 - Neoliberalism pairs a scientific self-image with elite-directed ideological strategy, not democratic science
#qualifies(0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 92 - Neoliberalism fused philosophy of science and political economy against totalitarianism
#expands(0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 53 - Neoliberalism self-consciously planned as a multi-generational intellectual project
#expands(0.72) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 116 - Neoliberalism’s deliberate epistemic inconsistencies enabled its long-term success
#qualifies(0.70) - Neoliberalism absorbed natural-science metaphors to become a comprehensive worldview beyond economics
#expands(0.70) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 153 - Neoliberals rejected the sociology of knowledge as hostile to scientific objectivity
#complicates(0.70) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 87 - Neoliberalism’s resilience rests on deliberate epistemic inconsistency across discourse levels.
#qualifies(0.70) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 93 - Neoliberals understood the organizational nature of knowledge better than their critics did
#expands(0.70) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 2117 - Neoliberals out-thought the left on how knowledge is organized politically.
#expands(0.70) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 137