Chapter dzǵ: Tacit Preachments are the Worst Kind ȁȄȄŏŘōŞŕŠť ŢőŞşšş śŎşŏšŞōŚŠŕşř
Overcoming tacit methodological preachments requires, for one thing,
cultivating clarity. An article by Max Eastman (ȀȈȁȈ/ȀȈȃǿ) is worth cit-
ing if only for its insightful title, “Ļe Cult of Unintelligibility.” Ļat label
fits not only Eastman’s specific target, “modernist” poetry, but much aca-
demic activity. Yet contempt for conveying a clear message violates the
spirit of science, which “is nothing but a persistent and organized effort to
talk sense” (EastmanȀȈȁȈ/ȀȈȃǿ, p.Ȃȅȅ). Bartley found the obscurantism
of certain entrenched ideologies occurring in two main forms, inappropri-
ate mathematical formalism and lack of clarity in speech and presentation
(ȀȈȈǿ, pp.ȀȂȁff.). As Karl Popper taught, pretentiousness is immoral (Bart-
leyȀȈȈǿ, p.ȀȄȈ). Popper would “always try to dislodge his conversational
partners from any habits or tricks that preserve their ability to impress and
dominate, and to maintain the pretence of knowledge they do not possess”
(BartleyȀȈȈǿ, p.ȁȅȄ).
Authors of books on grammar and writing style do not hesitate to
warn their readers about specific errors and stylistic infelicities. In that con-
nection, we do well to remember McCloskey’s top level of methodology,
the ethics of scholarly discourse. Scientists are supposed to be engaged
in an interpersonal endeavor, which includes, as McCloskey says, “con-
versation.”
Well, then, communicate. Do not pervert communication into parad-
ing how much you know of mathematics or the philosophy of science or
whatever. Instead of striving to impress your reader, be polite to him. Edit;
rewrite. Recognize that the form in which your ideas originally occurred
to you may not be the most effective way to put them across. Do not sup-
pose that employing symbols automatically confers a papal dispensation
from obligations incumbent on any writer.
Ļe offenses I have in mind include writing in code, with symbols
replacing words, using symbols defined only haphazardly, omitting mean-
ingful labels from diagrams, and using cryptic expressions with variable
meanings (such as “real exchange rate” or “appreciation of the exchange
rate”). Perhaps your reader can break your code; perhaps he should be able
to figure out your argument even in its original, unedited form. But why
should he have to bother? He feels more comfortable with occasional reas-
surances that you and he are on the same wavelength. After all, you might
be making a mistake. I recall places where the writer used a slightly differ-
ent symbol in a diagram than in the text, such as a lower-case instead