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It may be a mistake focusing on "Cowen is an economist." He does happen to be one, but everyone is something. This may mean that he's applying a economist's mi

• keiferski 5y ago
  I only brought it up because the author mentions the humanities as being critically important to Cowen's analysis method. Yet I think his approach is fundamentally still economic in nature, likely because of Cowen's economist background. Tyler calls his study of the humanities “cracking cultural codes,” and he highlights this as the most “importantly novel” activity he practices.
  • dalbasal 5y ago
    Sure. I don't disagree. I'm suggesting that this may be besides the point. I don't really know, but I suspect that while being an economist lends a lot of form, it might not be all that important to substance... or less important than other things, even though it's highly visible. For example, Tyler will try to quantify desires with money. How much would you have to pay me to do this, or how much would I pay to do it. That's a very economist-ey quirk, but I'm not sure it changes outcomes as much as it might seem. Re: art, I think the identity points that matter is that Tyler isn't an artist. What he is isn't necessarily all that important. He's a pretty weird guy, and a lot of his instincts are probably more artist-like than economist-like anyway.