Guus Dix Home

Short intro

Guus Dix studied philosophy and sociology at the University of Amsterdam. As a 'docentpromovendus' he is currently teaching courses in the philosophy of science, both at Bachelor- and Masterlevel (more information under 'Teaching'). He started a PhD-project on the intricate relationship between economic science and market-oriented policy in the Netherlands. See below for further details.

Research

In 2008 I started with a PhD-project on the relationship between economic knowledge and market-oriented politics. Against the background of Michel Foucaults work on power/knowledge in economic science (cf. my review on Foucault (in Dutch) under 'Publications') and the recent attention given to the 'performativity' of economics (by Donald MacKenzie and others), I pursue two lines ofinquiry.

The first centers around a distinction often used to characterize markets and market policy. That is, the distinction between the political 'conditions' for the free operation of market forces and actual 'interventions' on these markets.  From an epistemological point of view, this opposition between market framework and market interference presumes that the market is a realm bound by its own rules, regularities and dynamic once these conditions are 'in place'. In order to grasp the intellectual construction of such a relatively autonomous realm, I analyzed David Ricardo's endeavor to demarcate the 'market' or the 'economy' as an object of knowledge in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817).

From a political point of view, it informs the conception of the responsibilities of the state vis-à-vis the market: government should shape the legal conditions for free markets, while refraining from specific interventions. I have written an article on the political construction of a market for job placement services where this distinction plays an important, legitimizing role (see my 'Interveniërende voorwaarden' under 'Publications'). Tying economics and market politics together - bridging two centuries of economic science and practice - is the only thing left to do now...

The second line of inquiry pursued is that of 'a genealogy of the incentive'. The 'incentive' (or 'prikkel' in Dutch) is an economic and political commonplace. Combining an epistemological analysis of the economic theory on incentives with case studies on the way it is put to political practice, I seek to study the emergence of this junction of power/knowledge.

General Research interests

Markets and market policy; the rise of neoliberalism; the history and philosophy of economics; economic sociology and the 'performativity of economics' (MacKenzie and others); philosophy and sociology of science; historical epistemology (Bachelard, Canguilhem, Foucault); reflexive sociology (Bourdieu).