daniel.smith@mtsu.edu (MTSU) daniel.j.smith@vanderbilt.edu (Vanderbilt)
USPS Mailing Address: 1301 E. Main St., MTSU Box 190, Murfreesboro, TN 37132
UPS, Fed Ex, or DHL Mailing Address: Political Economy Research Institute (MTSU Box 190), 1672 Greenland Dr., Murfreesboro, TN 37132
"May we continue to have our differences, for scholarship would be a dull affair without them, but may we continue to have them with respect, affection, and the true spirit of scholarship."
- Donald E. Queller (The Venetian Patriciate) [also see: Dennett's "How to Compose a Successful Critical Commentary," Graham's "Hierarchy of Disagreement," and "What Unites Us"]
"...my ultimate purpose, either in writing or in lecturing, is not so much to convince readers or listeners of the merits of my argument as to engage them in an ongoing discussion."
- James M. Buchanan (Economics from the Outside In)
"The prudent man always studies seriously and earnestly to understand whatever he professes to understand, and not merely to persuade other people that he understands it; and though his talents may not always be very brilliant, they are always perfectly genuine. He neither endeavours to impose upon you by the cunning devices of an artful impostor, nor by the arrogant airs of an assuming pedant, nor by the confident assertions of a superficial and imprudent pretender. He is not ostentatious even of the abilities which he really possesses. His conversation is simple and modest, and he is averse to all the quackish arts by which other people so frequently thrust themselves into public notice and reputation."
- Adam Smith (Theory of Moral Sentiments)
"The qualities of mind...that I seek to emulate: the willingness to question anything, and anybody, on any subject anytime; the categorical refusal to accept anything as sacred; the genuine openness to all ideas; and, finally, the basic conviction that most ideas peddled about are nonsense or worse when examined critically."
- James M. Buchanan (Economics from the Outside In)
"...constantly test your favorite ideas for weaknesses. Be humble about the extent of your expertise. Be curious about new information that doesn't fit, and information from other fields. And rather than talking only to people who agree with you, or collecting examples that fit your ideas, see people who contradict you, disagree with you, and put forward different ideas as a great resource for understanding the world."
- Hans Rosling (Factfulness: Ten Reasons We Are Wrong About the World -- and Why Things Are Better Than You Think)
"The field of science, indeed the whole world of human society, is a cooperative one. At each moment we are competing, whether for academic honors or business success. But in the background, and what makes society an engine of process, is a whole set of successes and even failures from which we have learned."
- Kenneth Arrow (Lives of the Laureates)
"...nobody can be a great economist who is only an economist—and I am even tempted to add that the economist who is only an economist is likely to become a nuisance if not a positive danger."
- F. A. Hayek (Social and Economic Philosophy)
"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties."
- John Milton (1644)
"...truth eludes us if we do not concentrate our attention totally on its pursuit."
- Alexandr Solzhenitsyn ("A World Split Apart")
"Upon this first, and in one sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary, which itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy: Do not block the way of inquiry."
-Charles Sanders Peirce