I have deliberately chosen a title for this essay that carries a double meaning. On the one hand, it expresses my skepticism with respect to the position that economics occupies among the social disciplines. My rejection of this claim plays an important, although not decisive, role in the first purpose of this essay, namely, to reconsider the “place” of economics among the modes of social inquiry. The second meaning to my title is less pejorative. It is to inquire into the relation — not the ranking — of economics with regard to its sister disciplines, such as political science (the telltale word in this case everywhere recognized as an honorific), anthropology, sociology, and so forth. All these fields have the shared objective of seeking to elucidate the nature and workings of society. The question I wish to explore is how economics fits into this endeavor — an inquiry whose purpose is not only to illumine its “place” in this shared undertaking but also to throw some light on an underlying purpose of our inquiry — the manner in which we conceptualize society itself.
