Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine

H. Scott Gordon did his graduate work in economics at Columbia University and McGill University. In 1966, he came to Indiana University as professor in the Department of Economics. In 1983, his appointment was split between the economics department and the Department of the History and Philosophy of Science.

In 1970, Gordon was appointed to the faculty at Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario) to teach a summer course for graduate students in the history of economic theory. He continued to do this until 1996.

Professor Gordon’s initial research centered on monetary theory and policy, and the economics of natural resource industries. In the latter area, a paper of his on the economic theory of common property resources such as sea fisheries has been frequently reprinted since its publication in 1954.

Professor Gordon’s scholarly interests gravitated in the 1960s towards the study of the history of economics. They eventually broadened to embrace the history of all of the social sciences and the epistemological problems of social research.

His book The History and Philosophy of Social Science was published by Routledge in 1990. Controlling the State: Constitutionalism from Ancient Athens to Today was published by Harvard University Press in 1999, with a paperback edition in 2002.

Gordon’s honors include receipt of a 1992 honorary LL.D. from Carleton University (Canada); a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1965; the presidencies of the Canadian Economics Association and the Western (U.S.) Economic Association in 1976–1977; and appointment to give the Distinguished Faculty Research Lecture at Indiana University in 1990.