On some limits to pluralism

Mainstream and heterodox economics, as they currently stand, cannot be conceived or understood as self- consistent monoliths or fully coherent wholes. They both exhibit significant internal diversity and a division of scientific labor that are not limited to the topics in which a single scholar specializes. Internal differences extend to research methods and, at least for the mainstream, even foundational theoretical assumptions. Perhaps that is why practicing economists and historians of economic thought hold sometimes idiosyncratic and divergent views on the boundaries (if they think there are) between mainstream and heterodox economics and on the mutual relationship between the two.