Was Dewey a Darwinian? Yes! Yes! Yes! — David Sloan Wilson interviews Trevor Pearce

On "social Darwinism."

Evolution Institute
Was Dewey a Darwinian? Yes! Yes! Yes! An Interview with Trevor Pearce

David SloanWilson, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University and Arne Næss Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo interviews Trevor Pearce, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Geoffrey Hodgson — Imagine Economics as an Evolutionary Science

Veblen took the view that humans were driven by habit. Habits are guided by both inherited propensities – called instincts – and existing institutions. A habit is a learned capacity to act or think in a particular way. Instead of beliefs being prime movers, they too are based on habits.

As the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey argued eloquently in his 1922 book Human Nature and Conduct, deliberate choices occur when our habitual propensities clash and we are forced to make a decision between them. Generally, habit drives reason and choice, rather than the other way round.

This way of putting instinct first, habit second, and reason third is consistent with our understanding of human evolution. The instinct-habit-reason ordering is consistent with the sequence in which these emerged long ago in the evolution of our species. It is also consistent with the way in which they develop in each human individual, from infanthood to adulthood.

This evolutionary perspective on human agency is very different from the mind-first, or beliefs-first, perspectives that still dominate economics and much of social science.…

As George Lakoff frequently points out, mind-first is so 18th century.

Evonomics
Imagine Economics as an Evolutionary Science

Geoffrey M. Hodgson is research professor at Hertfordshire Business School, University of Hertfordshire, England

Brian Romanchuk — Pragmatism And MMT

Brian responds on the foundations debate and the future direction of MMT.

Bond Economics
Pragmatism And MMT
Brian Romanchuk

Jason Smith — Waiting for a philosophy of economics

More dialogue.

Information Transfer Economics
Waiting for a philosophy of economics
Jason Smith

David F. Ruccio — The practical necessity of utopian thinking

Julia O’Connell Davidson and Neil Howard have just announced a new series of articles on utopia.

Utopias are like formal models in that both are idealizations that can be used to gain insights. The issues arise when they are confused with reality or their use ignores practicality.

Compare also stylized fact, heuristic, creativity, and possibility thinking.

In critical thinking, all relevant information and suitable tools are brought to bear on the issues. If critical thinking is brought in too early, opportunities are likely to be overlooked.

Utopian thinking properly employed is about vision and possibility. I should be the starting point of doing economics.

For example, in economics an policy, actual full employment is regarded as utopian, so its consideration is off the table. Economic sociologist Adolf Lowe argued that a properly conceived economics is not to fall into the trap of markets dictate but that human beings can choose (within limits) the kind of society they wish to live in and construct it. Mathew Forstater has an interesting paper about the thinking of Abba Lerner and Adolf Lowe about constructing a "utopian" full employment society with institutions, resources, and tools that are presently available.*

Occasional Links & Commentary
The practical necessity of utopian thinking
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame

* Mathew Forstater, Toward a New Instrumental Macroeconomics: Abba Lerner and Adolph Lowe on Economic Method, Theory, History and Policy

Jason Smith — Noah is stealing my material

More on econ as science.

Noah says to prove the assumptions are wrong. Lars says show that they are correct. Who has the better case?

The issue is how well a theoretical model works. Assumptions are always simplifications for economy and tractability of explanation. 

There is nothing inherently wrong about assumptions not being precise. They only need to be precise enough to yield results within an acceptable degree of tolerance.

The proof of the pudding is though hypothesis testing more than verifying assumptions, although if assumptions are not reasonably correct, then the model is questionable as an explanation that is generalizable. 

It is possible that a dodgy model can sometime yield positive results (pace Friedman's instrumentalism), as broken clock is correct twice a day. The test of theory is how well the model performs as an explanation of how things stand over time, that is, taking change into account. Theoretical models that don't reliably predict as not generalizable explanations. They are only generalizable in terms of restrictive assumptions that may or not hold in specific cases. That is to say they are models of special cases. 

I would say that scientific method is applicable in econ as it is in other social sciences and also in philosophy, since even speculation must take established truths into account. The question really is whether econ is a natural science like physics, a hybrid science positioned between natural science and life and social sciences, a narrative explanation of occurrences like history, or speculation based on principles grounded in intuition, like speculative philosophy. 

I would say that econ as practiced is some of each, and all approaches make their own contributions to the field. Defenders of econ as science can cite examples to make their case, and opponents can do likewise.

Jason Smith has written on this previously, to which I have linked here at MNE.

Is human agency Noah's big unchallenged assumption?

Falsifiabilité, simplicité, succès ... ou la mort

On the use of hypotheses: or, what do you get when you assume non-ergodicity?

Prescott and Lucas aren't Romer's problem

What does the AD-AS model mean?

There are more posts there, but these are representative.

The title,  Is human agency Noah's big unchallenged assumption?,  hits the nail on the head. The social sciences are about human agency, and so are behavioral psychology and motivational psychology and some other branches of psychology. So is theory of history. And in philosophy, so are theory of man, ethics, theory of action, and social and political philosophy.

Economics is based on a theory of man and theory of action. The theory of man and of human action are not subjects of study in the field of economics, or at least not exclusively so (pace Ludwig von Mises).

There is no agreed upon general theory of man or of human action in either the sciences or philosophy. Why? Foundational disagreement is often due to lack of criteria that are agreed upon, or failure of agreed upon criteria to determine a definitive result. It is also possible that data or method are insufficient. 

As a result, general agreement is usually limited to quite specific cases under particular conditions that are not generalizable, that is, special cases. As a result, the case method is generally used in business schools, for instance, that than theoretical economics.

Information Transfer Economics
Noah is stealing my material
Jason Smith

Max Schröder — Chessonomics – The Case for Formalism in Economics

Fun.

Glasgow University Real World Economics Society
Chessonomics – The Case for Formalism in Economics
Max Schröder

See also

Severin Reissl, Loanable funds – 75 years later

William Rivers Pitt — The Dumpster Fire of Obama's Moral Authority

The presidency of Barack Obama ended on Friday, August 1st, 2014, as far as I am concerned. He'll sit in that round room until January of 2017, but he can go peddle his platitudes elsewhere. By lining up with and defending the torturers, he has added his name to the roll call of shame that continues to dishonor this nation. I no longer have any interest in what he has to say.

Barack Obama reveals himself for what he really is, a pragmatist without principle. A suit instead than a person. And a criminal, just like those who broke their oath and the torturers.

Truthout | Op-Ed
The Dumpster Fire of Obama's Moral Authority
William Rivers Pitt

Tom Atlee — Comparing “Wisdom of the Crowds” to Real Collective Wisdom

“The Wisdom of Crowds” is about how accurate (or not) dozens or thousands of people are when they are guessing the number of beans in a bottle or predicting who is going to win the World Cup. The number of times their average collective guestimates are accurate is remarkable – which is the subject of Surowiecki’s book. But is that what WISDOM is really about? 

If some individual could predict the outcome of this year’s US elections, would we call them wise? Is that what we proclaim Christ or Buddha as wise for doing? 

I would love it if we would reserve the terms “wisdom” and “wise” for guidance that makes life better – especially useful guidance that makes life better for most or all of us – including all the creatures of this living, fragile Earth – over the long term. That’s what we need wisdom for, now more than ever. 

The traditions of the world’s great religions are one source of that wisdom, if we are mindful and heartful about which aspects of them we choose to follow, such as the near-universal Golden Rule of treating others the ways we would like to be treated. That’s wise. 

Various forms of systems thinking – from shamanism to ecology and complexity sciences – offer such wisdom because they deal with the wholeness and interconnectedness of the world. Nature’s ways of solving problems – as revealed by the sciences of biomimicry and evolution – also offers such guidance because nature’s solutions (and ways of generating solutions) have arisen and proven themselves through millions of years of testing.

Public Intelligence Blog
Tom Atlee: Comparing “Wisdom of the Crowds” to Real Collective Wisdom

Tim Johnson on ethics and finance

This research question addresses an issue moral philosophy: what is the relationship between ethics and the structure of the polis and is motivated by themes in Pragmatic philosophy, in particular the hypothesis reciprocity emerges as a social norm to enable resilient and effective communities were exchange is important. The different commercial cultures can be seen as representing points on a spectrum of commercial attitudes and in cultures where there are low interest rates the hypothesis is that there will be greater homophily between the agents in the network, and this will create more resilient and effective financial networks. The research will aim to inform regulators of any intrinsic merits with emerging financial mechanisms, particularly crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending, particularly as there is concern that the regulators will stifle the democratisation of finance.

Magic, Maths, and Money — The Relationship between Science and Finance
New Year's Resolutions
Tim Johnson | Lecturer in Financial Mathematics at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh