Daniel Little — The place for thick theories of the actor in philosophy

The neoclassical foundational assumption of rational maximization and Buchanan's rational choice theory are "thin" theories of the actor. As a result the models created on the basis of such assumptions are simplifications. The questions is whether they are oversimplifications. That depends on the case. Such assumptions may apply generally in certain simple cases but not to all. Moreover, the assumption of methodological individualism on which microfoundations depends is similarly limited. These assumptions don't scale owing to social embeddedness and historical, cultural and institutional influence. Attempting to scale them beyond their limits results in the the fallacy of composition, that is, incorrectly assuming that a whole is the sum of its parts when the relationship of the parts supervenes.

Understanding Society
The place for thick theories of the actor in philosophy
Daniel Little | Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Professor of Philosophy at UM-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at UM-Ann Arbor

Oleg Komlik — What is Economic Sociology?

What is Economic Sociology? What is embeddedness? How are markets made and where do markets come from? How do politics, networks and culture matter? What are the institutions of political economy? and How does capitalism differ among countries?…. 

This concise and informing article by Ilan Talmud reviews contemporary trends in economic sociology, detailing how the emergence of the social embeddedness metaphor [as opposed to methodological individualism characteristic of conventional economics] has led to various sub-disciplines in the field. Economic sociology depicts the market as a socially constructed feature, (a) structured by networks of social actors who compete, imitate, exploit, and cooperate with one another, (b) enabled and reproduced by social and political institutions according to (c) the basic rules of capitalist political economy, and (d) perceived and enacted by cognitive procedures and normative regimes entailing ideal types, professional language games, myths, and ritualistic processes.

Most of which conventional economics either ignores or denies in generating micro-founded models based on the assumption of methodological individualism that overlook social embodies and complex adaptive social systems.

Economic Sociology and Political Economy

What is Economic Sociology?

Oleg Komlik | Lecturer, The College of Management Academic Studies, Behavioral Studies, and a PhD Candidate in Economic Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology