Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I RATIONALITY, MARKETS, AND INSTITUTIONS
- PART II IMPERSONAL EXCHANGE: THE EXTENDED ORDER OF THE MARKET
- PART III PERSONAL EXCHANGE: THE EXTERNAL ORDER OF SOCIAL EXCHANGE
- PART IV ORDER AND RATIONALITY IN METHOD AND MIND
- 13 Rationality in Science
- 14 Neuroeconomics: The Internal Order of the Mind
- 15 A Summary
- References
- Index
13 - Rationality in Science
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- PART I RATIONALITY, MARKETS, AND INSTITUTIONS
- PART II IMPERSONAL EXCHANGE: THE EXTENDED ORDER OF THE MARKET
- PART III PERSONAL EXCHANGE: THE EXTERNAL ORDER OF SOCIAL EXCHANGE
- PART IV ORDER AND RATIONALITY IN METHOD AND MIND
- 13 Rationality in Science
- 14 Neuroeconomics: The Internal Order of the Mind
- 15 A Summary
- References
- Index
Summary
But I believe that there is no philosophical highroad in science, with epistemological signposts. No, we are in a jungle and find our way out by trial and error, building our road behind us as we proceed. We do not find signposts at crossroads, but our scouts erect them, to help the rest.
Born (1943)… Sir Karl Popper has taught me that natural scientists did not really do what most of them not only told us they did but also urged the representatives of other disciplines to imitate. The difference between the two groups of disciplines (natural and social sciences) has thereby been greatly narrowed. …
Hayek (1967, p. ⅷ)Science is what replaced traditional societies with the modern, technological, industrial world. … Science is the body of facts about the natural world that controlled experiments require us to believe, together with the logical extrapolations from those facts, and the added things that scientific instruments enable us to see with our own eyes.
H. Smith (2001, pp. 191–2, emphasis added)Introduction
I have argued that rationality in the economy depends on the behavior of individuals that has been conditioned by cultural norms, and emergent institutions that evolve from human experience and sociality, but that are not ultimately derived from constructivist reason, although clearly constructivist ideas are important sources of variation for the gristmill of ecological selection. Parallel considerations apply to rationality in scientific method, the subject matter of this chapter.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Rationality in EconomicsConstructivist and Ecological Forms, pp. 283 - 311Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
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