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Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics October 19, 2008 in News | by N. Emrah Aydinonat | No comments Inaugural Issue of the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics is forthcoming on November 2008. Visit their website for more information about this fresh philosophy and economics journal. Btw, a new web site for the journal is in preperation. You’ll be informed about it shortly. Note to the editors: We are looking forward to reading the first issue and our expectations are really high! October 18, 2008 in Course Material | by N. Emrah Aydinonat | No truth about enzyte comments Here is a webpage about Dr. J. G. T. Meek’s course on philosophy of economics at University of Cambridge: Philosophical Issues in Economics. October 15, 2008 in Conference Announcement | by N. Emrah Aydinonat | No comments TINT and POS (Philosophy of Science Group) of University Helsinki are organizing a Workshop on Models, Mechanisms and Interdisciplinarity (31 October - 1 November 2008). Here is the program (some changes may still occur): Read the rest of this entry » October 14, 2008 in Recent Research | by Jaakko Kuorikoski | No comments I only recently discovered that Donald MacKenzie has been contributing for the London Review of Books. Even though the forum is not strictly academic, I highly recommend these essays for anybody who is serious about the idea that institutions and mundane material means of trading matter. MacKenzie’s analytic grasp of the social ontology behind the recent financial turmoil should also inspire philosophers thinking about social ontology to see if something new can be learned and whether their philosophical insights have any bearing on current affairs. Brilliant stuff as usual and I can’t wait for his new book Material Markets: How Economic Agents Are Constructed to come out. Click here for MacKenzie’s LRB pages and here for drafts on his home-page. Another essay by MacKenzie left me thinking about certain blind spots in the way we think and theorize about societal mechanisms - what might be called invisible cogs and wheels. MacKenzie lays out how the Libor, a set of key interest rates that is crucial in the constitution of some pretty hefty institutional facts, is in the end worked out daily by just two guys in an open-plan office in London. Although these guys do have a backup crew in the case of emergency (a terrorist attack), the fact that the global resource allocation mechanism is dependent on such an exactly localizable component, that there is so little systemic redundancy, is, at least to my mind, pretty startling. On a distantly related note, I think there is a pretty important blind spot in social and political philosophy as well as public discourse: the role of rating agencies. Again, it is the current mess that best highlights the role of these institutions in influencing where and how fast resources flow. It is quite interesting that apparently just two institutions (Moody’s and S&P) have a virtual monopoly in steering the bulk of global resources and that they do this pretty much under the radar of political thought. October 13, 2008 in News | by Caterina Marchionni | No comments 13 October 2008 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2008 to Paul Krugman “for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity” Full press release: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2008/press.html October 8, 2008 in Economists on Economics | by N. Emrah Aydinonat | No comments Paul Romer argues that the “debate among economists about the $700 billion Paulson plan reveals a deep divide between realists and fundamentalists.” But who are fundamentalists, and who are realists? Romer explains: “Fundamentalists have an unswerving faith in models. Policies should always be derived from the best available model. Data should be filtered through a model. If an observation does not fit within the context of a model, it should be excluded from consideration.” Read the full article here. Pointer by Mark Thoma October 2, 2008 in Recent Research | by N. Emrah Aydinonat | No comments You may be interested in reading Eric Maskin’s recent article in Science entitled “Can Neural Data Improve Economics?”. Maskin discusses a recent study (also in Science) by Delgado et al. who argue that “Current economic theories suggest overbidding may result from either ‘joy of winning’ or risk aversion. [...] we find that another factor, namely loss contemplation in a social context, may mediate overbidding in auctions.” Maskin thinks that Delgado et al.’s hypothesis is not clear. He concludes: “Delgado et al.’s discovery [...] is an intriguing neurophysiological finding, although it is not so clear that it has yet led to a better economic model of buyers’ behavior.” If you are interested you may read the articles by clicking on the “Online” links below (membership required). And do not forget, Neuroeconomics (Hype or Hope) conference is approaching! September 26, 2008 in Recent Research | by Francesco Guala | 1 comment Dan Steel and I have been asked by Routledge to prepare a proposal for a new Philosophy of Social Science anthology. The goal of the anthology will be two-fold: (1) to update the existing literature (the most popular anthology in the field is still probably Martin & McIntyre’s (MIT Press), dating back to the early 90s); (2) to privilege philosophical reflections on scientific practice (especially new developments in anthropology, cognitive science, economics, etc), as opposed to foundational a priori criticism. How we shall strike a balance between these two goals is not clear yet. We have our own ideas, of course, but it would be very helpful to know what other people think: after all, the purpose of an anthology is to be used by as many people as possible! If you have taught a PoSS course in the past, would you like to share your syllabus with us? Have you got any suggestions to make - e.g. some wonderful paper that we should definitely include? (or some terribly boring, out-of-date paper we should not include!) If you are a student and have taken a PoSS course recently, which papers did you find most helpful/interesting/clear? Any suggestion will be very appreciated. September 25, 2008 in Conference Announcement | by N. Emrah Aydinonat | No comments 11th Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics: Heterodox Economics and Sustainable Development, 20 years on, 9-12 July, 2009, Kingston University, London You can download the PDF version of this call for papers by clicking here. The Eleventh Conference of the Association of Heterodox Economics (AHE) will be held at Kingston University, London from Thursday 9th to Sunday 12th July 2009. Read the rest of this entry » September 24, 2008 in News | by N. Emrah Aydinonat | No comments I have been thinking about turning Homo Phileconomicus into a collective blog for a long time. Today, after writing posts about Francesco Guala and Jaakko Kuorikoski’s papers, I decided to take action. I have invited some of the young, active and productive researchers who are interested in philosophy of economics to contribute to this blog. Francesco Guala, Jaakko Kuorikoski and Caterina Marchionni already agreed to contribute. I am looking forward to reading their posts. So visit more often. Exciting posts are on the way… |