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1 – 10 of over 1000Presents the scientific methodology from the enlarged cybernetical perspective that recognizes the anisotropy of time, the probabilistic character of natural laws, and the entry…
Abstract
Presents the scientific methodology from the enlarged cybernetical perspective that recognizes the anisotropy of time, the probabilistic character of natural laws, and the entry that the incomplete determinism in Nature opens to the occurrence of innovation, growth, organization, teleology communication, control, contest and freedom. The new tier to the methodological edifice that cybernetics provides stands on the earlier tiers, which go back to the Ionians (c. 500 BC). However, the new insights reveal flaws in the earlier tiers, and their removal strengthens the entire edifice. The new concepts of teleological activity and contest allow the clear demarcation of the military sciences as those whose subject matter is teleological activity involving contest. The paramount question “what ought to be done”, outside the empirical realm, is embraced by the scientific methodology. It also embraces the cognitive sciences that ask how the human mind is able to discover, and how the sequence of discoveries might converge to a true description of reality.
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Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely…
Abstract
Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.
M. Yolles, B.R. Frieden and G. Kemp
This paper aims to initiate a new, formal theory of sociocultural physics.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to initiate a new, formal theory of sociocultural physics.
Design/methodology/approach
Its intended scope is limited to predicting either long‐term, large‐scale or short‐term, small‐scale sociocultural events. The theory that the authors develop, called sociohistory, links three independent but relatable approaches: part of Sorokin's epistemological theory of sociocultural dynamics, Frieden's epistemological theory of extreme physical information (EPI), and Yolles's social viable systems (SVS) theory.
Findings
Although not all of Sorokin's ideas are universally accepted, a subset of them is found to be extremely useful for describing the conceptual context of complex systems. This includes how sociocultural processes link closely into political processes.
Research limitations/implications
The theory that develops helps explain how opposing, cultural enantiomers or yin‐yang forces (represented, for instance, by the polar mindsets represented in Islamic fundamentalism and global enterprise) can result in violent conflict, or in either viable or non‐viable social communities. The informations I and J of EPI theory are regarded, respectively, as sensate and ideational enantiomers.
Originality/value
While the resulting sociocultural physics is in its infancy, an illustrative application to the developmental dynamics of post‐colonial Iran demonstrates its potential utility.
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The aim of this paper is to explore the lessons offered by the financial crisis about the appropriate epistemological approaches to apply in the study of human affairs in general…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to explore the lessons offered by the financial crisis about the appropriate epistemological approaches to apply in the study of human affairs in general, and of the financial markets in particular.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper applies a qualitative and historical approach invoking debates in the philosophy of social science to dominant themes and concepts in modern quantitative finance. It is argued that underlying the theory and practice of modern quantitative finance is a commitment to an empiricist epistemology modeled on the natural sciences.
Findings
In the financial crisis, modern social science, with its positivist/quantitative orientation, was put to the test in a way that it had never been before. That it failed this test is one of the chief lessons of the financial crisis. Mathematical techniques are inherently incapable of accounting for human behaviour. The crisis serves to underline that a fundamental divide exists between the natural and human realms.
Practical implications
While the mathematical‐positivist techniques continue to hold some promise in the study of finance, it has become obvious that this dominant approach needs be enhanced by more qualitative techniques.
Originality/value
The paper shows that although in popular media outlets the mathematization of finance has been singled out as a cause of the crisis, the broader implications for the analysis of human activity have not yet been probed. Nor, in the wake of the crisis, has there been a systematic, philosophically informed, critique of the positivist‐quantitative orientation buttressing academic research into the financial markets.
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In this article an epistemological interpretation of the role of subject literature in scholarly communication shall be proposed. Such an interpretation will focus on the…
Abstract
In this article an epistemological interpretation of the role of subject literature in scholarly communication shall be proposed. Such an interpretation will focus on the epistemological dimension of communicating knowledge through literature and how this is achieved through discursive and rhetorical means. It will be argued that library and information science (LIS) theory on scholarly communication can be supplemented and strengthened by this interpretation. By establishing a social epistemology of subject literature the article contributes with a sketch of a coherent theory of scholarly literature explaining the epistemological and communicative division of labor between the various types of subject literature. Such a theory is in line with the current revival of social epistemology in LIS. The article is structured into three main sections. The first section will outline an epistemological position that pays particular attention to knowledge acquired through social interaction in general, and through interaction with written texts in particular. The works of the later Wittgenstein and Ludwik Fleck will be used as the theoretical frameworks. Having established this epistemological framework, the second section will outline what is considered to be the main types of subject literature, with emphasis on their discursive and rhetorical functions in scholarly communication. The third section will synthesize the two other sections into a sketch of a theory that will be labeled the social epistemology of subject literature and point to some implications for LIS research of this theory.
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The objective of this paper is to show the modernity of the approach developed by Carl Menger. The author argues that the Mengerian approach is part of a conceptual pattern…
Abstract
The objective of this paper is to show the modernity of the approach developed by Carl Menger. The author argues that the Mengerian approach is part of a conceptual pattern composed of four interdependent, hierarchical and coherent parts (ontology, epistemology, methodology and key concepts) and that this conceptual pattern in all its originality and consistency fits perfectly within the approach of complexity. Ontologically (Section 1), the starting point is different from that of Léon Walras and William Stanley Jevons, the economy being apprehended as an open system; from an epistemological point of view (Section 2), Menger adopts a distinct conception of what constitutes a good scientific explanation, which contrasts with the Walrasian conception; methodologically (Section 3), his rejection of mathematics can therefore be understood as a consequence of his ontological and epistemological position: it is not mathematics as such that the author rejects but the functionalist tools then available, which are not adapted to his conception of economic reality; and finally the key concept (Section 4) of the author’s analysis is not that of equilibrium but an analysis of the process of exchange and production, with the emphasis placed on the emergence of organic phenomena.
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Masudul Alam Choudhury and Mohammad Akram Nadwi
This paper addresses three interrelated objectives. The approach is philosophical and comparative. As far as possible the Islamic arguments of the paper are derived from the Quran.
This paper aims to tackle in turn the merits and limits of Nicholas Georgescu‐Roegen's entropic model, as well as its implications for the methodological discourse in economics…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to tackle in turn the merits and limits of Nicholas Georgescu‐Roegen's entropic model, as well as its implications for the methodological discourse in economics. This appraisal of the Georgescu‐Roegen's work emphasizes the emergence of the entropic nature of the economic processes as a paradigm à la Kuhn of explanation in social economics.
Design/methodology/approach
This work provides a critical assessment of the entropic model's main conceptual pillars, namely the role of mathematical formalism and the natural imagery of irreversibility. This discussion takes them in turn and develops a critique from a methodological point of view.
Findings
The focus of this work is that the proposed epistemological reconstruction of economics is vulnerable to attacks from two methodological objections. The first deals with the change of metaphor from the “pendulum” of mechanics to the “hourglass” of thermodynamics. The second refers to the changes this replacement of metaphors brings about as to the relevance of the formalism of the discipline.
Originality/value
This material has gathered arguments to show that the intellectual concurrence of the arguments onto the field of physics makes the methodological value of the new paradigm of entropy not transcend into a new logic of reasoning in economics. The limits of this approach stems from the same rationale for which it has got its revolutionary stature: what it proposes consists of a scientific discourse based on a mixture of evolutionary biology, economics and thermodynamics, which may open up new original and insightful perspectives, but which has never been justified on terms of economic nature alone.
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To lay the ground for a future diversification of academic finance in line with on-going sustainability issues.
Abstract
Purpose
To lay the ground for a future diversification of academic finance in line with on-going sustainability issues.
Methodology/approach
We situate academic finance within the broader spectrum of social sciences and highlight its ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions. This brings out the limitations of paradigmatic unity in finance and the ideological aspects of academic finance, and allows us to characterise diversification in finance with reference to the nested epistemological structure of scientific discourse.
Findings
We define the diversification of academic finance as a process by which (i) finance research is extended to other existing paradigms in social sciences; (ii) new research metaphors are developed within the current paradigm and (iii) puzzle-solving robustness is achieved. We develop a new research agenda which are divided down into themes, paradigmatic hypotheses, and research questions.
Research limitations/implications
We do not test any particular implications of our research agenda.
Practical implications
This chapter will be a useful reference for any researcher or practitioner seeking to contribute to the diversification of academic finance, and make finance work for society.
Originality/value
This chapter looks at academic finance from an interdisciplinary angle in order to bring out its limitations and carve out an innovative research agenda.
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