This paper discusses how Mark Blaug reversed his thinking about the historiography of economics, abandoning rational reconstructions for historical ones, by using an economics of scientific knowledge argument against Paul Samuelson and others that rational reconstructions of past ideas and theories in the 'marketplace of ideas' were Pareto inefficient. Blaug’s positive argument for historical reconstructions was built on the concept of 'lost content' and his rejection of the end-state view of competition in favor of a process conception. He used these ideas to emphasize path dependency in the development of economic thinking, thereby advancing an evolutionary view of economics that has connections to his Lakatosian research programs understanding of economic methodology. The paper argues that Blaug was essentially successful in criticizing the standard view of the history of economic thought in economics, and that this is borne out by the nature of the change in recent economics.
{"title":"Mark Blaug on the Historiography of Economics","authors":"John B. Davis","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2094422","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2094422","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses how Mark Blaug reversed his thinking about the historiography of economics, abandoning rational reconstructions for historical ones, by using an economics of scientific knowledge argument against Paul Samuelson and others that rational reconstructions of past ideas and theories in the 'marketplace of ideas' were Pareto inefficient. Blaug’s positive argument for historical reconstructions was built on the concept of 'lost content' and his rejection of the end-state view of competition in favor of a process conception. He used these ideas to emphasize path dependency in the development of economic thinking, thereby advancing an evolutionary view of economics that has connections to his Lakatosian research programs understanding of economic methodology. The paper argues that Blaug was essentially successful in criticizing the standard view of the history of economic thought in economics, and that this is borne out by the nature of the change in recent economics.","PeriodicalId":399171,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122639561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper I argue that in the period after 1945 in the main currents of academic (technical) economics a commitment to-so-called Knightian uncertainty got displaced by two strategies: i) a simple displacement strategy (heavily promoted by Arrow and Samuelson), in which un-measurable uncertainty simply got treated as quantifiable risk; ii) a sophisticated displacement strategy (due to Alchian), which turned uncertainty into randomness understood as a stochastic process. The point of my narrative is to illustrate what a so-called “Kuhn-loss” looks like in practice. In the philosophy of science literature, insights of discarded theories that cannot be articulated or recognized by the new theory are instances of Kuhn-losses. A Kuhn-loss is often accompanied by the suppression of long-standing objections or even reliable alternative approaches. This is not merely of philosophic interest; Kuhn helped popularize a view of paradigms that allowed social-scientific practitioners to claim that they need not answer all objections. This paper proceeds as follows in three main sections: first, I briefly use a remarkable, recent self-study by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) as an exemplar of the re-discovery of uncertainty in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 and, in particular, to illustrate how difficult it is for these policy economists to find a way to describe it with their conceptual apparatus. Second, I briefly sketch the pre-1945 approach to uncertainty. In doing so I make two main points: A) uncertainty was accepted by thinkers as politically and intellectually diverse as Frank Knight and John Maynard Keynes. B) I distinguish between epistemic and metaphysical versions of uncertainty. Third, I describe what happened with uncertainty in the context of the formal revolution in economics. I describe the simple displacement strategy in general outline. I then analyze the sophisticated displacement in some more detail. I argue that uncertainty got displaced by successor concepts that are neither identical to it nor to each other.
{"title":"What Happened to Knightian (and Keynesian) Uncertainty Post WWII?: A Philosophic History","authors":"E. Schliesser","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2033117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2033117","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper I argue that in the period after 1945 in the main currents of academic (technical) economics a commitment to-so-called Knightian uncertainty got displaced by two strategies: i) a simple displacement strategy (heavily promoted by Arrow and Samuelson), in which un-measurable uncertainty simply got treated as quantifiable risk; ii) a sophisticated displacement strategy (due to Alchian), which turned uncertainty into randomness understood as a stochastic process. The point of my narrative is to illustrate what a so-called “Kuhn-loss” looks like in practice. In the philosophy of science literature, insights of discarded theories that cannot be articulated or recognized by the new theory are instances of Kuhn-losses. A Kuhn-loss is often accompanied by the suppression of long-standing objections or even reliable alternative approaches. This is not merely of philosophic interest; Kuhn helped popularize a view of paradigms that allowed social-scientific practitioners to claim that they need not answer all objections. This paper proceeds as follows in three main sections: first, I briefly use a remarkable, recent self-study by the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) as an exemplar of the re-discovery of uncertainty in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 and, in particular, to illustrate how difficult it is for these policy economists to find a way to describe it with their conceptual apparatus. Second, I briefly sketch the pre-1945 approach to uncertainty. In doing so I make two main points: A) uncertainty was accepted by thinkers as politically and intellectually diverse as Frank Knight and John Maynard Keynes. B) I distinguish between epistemic and metaphysical versions of uncertainty. Third, I describe what happened with uncertainty in the context of the formal revolution in economics. I describe the simple displacement strategy in general outline. I then analyze the sophisticated displacement in some more detail. I argue that uncertainty got displaced by successor concepts that are neither identical to it nor to each other.","PeriodicalId":399171,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science eJournal","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133558169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
B. Forgues, R. Greenwood, Ignasi Martí, Philippe Monin, P. Walgenbach
The roots of the new institutional theory are well known (Scott, 2008). Meyer and Rowan (1977) undermined the (then) prevailing imagery of organizations as quasi-rational actors navigating economic and technical contingencies, showing instead that organizations are influenced by socio-cultural and cognitive (institutional) factors that prescribe and proscribe appropriate behavior. Organizations conform to institutional prescriptions because doing so provides social approval (legitimacy) and enhances organizational survival. DiMaggio and Powell (1983) took these ideas forward by elaborating three mechanisms — coercive, normative, and mimetic — by which institutional demands are diffused. They also foregrounded the organizational field as an appropriate level of analysis for observing and exploring these processes and effects.
{"title":"New Institutionalism: Roots and Buds","authors":"B. Forgues, R. Greenwood, Ignasi Martí, Philippe Monin, P. Walgenbach","doi":"10.3917/MANA.155.0460","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3917/MANA.155.0460","url":null,"abstract":"The roots of the new institutional theory are well known (Scott, 2008). Meyer and Rowan (1977) undermined the (then) prevailing imagery of organizations as quasi-rational actors navigating economic and technical contingencies, showing instead that organizations are influenced by socio-cultural and cognitive (institutional) factors that prescribe and proscribe appropriate behavior. Organizations conform to institutional prescriptions because doing so provides social approval (legitimacy) and enhances organizational survival. DiMaggio and Powell (1983) took these ideas forward by elaborating three mechanisms — coercive, normative, and mimetic — by which institutional demands are diffused. They also foregrounded the organizational field as an appropriate level of analysis for observing and exploring these processes and effects.","PeriodicalId":399171,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science eJournal","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126734657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Western science has developed powerful techniques for modeling and aiding important social decisions. One such technique is risk assessment. The relationship of risk to cultural context is apparent in a number of its facets, including its dependence on values and the (potential) clash between probabilistic versus deterministic views about states of the future. This paper is an examination of the concept of risk using as a lens ideas and concepts about risk that are prevalent in Western culture, and applying these concepts to existing literature (in English) on Arab culture that provides information relevant to risk. The goal of the paper is to amplify our understanding of how Arab culture conceptualizes elements of risk and its assessment as understood and practiced in the West. A background for this synthesis is an overview of the history of risk in Western cultures that traces the evolution of modern ideas about risk as both a mathematical and a social development. Current research on risk in Western literature is used to frame key risk issues in terms of their potential fit (or misfit) with features of Arab culture. The paper concludes with a number of speculative recommendations for research and practice that suggest a cautious approach with regard to applying risk-related principles in Arab cultural contexts that place a relatively high value on traditionalism.
{"title":"Observations on the Concept of Risk and Arab Culture","authors":"D. MacGregor, Joseph Godfrey","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1966713","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1966713","url":null,"abstract":"Western science has developed powerful techniques for modeling and aiding important social decisions. One such technique is risk assessment. The relationship of risk to cultural context is apparent in a number of its facets, including its dependence on values and the (potential) clash between probabilistic versus deterministic views about states of the future. This paper is an examination of the concept of risk using as a lens ideas and concepts about risk that are prevalent in Western culture, and applying these concepts to existing literature (in English) on Arab culture that provides information relevant to risk. The goal of the paper is to amplify our understanding of how Arab culture conceptualizes elements of risk and its assessment as understood and practiced in the West. A background for this synthesis is an overview of the history of risk in Western cultures that traces the evolution of modern ideas about risk as both a mathematical and a social development. Current research on risk in Western literature is used to frame key risk issues in terms of their potential fit (or misfit) with features of Arab culture. The paper concludes with a number of speculative recommendations for research and practice that suggest a cautious approach with regard to applying risk-related principles in Arab cultural contexts that place a relatively high value on traditionalism.","PeriodicalId":399171,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science eJournal","volume":"40 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127792466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Randomised Evaluations(REs) are being increasingly used in Developmental Economics to understand and predict the impact of specific interventions. However there has been little known epistemological examination of them. Often praise is reserved for the ability of randomised evaluations to generate highly justified internal claims. Samples are randomly allocated into 2 groups. The intervention under study is only applied to one group. The other serves as control, enabling any difference in results to be more closely attributed to the intervention. However, the central problem of induction still undermines the external claims - the predictions - of REs. In this essay I explore: 1)How the epistemic status of RE’s external claims is undermined by the problem of induction. 2)What are the possible solutions or evasions to the problem and how effective and appropriate they are 3)Why in fact the unique methodology of REs allows its external claims to overcome the problem of induction.
{"title":"Can External Claims of Randomised Evaluations Used in Developmental Economics Be Considered Knowledge, in Light of the Problem of Induction?","authors":"Muthhukumar Palaniyapan","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2128585","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2128585","url":null,"abstract":"Randomised Evaluations(REs) are being increasingly used in Developmental Economics to understand and predict the impact of specific interventions. However there has been little known epistemological examination of them. Often praise is reserved for the ability of randomised evaluations to generate highly justified internal claims. Samples are randomly allocated into 2 groups. The intervention under study is only applied to one group. The other serves as control, enabling any difference in results to be more closely attributed to the intervention. However, the central problem of induction still undermines the external claims - the predictions - of REs. In this essay I explore: 1)How the epistemic status of RE’s external claims is undermined by the problem of induction. 2)What are the possible solutions or evasions to the problem and how effective and appropriate they are 3)Why in fact the unique methodology of REs allows its external claims to overcome the problem of induction.","PeriodicalId":399171,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science eJournal","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120999858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although involved in projects of influent institutions like the Cowles Commission, the NBER, and the Michigan Survey Research Center (SRC), George Katona, the “pioneer student and chief collector of consumer anticipations data�? (Tobin, 1959, p. 1) is virtually absent from accounts of the topics he explored, including the study of the consumption function and the development of behavioral economics. This essay argues that such an absence is partly explained by the theoretical underpinnings of Katona’s project, which were incompatible with the economic views of behavior that dominated from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s. It compares alternative survey programs funded by the Federal Reserve during that period, and analyzes the ensuing controversy on the purposes of the observation of attitudes, intentions and expectations. It claims that understanding Katona’s approach “required a real restructuring of thought – a genuine paradigm shift�? (Simon, 1979, p. 12), which gives specific interest to this historical episode.
{"title":"Observing Attitudes, Intentions and Expectations (1945-1973)","authors":"J. Edwards","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1957665","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1957665","url":null,"abstract":"Although involved in projects of influent institutions like the Cowles Commission, the NBER, and the Michigan Survey Research Center (SRC), George Katona, the “pioneer student and chief collector of consumer anticipations data�? (Tobin, 1959, p. 1) is virtually absent from accounts of the topics he explored, including the study of the consumption function and the development of behavioral economics. This essay argues that such an absence is partly explained by the theoretical underpinnings of Katona’s project, which were incompatible with the economic views of behavior that dominated from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s. It compares alternative survey programs funded by the Federal Reserve during that period, and analyzes the ensuing controversy on the purposes of the observation of attitudes, intentions and expectations. It claims that understanding Katona’s approach “required a real restructuring of thought – a genuine paradigm shift�? (Simon, 1979, p. 12), which gives specific interest to this historical episode.","PeriodicalId":399171,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science eJournal","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129314103","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The article is based on a literature review and aims to identify the elements that facilitate the consolidation of a knowledge society and, at the same time, influence the performance of any organization. It had been applied a content analysis to the most relevant books and articles that had appeared in the knowledge management domain until July 2011. This conceptual paper presents the four pillars of the knowledge society – education, research, development and innovation – and reflects the fact that the SECI model may be applied on the national level. In other words, socialization is substituted by education, externalization by research, combination by development and internalization by innovation.
{"title":"The Pillars of the Knowledge Based Society","authors":"R. Leon","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1907630","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1907630","url":null,"abstract":"The article is based on a literature review and aims to identify the elements that facilitate the consolidation of a knowledge society and, at the same time, influence the performance of any organization. It had been applied a content analysis to the most relevant books and articles that had appeared in the knowledge management domain until July 2011. This conceptual paper presents the four pillars of the knowledge society – education, research, development and innovation – and reflects the fact that the SECI model may be applied on the national level. In other words, socialization is substituted by education, externalization by research, combination by development and internalization by innovation.","PeriodicalId":399171,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science eJournal","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115803335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The collapse of a whole society is nowadays a much prized topic. The environmental questions, the resource scarcity, the nuclear proliferation, the demographic explosion or some other 'apocalyptic’ dangers tell us that our civilization is mortal.From Gibbon to Tainter, and more recently to Jarred Diamond, the collapse of ancient societies like Roman or Mayan empires was well observed. Nobody ever mentioned a similar collapse of Hellenistic society. Nevertheless, an author, Lucio Russo, discovered an invisible fall down linked to a cultural phenomenon: the science.Russo consider that a scientific revolution took place in Hellenistic times and was forgotten when the science as a method has been abandoned in Antiquity. A final recovery has been realized only 16 centuries later. Russo’s contributions uncovers the birth, the decline and the final fall of Hellenistic science and technology in domains like mathematics, mechanics of solids and fluids, topography and geodesy, optics, astronomy, anatomy. The author found some challenging results such as the discovery of the inverse square law of gravitation by some Hellenistic authors.The paper examine Russo’s supporting hypothesis and researching methodology and may offer subjects for reflection and futures research.
{"title":"A Glimpse over Lucio Russo’s Scientific Collapse from First Century BC","authors":"Remus Titiriga","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1804297","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1804297","url":null,"abstract":"The collapse of a whole society is nowadays a much prized topic. The environmental questions, the resource scarcity, the nuclear proliferation, the demographic explosion or some other 'apocalyptic’ dangers tell us that our civilization is mortal.From Gibbon to Tainter, and more recently to Jarred Diamond, the collapse of ancient societies like Roman or Mayan empires was well observed. Nobody ever mentioned a similar collapse of Hellenistic society. Nevertheless, an author, Lucio Russo, discovered an invisible fall down linked to a cultural phenomenon: the science.Russo consider that a scientific revolution took place in Hellenistic times and was forgotten when the science as a method has been abandoned in Antiquity. A final recovery has been realized only 16 centuries later. Russo’s contributions uncovers the birth, the decline and the final fall of Hellenistic science and technology in domains like mathematics, mechanics of solids and fluids, topography and geodesy, optics, astronomy, anatomy. The author found some challenging results such as the discovery of the inverse square law of gravitation by some Hellenistic authors.The paper examine Russo’s supporting hypothesis and researching methodology and may offer subjects for reflection and futures research.","PeriodicalId":399171,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130515780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The availability of Piero Sraffa’s unpublished manuscripts and correspondence at Trinity College Library, Cambridge, has made it possible to begin to set out a more complete account of Sraffa’s philosophical thinking than previously could be done with only his published materials and the few comments and suggestions made by others about his ideas, especially in connection with their possible impact on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later thinking. This makes a direct rather than indirect examination of Sraffa’s philosophical thinking possible, and also shifts the focus from his relationship to Wittgenstein to his own thinking per se. I suggest that the previous focus, necessary as it may have been prior to the availability of the unpublished materials, involved some distortion of Sraffa’s thinking by virtue of its framing in terms of Wittgenstein’s concerns as reflected in the concerns of scholars primarily interested in the change in the his thinking. This paper seeks to locate these early convictions in this historical context, and then go on to treat the development of Sraffa’s philosophical thinking as a process beginning from this point, arguing that his thinking underwent one significant shift around 1931, but still retained its early key assumptions. Thus the approach I will take to Sraffa’s philosophical thinking is to explain it as a process of development largely within a single framework defined by his view of how modern science determines the scope and limits upon economic theorizing.
{"title":"The Change in Sraffa’s Philosophical Thinking","authors":"John B. Davis","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1737900","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1737900","url":null,"abstract":"The availability of Piero Sraffa’s unpublished manuscripts and correspondence at Trinity College Library, Cambridge, has made it possible to begin to set out a more complete account of Sraffa’s philosophical thinking than previously could be done with only his published materials and the few comments and suggestions made by others about his ideas, especially in connection with their possible impact on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later thinking. This makes a direct rather than indirect examination of Sraffa’s philosophical thinking possible, and also shifts the focus from his relationship to Wittgenstein to his own thinking per se. I suggest that the previous focus, necessary as it may have been prior to the availability of the unpublished materials, involved some distortion of Sraffa’s thinking by virtue of its framing in terms of Wittgenstein’s concerns as reflected in the concerns of scholars primarily interested in the change in the his thinking. This paper seeks to locate these early convictions in this historical context, and then go on to treat the development of Sraffa’s philosophical thinking as a process beginning from this point, arguing that his thinking underwent one significant shift around 1931, but still retained its early key assumptions. Thus the approach I will take to Sraffa’s philosophical thinking is to explain it as a process of development largely within a single framework defined by his view of how modern science determines the scope and limits upon economic theorizing.","PeriodicalId":399171,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science eJournal","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130353506","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The so-called ‘symptoms’ of bipolar illness are better conceived as medleys and collages of traits widely disseminated in the gene pool, the vast majority of which are favorable in nearly every way until aggregated with others to produce actual symptoms that lead to disruption of life. The argument is 1) that drugs enable the bipolar individual to deal with traits as such and thus confront this disease/disorder from a soft-wiring perspective in a manner enabling a productive existence both personally and socially, and 2) bipolar individuals have numerous positive traits that can be utilized both to steward offices as well as contain or otherwise restrain negative traits. Techniques are offered together with theoretical insights to help bipolar sufferers come to possess a responsible attitude by which to steward their natural talents and consider the needs of others as integral to their self-mastery and health.
{"title":"Learning to Live Responsibly with Bipolar Illness","authors":"C. Herrman","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1737705","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1737705","url":null,"abstract":"The so-called ‘symptoms’ of bipolar illness are better conceived as medleys and collages of traits widely disseminated in the gene pool, the vast majority of which are favorable in nearly every way until aggregated with others to produce actual symptoms that lead to disruption of life. The argument is 1) that drugs enable the bipolar individual to deal with traits as such and thus confront this disease/disorder from a soft-wiring perspective in a manner enabling a productive existence both personally and socially, and 2) bipolar individuals have numerous positive traits that can be utilized both to steward offices as well as contain or otherwise restrain negative traits. Techniques are offered together with theoretical insights to help bipolar sufferers come to possess a responsible attitude by which to steward their natural talents and consider the needs of others as integral to their self-mastery and health.","PeriodicalId":399171,"journal":{"name":"Philosophy of Science eJournal","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114859737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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