The thirteenth in a series of excerpts from Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon. Marcin Miłkowski Herbert A. Simon is well known for his account of bounded rationality. Whereas classical economics idealized economic agency and framed rational choice in terms of the decision theory, Simon insisted that agents need…
existentialismphilosophical humorPhilosophy
There is nothing like a liberal gone sour. ***** I told him this for two reasons. One was that it was the only reason he would believe, believing as he did that I was still a liberal and therefore capable of any madness. (Yet curiously it was for him an understandable madness: you know how…
The amazing Ricky Riccardi commemorates this landmark album. Hey Pops, what’s in the case? :) ambassador satchGeorge AvakianLouis ArmstrongRicky Riccardi
A review article of James Harris’ Hume: An Intellectual Biography Hume reconceived the task of philosophy. It ought not to be championed, as the ancient schools had done, as a “medicine for the mind.” Nor was it a source of rules for action that would guarantee righteousness. Its role was critical reflection rather than exhortation…
Steven Nadler writes in Aeon that “At a time of religious zealotry, Spinoza’s fearless defence of intellectual freedom is more timely than ever.” This fundamental liberal value is of course foreign to the regressive left. In his distress over the deteriorating political situation in the Dutch Republic, and despite the personal dantheoger he faced, Spinoza…
Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster in Spiked Review. Perhaps it is this yearning for a Catholic Shakespeare that must be given up in order to see Hamlet aright and see ourselves in its light. Perhaps we will have to dispense with the ghost’s prayer for an unadulterated life, for Catholic absolution, for an absolute. Hegel…
The twelfth in a series of excerpts from Minds, Models and Milieux: Commemorating the Centennial of the Birth of Herbert Simon. Rouslan Koumakhov Social identifications are one of Herbert Simon’s most recurrent themes. Starting with Administrative Behavior (hereafter, AB) (Simon, 1947/1997), he investigates that theme throughout his scientific work on an impressive number of occasions. Perhaps…
We venture to say that self-reinforcing sorting mechanisms now make the discipline unapproachable by anyone who is unabashedly classically liberal. — full article. This was all true (and patently obviously so) even thirty years ago. I, however, got very lucky — I had the amazing Paul Hirst as a tutor. Almost ten years ago I…
What can a man with a plain name who lived over 200 years ago tell us about life today? Who was The Real Adam Smith? And why should we care? In this two-hour, two-part documentary, Swedish author, commentator and Cato Senior Fellow Johan Norberg explores Adam Smith’s life, his ideas about morality and economics, and…
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