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Hayek in Mind: Hayek’s Philosophical Psychology

Call for papers Hayek in Mind: Hayek’s Philosophical Psychology Leslie Marsh, Volume Editor Advances in Austrian Economics Hayek’s philosophical psychology as set out in his The Sensory Order (1952) has, for the most part, been a neglected work. Social theory, Hayek’s traditional disciplinary constituency, has recently begun to take note and examine its place in the complete Hayek corpus. Despite being…

The Hive Mind

                  The latest issue of Seed features an article entitled “The Hive Mind” by Benjamin Phelan:  The selfless behavior of ants, bees, and wasps has confounded scientists for more than a century. Is the question a red herring or the key to a new evolutionary synthesis?  Speaking…

Fable of the Bees

Now it is becoming clear that group decisions are also extremely valuable for the success of social animals, such as ants, bees, birds and dolphins. And those animals may have a thing or two to teach people about collective decision-making. There’s an article in the Economist entitled “Decisions, decisions: What people can learn from how social…

The Epistemology of Mass Collaboration

 The new issue of EPISTEME is now available. Table of Contents Special Offer ALL issues free until Feb 28 – hurry now while stocks last :)

Studies in Emergent Order

I want to bring your attention to the first issue of the on-line journal Studies in Emergent Order (papers are freely available). I was privileged to attend the recent conference associated with the Journal. A more eclectic and interesting group one couldn’t hope to find. To listen to and chat with Gus diZerega, David Emanuel…

Swarm on the Beeb: Nature’s Incredible Invasions

The BBC are broadcasting a two-part programme on swarm behaviour. It’s worth checking it out for the terrific footage – not having had the sound on, I don’t know if anything conceptually interesting is discussed. I will revisit the programme with sound soon. Click here to view part 1.

Vermeule’s Hayek

In a post on the OUP blog Adrian Vermeule writes: The basic problem with “The Use of Knowledge in Society” is what we might call the Hayek Fallacy: a false comparison between the aggregate product of many minds and the product of a single mind. Perhaps that comparison is relevant in special contexts, such as…

Distributed knowledge and cognition

Once again a superb posting by Vitorino Ramos on his blog. Heretofore I’d not been aware of the existence of hobo signs or the gum election, both of which nicely illustrate the various conceptual lenses associated with distributed cognition/knowledge. I’ll definitely be invoking these ideas.  Good stuff! I also notice another posting about Brian Arthur’s El Farol Bar…

Orders and Borders

This past weekend I had the good fortune to be able to attend the Second Conference on Emergent Order and Society held in Portsmouth, NH. The term “conference” doesn’t really characterise the format – it is more akin to a colloquium where the emphasis is on genuine discussion and conversation in an intimate group (18 in all)…