Is Behavioral Economics Doomed?

behavioral economics, bounded rationality, cognition, cognitive systems, complexity, computational psychology, david levine, neuroeconomics, neuromania, neurophilosophy, neuroscience, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science, rationality, situated cognition, social cognition, social connectionism, social epistemology, social ontology, social psychology

Here is a skeptical take on the insights supposedly offered by the rise of behavioral economics as represented by Daniel Kahneman and others. Since I’m in the process of reviewing Kahneman it will be interesting to see if Levine’s take on behavioral economics jibes with my take on Kahneman in particular and behavioral economics in general – I have a strong sense that is unlikely to be the case.

T.S. Eliot recording

russell

Listen to T.S.E. here. A little known fact, at least amongst those who come to TSE through his poetry, is that T.S.E. wrote his doctoral dissertation on F.H. Bradley, a copy of which I read some 25 years ago. Here is an article on the relationship between T.S.E. and Russell.

Discount on Oakeshott Companion

a companion to michael oakeshott, companion to michael oakeshott, companion to oakeshott, conservatism, liberal education, liberalism, michael oakeshott, philosophy, philosophy and literature, philosophy of education, philosophy of history, philosophy of mind, philosophy of social science, political philosophy, religion

In anticipation of the publication date (October) Penn State University Press are offering a 20% discount off the cover price of A Companion to Michael Oakeshott – download form here.

Sketch this: extended mind and consciousness extension

distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, extended cognitive systems, extended mind, externalism

This from PCS

Review of “Pops”

aesthetics, H. L. Mencken, jazz, Journal of Jazz Studies, music, oakeshott, Ricky Riccardi, satchmo, spontaneous order, Terry Teachout

Here’s a review from the very excellent Journal of Jazz Studies. Along with Teachout’s “Pops” I can also highly recommend Ricky Riccardi’s What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years since together one gets a fuller and more rounded picture of America’s greatest art form and greatest artist. Both Teachout and Riccardi are masterful in marshaling the research into a coherent story and both writers refute the prevailing tripe that “Pops” was an uncle Tom. I look forward to seeing the review in JJS of Riccardi’s work. Here is a nice discussion with the very versatile Teachout (also author of The Skeptic: A Life of H. L. Mencken) – as a self-avowed political conservative it is interesting to hear Terry’s thoughts on the arts and ideology:

Aside from the pure aesthetic pleasure I get from Jazz the theoretical relevance of my interest is twofold:

(1) Sociologically speaking, Jazz as a spontaneous order;

(2) The conservational nature of the music itself.

These topics speak to my interest in emergent order (Hayek) and conversation (Oakeshott). But this is a project slowly fermenting with the hope that I can write once the decks are cleared.

The Extended Mind and Religious Thought Revisted

extended mind, externalism, Joel Krueger, Leonard Angel, Lynne Rudder Baker, mark rowlands, Matthew Day, situated cognition, teed rockwell

Here’s plug for a collection of EM papers from about three years ago

The Extended Mind by Mark Rowlands

Persons and the Extended-Mind Thesis by Lynne Rudder Baker

Minds, Intrinsic Properties, and Madhyamaka Buddhism by Teed Rockwell

Empathy and the Extended Mind by Joel W. Krueger

Quintuple Extension: Mind, Body, Humanism, Religion, Secularism by Leonard Angel

Constructing Religion without The Social: Durkheim, Latour, and Extended Cognition by Matthew Day

Stigmergy in Web 2.0

computational intelligence, computer science, distributed cognition, distributed knowledge, extended mind, externalism, stigmergic, stigmergic cognition, stigmergy

Here’s a recent paper.

Fiction and the brain

joshua landry, literature, philosophy and literature, plato

Here’s a recent article referring to Joshua Landy’s very interesting work. Check out his just released book How to Do Things with Fictions. This blurb alone is recommendation enough:

Witty and approachable, How to Do Things with Fictions challenges the widespread assumption that literary texts must be informative or morally improving in order to be of any real benefit. It reveals that authors are sometimes best thought of not as entertainers or as educators but as personal trainers of the brain, putting their willing readers through exercises designed to fortify specific mental capacities, from form-giving to equanimity, from reason to faith.