conceptions of bounded rationality Recently, behavioral studies of choice have examined the second guess, the way preferences are processed in choice behavior These studies suggest possible modifications in standard assumptions about tastes and their role in choice This paper examines some of those modifications, some possible approaches to working on them, and some complications 1 The engineering of choice and ordinary choice behavior * Recently I gave a lecture on elementary decision theory, an introduction to rational theories of choice After the lecture, a student asked whether it was conceivable that the practical procedures for decisionmaking implicit in theories of choice might make actual human decisions worse rather than better What is the empirical evidence, he asked, that human choice is improved by knowledge of decision theory or by application of the various engineering forms of rational choice? I answered, I think correctly, that the case for the usefulness of decision engineering rested primarily not on the kind of direct empirical confirmation that he sought, but on two other things: on a set of theorems proving the superiority of particular procedures in particular situations if the situations are correctly specified and the procedures correctly applied, and on the willingness of clients to purchase the services of experts with skills in decision sciences The answer may not have been reasonable, but the question clearly was It articulated a classical challenge to the practice of rational choice, the possibility that processes of rationality might combine with properties of human beings to

Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice

This article explicates, in a concrete, step-by-step manner, some procedures that can be followed in phenomenologically analyzing interview data. It also addresses a number of issues that are raised in relation to phenomenological research.

Some guidelines for the phenomenological analysis of interview data

Getting straight on ethics in qualitative research is not an internal matter only Putting ethics and politics together is the right move intellectually, but it engages a major agenda beyond adjustments in qualitative theory and methods The overall issue is the Enlightenment mind and its progeny Only when the Enlightenment’s epistemology is contradicted will there be conceptual space for a moral-political order in distinctively qualitative terms The Enlightenment’s dichotomy between freedom and morality fostered a tradition of value-free social science and, out of this tradition, a means-ends utilitarianism Qualitative research insists on starting over philosophically, without the Enlightenment dualism as its foundation The result is an ethical-political framework that is multicultural, gender inclusive, pluralistic, and international in scope

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Ethics and politics in qualitative research

“Animism” is projected in the literature as simple religion and a failed epistemology, to a large extent because it has hitherto been viewed from modernist perspectives. In this paper previous theories, from classical to recent, are critiqued. An ethnographic example of a hunter‐gatherer people is given to explore how animistic ideas operate within the context of social practices, with attention to local constructions of a relational personhood and to its relationship with ecological perceptions of the environment. A reformulation of their animism as a relational epistemology is offered.

/pdf/animism-revisited-personhood-environment-and-relational-38ek4yaurf.pdf

“Animism” Revisited: Personhood, Environment, and Relational Epistemology

This paper presents a model for community leadership capacity building. This model for individual and organizational development is being used with the Resource and Development Foundation (RDF) in Stellenbosch, South Africa. RDF is a non-governmental organization with the aim of providing resource-based training and capacity-building services to the socially excluded and disadvantaged youth, women and rural people of the Western Cape. Here we examine the process of capacity building, theoretically and practically, with the intention of discovering lessons to inform management education in relation to leadership and change. The paper explores the issues related to developing empowerment: the capacity of a system to engage in enterprising dialogue where power is unequally distributed. It proposes a community leadership development framework that comprises three components: leading change through dialogue, collective empowerment and connective leadership.

/pdf/community-leadership-development-1y08ibmzrc.pdf

Community leadership development

The knowledge of man

Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue.

Preface Part One - Introduction I. The Narrow Ridge II. The Problem of Evil III. Hasidism Part Two - Buber's Early Thought IV. Mysticism V. Philosophy of Judaism VI. Philosophy of Realisation VII. Dialectic of Religion and Culture VIII. Community and Religious Socialism IX. Threshold of Dialogue Part Three - Dialogue X. All Real Living is Meeting XI. The World of It XII. The Eternal Thou XIII. What is Man? XIV. The Life of Dialogue Part Four - The Nature and Redemption of Evil XV. The Nature of Evil XVI. The Eclipse of God XVII. The Redemption of Evil XVIII. For the Sake of Heaven Part Five - Between Man and Man XIX. Buber's Theory of Knowledge XX. Education XXI. Psychotherapy XXII. Ethics XXIII. Social Philosophy Part Six - Between Man and God XXIV. Symbol, Myth, and History XXV. The Faith of the Bible XXVI. Buber and Judaism XXVII. Buber and Christianity Conclusion Bibliography Index

Maurice Friedman

Papers

The knowledge of man

Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue.

Martin Buber: The Life of Dialogue

The knowledge of man : a philosophy of the interhuman

The Knowledge of Man: Selected Essays