Disciplined reasoning: Styles of reasoning and the mainstream-heterodoxy divide in Swedish economics

λ Δ -Models

Abstract: To study the operational behaviour of λ-terms, we will use the denotational (mathematical) approach. A denotational semantics for a language is based on the choice of a space of semantics values, or denotations, where terms are to be interpreted. Choosing a space with nice mathematical properties can help in proving the semantic properties of terms, since to this aim standard mathematical techniques can be used.

An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies

Abstract: Section (CRN) Meets in: Instructor: Office Ofc Hrs. STSH1110-01(60478) Carnegie 102 Jeanette Simmonds (simmoj@rpi.edu) Sage 5706 TBA STSS1110-01 (60138) Carnegie 205 Selma Sabanovic (sabans@rpi.edu) Sage 5703 Tue 4-5p IHSS1963-01 (62348) Sage 2701 Atsushi Akera (akeraa@rpi.edu) (see above) IHSS1963-02 (62349) DCC 236 Meredith Wells (wellsm@rpi.edu) TBA TBA IHSS1963-03 (62350) Sage 4203 Camar Diaz (diaztc@rpi.edu) Sage 5710 Tue./Fri. 4-5p IHSS1963-04 (62351) Carnegie 208 Lorna Ronald (ronall@rpi.edu) Sage 5706 TBA IHSS1963-05 (62352) Sage 2112 Jeffrey Hannigan (hannij@rpi.edu) Sage 5202 TBA *office hours also by appointment.

History of Economic Thought

Abstract: individuals. In a classical paradigm, the concept of class is more useful than individual agents in analyzing social phenomena. In this way, classical economy has roots in holism, and accommodates social categories like class. Usually the neoclassical economics is firmly grounded on a research program of methodological individualism, which generally posits that individuals with given preferences and endowments, and firms with given technologies, enter the market process as autonomous entities. Indeed, the adherence to the tradition of methodological individualism has an important bearing on the nature of the neoclassical model. For neoclassical economists, society is the collection of individuals. Individual wants, thoughts, and deeds combine to make society what it is. To understand an economy is then to make sense of the aggregate effects of individual wants and acts. Neoclassical theory does this by demonstrating how individuals maximize their material self-interests by utilizing their resources and the available technology in market transactions. What happens in an economy is always explained as the result of individuals acting in this way. The economy, as neoclassical economists theorize it, is the aggregate end product of individuals. Historical vs. Ahistorical In classical economics tradition, historical analysis is called for and mathematical models and statistical investigations are of limited usefulness. The classical economists have made consistent efforts to explain the rise of the capitalist mode of production in terms of historical analysis. They from the beginning have sensed that it was the essence of capitalist production to generate an accumulating surplus, and that the manner of this accumulation was crucially related to the character of the newly emerging social relations of capitalist society. The classical theory of value would be limited to the goods and services that were typical products of competitive capitalism. They regarded the explanation of this historical phenomenon as their primary task. Instead of the characteristic features of a given socioeconomic system, the starting point of neoclassical economics is the ahistorical individual and therefore the neoclassical theories are expressed in mathematical models which exclude the concept of history. For example, in neoclassical traditions, there are only factors of production, namely, labour, land and capital, each of which receives a reward commensurate with its productivity. There are no essential differences among them. This shows the lack of the notion of class which is unique to the stage of capitalist society. This methodological features arises from the fact that though the great themes of classical economy are dynamic and developmental, the great themes of neoclassical economy are static and allocational.

Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste

Abstract: Preface to the English-Language Edition Introduction Part 1: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste 1. The Aristocracy of Culture Part 2: The Economy of Practices 2. The Social Space and its Transformations 3. The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles 4. The Dynamics of Fields Part 3: Class Tastes and Life-Styles 5. The Sense of Distinction 6. Cultural Good Will 7. The Choice of the Necessary 8. Culture and Politics Conclusion: Classes and Classifications Postscript: Towards a 'Vulgar' Critique of 'Pure' Critiques Appendices Notes Credits Index

Capital; A Critique of Political Economy

Abstract: Unfinished at the time of Marx's death in 1883 and first published with a preface by Frederick Engels in 1894, the third volume of "Das Kapital" strove to combine the theories and concepts of the two previous volumes in order to prove conclusively that capitalism is inherently unworkable as a permanent system for society. Here, Marx asserts controversially that - regardless of the efforts of individual capitalists, public authorities or even generous philanthropists - any market economy is inevitably doomed to endure a series of worsening, explosive crises leading finally to complete collapse. But he also offers an inspirational and compelling prediction: that the end of capitalism will culminate, ultimately, in the birth of a far greater form of society.

Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay

Abstract: This paper outlines a new approach to the study of power, that of the sociology of translation. Starting from three principles, those of agnosticism (impartiality between actors engaged in controversy), generalised symmetry (the commitment to explain conflicting viewpoints in the same terms) and free association (the abandonment of all a priori distinctions between the natural and the social), the paper describes a scientific and economic controversy about the causes for the decline in the population of scallops in St. Brieuc Bay and the attempts by three marine biologists to develop a conservation strategy for that population. Four ‘moments’ of translation are discerned in the attempts by these researchers to impose themselves and their definition of the situation on others: (a) problematisation: the researchers sought to become indispensable to other actors in the drama by denning the nature and the problems of the latter and then suggesting that these would be resolved if the actors negotiated the ‘obl...