Synthesis of Evolutionary Ideas

• Published in: Entrepreneurship pp. 67 - 80
• Main Author: Grebel, Thomas
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 2004
• Subjects: Symmetry Breaking; Vice Versa; Entrepreneurial Behavior; Null System; Quantum Theory; Deterministic World; Ontological Foundation; HC2; Neoclassical Language; Economic Behavior; Mirror Of The World; Epistemological Instrument; Adjacency Matrix; Heisenberg; Excess Demand; Individual’s Mental Representation; Common Methodological Ground; Independent; Puzzling Questions; Photon’s Locality; Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle; Particle Wave Duality; Field Theory; Accomplishable Goal; Anomalies
• ISBN: 9780415341189; 0415341183
• DOI: 10.4324/9780203478745-16

What we learn from the history of economics, natural sciences and philosophy Summarizing the preceding elaborations, we detected parallels between philosophy, natural as well as social sciences (focusing on economics). All try to generate general propositions, or even better, stable and generally valid axioms about the subject matter under investigation. At the end of the 19th century, natural sciences seemed to be on the verge of a comprehensive description of a deterministic world.1 Social sciences and in particular economics have always been struggling to model analogously a deterministic world; in economics the outcome has become known as neoclassical economics. The scope of experimental economics is fairly narrow; at the most, very specific micro-level, i.e. rather psychological/sociological phenomena are “testable” in laboratory-like conditions. But they hardly ever deliver generally valid axioms as classical physics is suggesting. Social and in particular economic phenomena seem to be no constant ones. The 20th century, however, turned classical physics upside down and henceforth physics was burdened by Hume’s (philosophical) reservation, which social science has always been struggling with: ideas, generated by reflections on perceived impressions, are a mental construct of the observer and therefore partially an artefact. (Classical) physics, on the other hand, seemed to be able to make irrevocable statements, i.e. axioms that picture a stable, linear and non-dynamic world. Quantum theory put experimental phenomena into the perspective of the observer, so that experimental results apparently become biased.2 Modern physics challenges modern philosophy and at the same time parallels modern (evolutionary) economics, which was outlined in chapter 5. The need for heterodoxy is obvious, but to be different and specific all at once turns out to be difficult.