The four sections of this article are reactions to a few interconnected problems that Mario Bunge addresses in his The Sociology-Philosophy Connection, which can be seen as a continuation and summary of his two recent major volumes Finding Philosophy in Social Science and Social Science under Debate: A Philosophical Perspective. Bunge’s contribution to the philosophy of the social sciences has been sufficiently acclaimed. The author discusses therefore only those solutions in Bunge’s book that seem most problematic, namely, Bunge’s proposal to (...) expel charlatans from universities; his treatment of social laws; his notions of mechanisms, “mechanismic explanation,” and systemism; and his reading of Popper’s social philosophy. (shrink)

This paper is about the rationality of methodological variance, where changes in method and methodology of science may be warranted/triggered by the urgency of finding alternatives to the methodology currently in fashion that fails to address the relevant and pressing problems. It deals obliquely with Maxwell‘s criticisms of Pandit, offering only a bare sketch of appraisal of his methodological proposals of AOE, AOR and WI, not only as going beyond SR but as better alternatives to dominant methodologies such as that (...) of Karl R. Popper, without rehearsing or recycling Maxwell‘s well-known arguments in great detail. More importantly, how these proposals improve upon the eighteenth century Enlightenment idea of learning from scientific progress how to achieve social/cultural progress towards an enlightened world, i.e., a world that is sensitive to problems of living and human well-being, is discussed. Having dealt with such problems in Pandit, the present appraisal is limited to the rationality of understanding, or better of rethinking, academic inquiry within the wider contexts and reaches of wisdom inquiry, with particular reference to the pressing global problems including those problems that are traceable to ETS progress, which is itself often found to violate the principle of interconnectedness across nature. (shrink)

* Este texto hizo parte de una conferencia que se ofreció en el X Congreso Nacional de Filosofía de Argentina, celebrado en Huerta Grande (Córdoba) entre el 24 y el 27 de noviembre de 1999. Una versión abreviada ha sido publicada en las pp. 74-76 de Actas de X Congreso Nacional de Filosofía. Asociación Filosófica Argentina AFRA y Escuela de Filosofía, Universidad Nacional..

For several decades, economists have been preoccupied with an attempt to place their entire subject on the ‘sound microfoundations’ of general equilibrium theory, with its individualistic premises. However, this project has run into seemingly intractable problems. This essay examines underlying questions such as the appropriate building block of analysis and the structure of explanation in economics. The examination of biology is found to be instructive, due to debates concerning the limitations of reductionism within that discipline. The final part of the (...) paper argues for the autonomy of a non‐reductionist macroeconomics, based on the institution as the unit of analysis. (shrink)

The research on which the present paper makes a point in aimed at designing a cognitive model of Albert Einstein's discovery that is based on fundamental Einstein's publications and placed, ideally, at a meso-level, between macro-historical and micro-cognitive reconstructions (e.g. protocol analysis). As in a cognitive-historical analysis, we will trace some discovery heuristics in the construction of representations, that are on a continuum with those we employ in ordinary problem solving. Firstly, some theory-specific, reflexive heuristics—named orientative heuristics—are traced: inner perfection, (...) explain-or-assume, explanatory correspondence, and covariance/invariance. Then, other well-known abstractive heuristics as analogical and imagistic reasoning, thought experiment, limiting case analysis (e.g. Nersessian 1992) are shown occurring in Einstein's key-publications. A sketch of a socio-cognitive model for his discovery is then presented following two suggestions: (a) an idea of Van Fraassen about discovery phases, and (b) the Humean distinction between beliefs and ideas. (shrink)

Paper type: Conceptual perspective. Background(s): Physics, biology, epistemology Perspectives: Theory of autopoietic systems, Popperian evolutionary epistemology and the biology of cognition. Context: This paper is a contribution to developing the theories of hierarchically complex living systems and the natures of knowledge in such systems. Problem: Dissonance between the literatures of knowledge management and organization theory and my observations of the living organization led to consideration of foundation questions: What does it mean to be alive? What is knowledge? How are life (...) and knowledge related? Method: The approach is synthetic and multidisciplinary. The concept of autopoiesis (as defined by Maturana) as a definition for life, and knowledge as a product of autopoiesis are developed from first principles regarding the behavior of dynamical systems in time. Results: Autopoiesis and the construction of knowledge are inseparable aspects of physical phenomena scalable to many levels of organization (e.g., cells, multicellular organisms, organizations, social systems, etc.). The result unifies theories of epistemology, physical dynamics, life, biological evolution, knowledge and social systems. Implications: Results highlight the importance to understand autopoiesis as first defined by Maturana and Varela – as a complex physical phenomenon persisting over time. Autopoietic “self-observation” is not paradoxical. As dynamic physical processes, any internal/external activities relating to “observations” are displaced in time. The worlds living systems act on are not those observed. “Circularly closed” systems are actually open spirals along the axis of time. (shrink)