45 found
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  1. A Conversation with Daniel Kahneman.Catherine Sophia Herfeld - forthcoming - In Catherine Herfeld (ed.), Conversations on Rational Choice. Cambridge University Press.
  2. The Diversity of Rational Choice Theory: A Review Note.Catherine Https://Orcidorg Herfeld - 2020 - Topoi 39 (2):329-347.
    In this paper, I review the literature on rational choice theory to scrutinize a number of criticisms that philosophers have voiced against its usefulness in economics. The paper has three goals: first, I argue that the debates about RCT have been characterized by disunity and confusion about the object under scrutiny, which calls into question the effectiveness of those criticisms. Second, I argue that RCT is not a single and unified choice theory—let alone an empirical theory of human behavior—as some (...)
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  3. The diffusion of scientific innovations: A role typology.Catherine Herfeld & Malte Doehne - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 77:64-80.
    How do scientific innovations spread within and across scientific communities? In this paper, we propose a general account of the diffusion of scientific innovations. This account acknowledges that novel ideas must be elaborated on and conceptually translated before they can be adopted and applied to field-specific problems. We motivate our account by examining an exemplary case of knowledge diffusion, namely, the early spread of theories of rational decision-making. These theories were grounded in a set of novel mathematical tools and concepts (...)
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  4.  54
    Knowledge transfer and its contexts.Catherine Herfeld & Chiara Lisciandra - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 77:1-10.
    Knowledge transfer across different contexts has become an increasingly prevalent feature of current science. As such, it is a relevant topic also for history and philosophy of science. This special issue presents a set of papers that study knowledge transfer in various disciplines. The contributions approach the topic from either an integrated history and philosophy of science perspective, 2) a systematic philosophical perspective, or 3) a historical perspective. This overview article is organized in three sections. The introduction provides some background (...)
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  5.  37
    Rational choice explanations in political science.Catherine Herfeld & Johannes Marx - 2022 - In Harold Kincaid & Jeroen Van Bouwel (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Political Science. New York: Oxford University Press.
    In this chapter, it is described and assessed how political scientists use rational choice theories to offer causal explanations. We observe that the ways in which rational choice theories are considered to be successful in political science differs, depending on the explanandum in question. Political scientists use empirical variants of rational choice theories to explain the political behavior of individual agents and analytical variants to explain the behavior of collective actors. Both variants are used for distinct explananda, which ask for (...)
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  6. Model Transfer in Science.Catherine Herfeld - 2024 - In Tarja Knuuttila, Natalia Carrillo & Rami Koskinen (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Scientific Modeling. New York, NY: Routledge.
    A conspicuous feature of contemporary modelling practices is the use of the same mathematical forms and modelling methods across different scientific domains. This model transfer raises many philosophical questions concerning, for example, the exact object of transfer, the relationship between the model and the target domain, the specific challenges such transfer confronts, and the ways in which model transfer relates to scientific progress. While the interest in studying model transfer has increased among philosophers of science in recent years, the phenomenon (...)
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  7. Imagination Rather Than Observation in Econometrics: Ragnar Frisch’s Hypothetical Experiments as Thought Experiments.Catherine Https://Orcidorg Herfeld - 2019 - Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 9 (1):35-74.
    In economics, thought experiments are frequently justified by the difficulty of conducting controlled experiments. They serve several functions, such as establishing causal facts, isolating tendencies, and allowing inferences from models to reality. In this paper, I argue that thought experiments served a further function in economics: facilitating the quantitative definition and measurement of the theoretical concept of utility, thereby bridging the gap between theory and statistical data. I support my argument by a case study, the “hypothetical experiments” of the Norwegian (...)
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  8.  75
    Introduction to the topical Collection: Concept formation in the natural and social sciences: empirical and normative aspects.Kevin Reuter, Catherine Herfeld & Georg Brun - 2023 - Synthese 201 (3):1-10.
    Concept formation has recently become a widely discussed topic in philosophy under the headings of “conceptual engineering”, “conceptual ethics”, and “ameliorative analysis”. Much of this work has been inspired either by the method of explication or by ameliorative projects. In the former case, concept formation is usually seen as a tool of the sciences, of formal disciplines, and of philosophy. In the latter case, concept formation is seen as a tool in the service of social progress. While recent philosophical discussions (...)
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  9.  62
    From theories of human behavior to rules of rational choice.Catherine Herfeld - 2018 - History of Political Economy 50 (1):1-48.
    This article traces a normative turn between the middle of the 1940s and the early 1950s reflected in the reformulation, interpretation, and use of rational choice theories at the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics. This turn is paralleled by a transition from Jacob Marschak’s to Tjalling Koopmans’s research program. While rational choice theories initially raised high hopes that they would serve as empirical accounts to inform testable hypotheses about economic regularities, they became increasingly modified and interpreted as normative approaches (...)
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  10.  26
    (1 other version)Progress in economics.Marcel Boumans & Catherine Herfeld - 2022 - In Yafeng Shan (ed.), New Philosophical Perspectives on Scientific Progress. New York: Routledge. pp. 224-244.
    In this chapter, we discuss a specific kind of progress in economics, namely, progress that is pushed by the repeated use of mathematical models in most sub-branches of economics today. We adopt a functional account of progress to argue that progress in economics occurs via the use of what we call ‘common recipes’ and the use of model templates to define and solve problems of relevance for economists. We support our argument by discussing the case of twentieth-century business cycle research. (...)
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  11.  44
    The many faces of rational choice theory.Catherine Herfeld - 2013 - Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 6 (2):117.
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  12.  57
    Thick Concepts in Economics: The Case of Becker and Murphy’s Theory of Rational Addiction.Catherine Herfeld & Charles Djordjevic - 2021 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 51 (4):371-399.
    In this paper, we examine the viability of avoiding value judgments encoded in thick concepts when these concepts are used in economic theories. We focus on what implications the use of such thick concepts might have for the tenability of the fact/value dichotomy in economics. Thick concepts have an evaluative and a descriptive component. Our suggestion is that despite attempts to rid thick concepts of their evaluative component, economists are often not successful. We focus on the strategy of explication to (...)
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  13.  21
    Why Do Women Philosophy Students Drop Out of Philosophy? Some Evidence from the Classroom at the Bachelor’s Level.Catherine Herfeld, Jan Müller & Kathrin von Allmen - 2021 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8.
    It is well known that there has been a steady and significant underrepresentation of women in philosophy on different professional levels. Numerous hypotheses explaining this underrepresentation have been suggested, but empirical analyses are not yet extensive. In particular, studies of the phenomenon in different countries are nonexistent. In this paper, we present findings from an exploratory study in which we analyze the interests, abilities, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and goals of bachelor’s students in a semester-long philosophy of science course at a (...)
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  14.  17
    (1 other version)Social network analysis: A complementary method of discovery for the history of economics.Francois Claveau & Catherine Herfeld - 2018 - In Till Düppe & E. Roy Weintraub (eds.), A Contemporary Historiography of Economics. Routledge. pp. 75-99.
    In this chapter, we discuss social network analysis as a method for the history of economics. We argue that social network analysis is not primarily a method of data representation but foremost a method of discovery and confirmation. It is as such a promising method that should be added to the toolbox of the historian of economics. We furthermore argue that, to be meaningfully applied in history, social network analysis must be complemented with historical knowledge gained by other means and (...)
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  15.  12
    Philosophie der Politikwissenschaft.Catherine Herfeld - 2017 - In Simon Lohse & Thomas Reydon (eds.), Grundriss Wissenschaftsphilosophie. Die Philosophien der Einzelwissenschaften. Hamburg: Meiner. pp. 615-650.
  16.  73
    The potentials and limitations of rational choice theory: an interview with Gary Becker.Catherine Herfeld - 2012 - Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 5 (1):73.
  17.  39
    Understanding the rationality principle in economics as a functional a priori principle.Catherine Https://Orcidorg Herfeld - 2020 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 14):3329-3358.
    Since the early days of economics, the rationality principle has been a core element of economic theorizing. It is part of almost any theoretical framework that economists use to generate knowledge. Despite its central role, the principle’s epistemic status and function continue to be debated between empiricists and rationalists, and a clear winner is yet to emerge. One point of contention is that we cannot explain the principle’s special status in light of clear evidence against its empirical validity and the (...)
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  18. In Favor of Mentalism in Economics: A Conversation with Christian List.Christian List & Catherine Herfeld - forthcoming - In Catherine Herfeld (ed.), Conversations on Rational Choice. Cambridge University Press.
    This is an edited transcript of a conversation to be included in the collection "Conversations on Rational Choice". The conversation was conducted in Munich on 7 and 9 February 2016.
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  19.  22
    Network Analysis in the History of Economics.François Claveau & Catherine Https://Orcidorg Herfeld - 2018 - History of Political Economy 50 (3):597–603.
    We present social network analysis as a complement to other methods in the history of economics. We first discuss why social network analysis is especially promising for the study of the history of recent economics. We then use an example of research using it to highlight some of its characteristics.
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  20. How Academic Opinion Leaders Shape Scientific Ideas: An Acknowledgment Analysis.Catherine Herfeld & Malte Doehne - forthcoming - Scientometrics.
    In this paper, we examine how a research institution’s social structure and academic opinion leaders’ presence shaped the early adoption of a scientific innovation. Our case considers the early engagement of mathematical economists at the Cowles Commission with John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. We argue that scholars with administrative leadership functions who were not only scientifically but also organizationally central – in our case the director of research Jacob Marschak – played a crucial (...)
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  21. The Role of Narratives in Transferring Rational Choice Models into Political Science.Alexandra Quack & Catherine Herfeld - forthcoming - History of Political Economy.
    One striking observation in the history of rational choice models is that those models have not only been used in economics but spread widely across the social and behavioral sciences. How do such model transfers proceed? By closely studying the early efforts to transfer such models by William Riker – a major protagonist in pushing the adoption of game theoretic models in political science – this article examines the transfer process as one of ‘translation’ by which abstract and mathematical rational (...)
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  22.  29
    The soul of economics: editorial.Catherine Herfeld, Chiara Lisciandra & Carlo Martini - 2023 - Journal of Economic Methodology 30 (2):71-79.
    The Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 has been one of the worst economic crises since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In addition to directly impacting the economy, it had substantial ramifications...
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  23.  53
    The world in axioms: an interview with Patrick Suppes.Catherine Herfeld - 2016 - Journal of Economic Methodology 23 (3):333-346.
  24.  68
    Revisiting the criticisms of rational choice theories.Catherine Https://Orcidorg Herfeld - 2021 - Philosophy Compass 17 (1):e12774.
    Theories of rational choice are arguably the most prominent approaches to human behaviour in the social and behavioral sciences. At the same time, they have faced persistent criticism. In this paper, I revisit some of the core criticisms that have for a long time been levelled against them and discuss to what extent those criticisms are still effective, not only in light of recent advancements in the literature but also of the fact that there are different variants of rational choice (...)
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  25.  47
    Introduction: first principles in science—their status and justification.Catherine Herfeld & Milena Ivanova - 2020 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 14):3297-3308.
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  26.  17
    Spielarten der Theorie rationalen Entscheidens.Catherine Herfeld - 2020 - In Andreas Tutić (ed.), Rational Choice. De Gruyter. pp. 59-86.
  27.  3
    Explaining patterns, not details: reevaluating rational choice models in light of their explananda.Catherine Herfeld - 2018 - .
    It has been argued persistently that economic models frequently suffer from poor empirical performance because they rely upon empirically inadequate behavioral foundations, i.e. theories of rational choice. In this paper, I argue that much of this criticism misses the point: it assumes that economics is about explaining human behavior when in fact, since Adam Smith, economists have been more interested in explaining patterns that emerge from social interaction. While some minimal account of human behavior is needed for explaining such phenomena, (...)
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  28.  7
    New Scope, New Sources, New Methods? An Essay on Contemporary Scholarship in History of Economic Thought Journals, 2016-2017.Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche, Catherine Https://Orcidorg Herfeld & Erich Pinzón-Fuchs - 2019 - History of Economic Ideas 27 (2).
    This survey gives an overview of a set of selected articles published between 2016 and 2017 in the major journals that cover the history of economic thought. In surveying the literature, we focus on three major aspects – the scope, the sources, and the methods – with reference to which we discuss the novelties that we find in the recent literature on the history of economic thought.
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  29. Claveau, François; Herfeld, Catherine (2018). Social network analysis: A complementary method of discovery for the history of economics. In: Weintraub, E Roy; Düppe, Till. A contemporary historiography of economics. London: Routledge, n/a.François Claveau, Catherine Herfeld, E. Roy Weintraub & Till Düppe (eds.) - 2018
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  30. Conversations on Rational Choice.Catherine Herfeld (ed.) - forthcoming - Cambridge University Press.
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  31.  2
    Five reasons for the use of network analysis in the history of economics.Catherine Https://Orcidorg Herfeld & Malte Https://Orcidorg Doehne - 2018 - .
    Network analysis is increasingly appreciated as a methodology in the social sciences. In recent years, it is also receiving attention among historians of science. History of economics is no exception in that researchers have begun to use network analysis to study a variety of topics, including collaborations and interactions in scientific communities, the spread of economic theories within and across fields, or the formation of new specialties in the discipline of economics. Against this backdrop, a debate is emerging about how (...)
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  32.  22
    How good are economic explanations of cooperation? The role of motivation and normativity for explaining norm-conformity.Catherine Herfeld - unknown
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  33.  59
    Rational choice as a toolbox for the economist: an interview with Itzhak Gilboa.Catherine Herfeld - 2014 - Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 7 (2):116-141.
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  34.  28
    Role of normativity for the explanation of Norm-Conformity.Catherine Herfeld - unknown
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  35.  53
    The importance of commitment for morality: How Harry Frankfurt’s concept of care contributes to Rational Choice Theory.Catherine Herfeld & Katrien Schaubroeck - 2013 - In . pp. 51-72.
    Using Rational Choice Theory to account for moral agency has always had some uncomfortable aspect to it. Economists’ attempts to include the moral dimension of behaviour either as a preference for moral behaviour or as an external constraint on self-interested choice, have been criticized for relying on tautologies or lacking a realistic picture of motivation. Homo Oeconomicus, even when conceptually enriched by all kinds of motivations, is ultimately still characterized as caring only for what lies in his interest. Amartya Sen (...)
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  36.  68
    The Motive of Commitment and Its Implications for Rational Choice Theory.Catherine S. Herfeld - 2009 - Analyse & Kritik 31 (2):291-317.
    This paper addresses the explanatory role of the concept of a motive for action in economics. The aim of the paper is to show the difficulty economists have to accommodate the motive of commitment into their explanatory and predictive framework, i.e. rational choice theory. One difficulty is that the economists’ explanation becomes analytic when assuming preferences of commitment. Another difficulty is that it is highly doubtful whether commitment can be represented by current frameworks while (pre-)serving the ‘folk-psychological’ idea of what (...)
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  37.  85
    Book Review: Epstein Brian The Ant Trap : Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 298 pp. $36.04. ISBN 978-0-19-938110-4. [REVIEW]Francesco Di Iorio & Catherine Herfeld - 2017 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 48 (1):105-128.
  38. Book Review: Zahle, Julie, Collin, FinnRethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate, Berlin: Springer, 2014. 255 pp. $129 . ISBN: 978-3-319-05342-1. [REVIEW]Catherine Herfeld - 2018 - Philosophy of the Social Sciences 48 (2):247-261.
    Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate edited by Julie Zahle and Finn Collin is reviewed. Each of the contributions contained in the volume is summarized. The review concludes by assessing the volume’s usefulness for bringing clarity into the debate in the light of the editors’ self-set goal of rethinking the individualism-holism debate as one of the more important yet confused debates in philosophy of the social sciences.
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  39.  20
    (1 other version)What We Learn and Do Not Learn from Ivan Moscati’s Historical Account of Utility Measurement. [REVIEW]Catherine Herfeld - 2019 - Economics and Philosophy 37 (1):144-150.
  40.  21
    Book Review: Defending the History of Economic Thought. By Steven Kates. Cheltenham, U.K. and Northampton, Mass.: Elgar, 2013. Pp. x, 140. $99.95. ISBN 978–1–84844–820–9. [REVIEW]Catherine Herfeld - 2014 - Journal of Economic Literature 52 (4):1160-1196.
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  41.  39
    Book Review: How Reason Almost Lost Its Mind. The Strange Career of Cold War Rationality, Paul Erickson, Judy Klein, Lorraine Daston, Rebecca Lemov, Thomas Sturm, Michael D. Gordin. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London (2013). 272 pp. [REVIEW]Catherine Herfeld - 2015 - Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 56:88-90.
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  42.  9
    Marcel Boumans's Science outside the Laboratory. [REVIEW]Catherine Herfeld - 2017 - BJPS Review of Books.
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  43.  43
    (2 other versions)Review: Marcel Boumans: Science outside the Laboratory. [REVIEW]Catherine Herfeld - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
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  44.  10
    Verbindlichkeit – Eine kritisch-realistische Bestimmung der Erkenntnis und des Wesens der Gesellschaft. [REVIEW]Catherine Herfeld - 2009 - ORDO 60 (1):554-558.
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  45.  11
    Wirtschaftstheorie und Wissen - Aufsätze zur Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftslehre von Friedrich August von Hayek. [REVIEW]Catherine Herfeld - 2008 - ORDO 59 (1):523-528.
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