Iv российский философский конгресс
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Людмила Маркова (Россия). Комментарий к докладу А. Блинова
Ludmila Markova (Russia). Comments to A. Blinov's paper «Knowledge and Social Suboptimality»
In A. Blinov's report there are two moments, interaction of which, in my opinion, in many respects determines the course of a reasoning of the lecturer. The organization by a society of cognitive labour bases on certain assumptions which, on the one hand, by their internal nature should be normative, and on the other hand - the opportunity to base on them depends on many features of the context of their application.
Yes, assumptions should be normative, the lecturer asserts at the beginning of his paper. It looks like this circumstance does not cause doubts in him. But, at the same time, during the report the moments obviously demanding an additional substantiation of such thesis are fixed. It is spoken, for instance, not about a society in general, but about the given society, about a society in question, about various social settings. Reproducing Collingwood’s position on absolute preconditions, the lecturer, nevertheless, cites also his words that when it is spoken about fundamental features of a science the question is of a specific epoch or culture, and not of a science in general. As to his own Monotonicity Assumption A. Blinov speaks that he cannot assign to it the status of absolute presupposition. The reason is that the Monotonicity Assumption scope is not ageneral enough and it is only valid within a limited area of application.
But you see that each limited space can be separated from others just because it differs from them, has specific features. It means that preconditions are unique as well. Every space has its own assumptions, and in a given field they define the behavior of all people, who should submit to them, if they want to be successful in their activity. There are, for example, game rules in a chess which knowledge is the obligatory precondition of a game. Everyone who plays should obey to them if he wants to win. Rules do not take into account any differences of players from each other, their specific features; only such their common property as to be a player in a chess is considered. Within the framework of chess space these rules are normative, they are obligatory for all. But they differ from game rules in volleyball or rules of a decision of a geometrical theorem. The same is in the example which is used by A. Blinov: preconditions of behavior of prisoners are normative for any two criminals who find themselves in such situation. Preconditions, being a common knowledge for both criminals, assume some variants of behavior, and each of them with inevitability brings to a certain result. The situation is complicated by the appearance of the "kind" jailer owning the additional information and ready to share it with prisoners. On what is going on with such characteristic of assumptions as their being normative in this case, we shall speak below.
At the same time it is important to note, that these situations can be interpreted quite differently. Stability, steadiness, firmness are present in each separate case, on each limited space. At absence of such stability it would be impossible to keep uniqueness of each separate case (space, phenomenon, individuality, thing), uniqueness would be dissolved in an environmental context, would disappear as such. S. Fuler's statement, that the organization of a cognitive activity is defined by utility of received knowledge for a society too is possible to consider as normative, obligatory for each concrete case. In A. Blinov's report more attention, as it seems to me, is addressed to limitation of space in which normative preconditions operate, and this is in conformity with the general climate of those changes in type of thinking which occurred in the last century. Procedure of generalization gives up the place to studying of small events from the point of view of their peculiarity and difference (instead of similarities) from other events. Interesting is not in what they are similar, what common normative preconditions they have, but what distinguishes them from each other. Normative preconditions are considered as well first of all as belonging to some unique social or cultural phenomenon, as incorporating in them its peculiarities, as bearing on themselves a seal of their own formation. Therefore such feature as to be normative (in the realm of morality, law, social structures, religion, mode of life) in sense to be obligatory for a big circle of social formations and for a large quantity of casual phenomena gives up the place as an object of research to studying of the bases of individual events, their self-determination. At such approach the word "normative" corresponds rather bad to the character of research. More often such concepts are used as "initial conditions", strong and weak dependence on them, instability conditions and so on.
In the report the case in prison is considered: two persons on suspicion of having jointly committed a crime are put into separate cells, and then the conditions get complicated by introduction into the game of a "kind" jailer. It is possible to consider the case from the point of view of the available normative preconditions, known to each of actors, and not taking into account their specific features. If prisoners will operate so and only so, their activity will be followed with inevitability by a quite definite result. But it is possible to look at the state of affairs differently. In the report the opportunity of an insufficient intellectual level of characters that will not allow them to organize correctly the behavior on the basis of known preconditions is mentioned. Other variants are possible as well. For example, Peter can be Ann’s son, then she, probably, would want not so much to make herself free, but much more to release her son. It is possible to think of many other variants, and each of them will demand its own rational attitude to preconditions. The element of "generalization" of many cases on the basis of the common preconditions recedes on a background, and in the foreground we see individuality, peculiarity of each case.
Thus, in discussion of normative assumptions there are two poles. On one hand, we have generalization, disregard of individuality, and obeying the obligatory rules (created on the basis of assumptions). Each of the participants being, for example, a prisoner or a chess-player, has thereby a common property. On the other hand - inevitability of intrusion into functioning rules of the elements which are not the result of generalization. They belong only to one of the "players" and form his individuality, distinguish him from the others (Anna is a mother, Peter is not enough clever to be guided by rules known to him, a chess-player is sick, he has influenza and makes mistakes, etc.). As a result, it can happen that the preconditions cease to work, they can be transformed, and their stability is broken. It occurs during assumptions functioning. But as I mentioned above, during their formation as the basis of some limited, detached space (historical, cultural, social, scientific) they too get the individual features borrowed from the given object of their determination. Assumptions are their own of a science of each historical epoch, within the framework of each case – event on manufacturing a new knowledge, in general of each event, thing, space if they are considered from the point of view of the individuality, instead of from the point of view of presence in them the common with other possible subjects of consideration features.
While a discussion in social epistemology on the optimal organization of a cognitive process is going on there can be clashs, A. Blinov says, between epistemic values and the general social utility. In other words, he concludes, sometimes it may be disadvantageous for a society to optimize its knowledge production processes. The idea of a clash between different goals in the behavior of an individual (or groups of people) is one of the main in the report. The person can pursue different goals simultaneously. In this case it is possible to speak about cumulative rationality of behavior of an individual, says A. Blinov. As to me, I think that at every moment some definite goal dominates. It may be social goal (for instance, to get read of a competitor) and the process of pursuing it can be quite rational. All cognitive processes, all cognitive possibilities of an individual (or a group of individuals) are in this situation subordinated to social goal. The case under study (prisoners and a jailor, for instance) must be considered as a whole. It is difficult to imagine Ann or Peter turning over in their minds epistemological problems (even if they are clever enough to do that). If they decide that a new information will not be of benefit to them, we cannot speak about a clash between two types of rationality. Simply the increase of information is useless, it is ignored as many other things (the color of the walls in cellar, the possible behavior of relatives outside of prison and so on).
In study of science and scientific rationality in the last century and the beginning of the present there are similar problems. The science is considered in the context of social and cultural formations, which are flexible and from the peculiarity of which character and individual features of a science during different historical epochs depend. While studies of science in postpositivistic period by historians, philosophers, sociologists extended the sphere of influence, the framework of a designated social, cultural context was narrowed. Thus “case studies” received a wide circulation; in investigations of this kind separate cases – events – are oriented to the achievement of such purpose as manufacture of new knowledge. A separate case is examined as a whole event, all parts which constitute it (both social characteristics, psychological, rational and many others) submitting to one goal - to receive new scientific knowledge. Claims of the authors of sociological studies are that they fix a new type of rationality which is distinct from the classical one (characteristic for the science of New time). The logic of scientific knowledge is not free any more from social context; it is formed by this context and somehow incorporates characteristics of a subject. This position causes many objections and quite fair reproaches that the scientific knowledge loses such properties as objectivity and truthfulness. . By virtue of uniqueness of each situation new scientific knowledge each time as though is born anew: it is not deduced from previous knowledge, from any already existing preconditions and axioms, and it is generated by an especial context not reproducible under another circumstances. Whether it is possible to speak in this case about rationality of new type or the knowledge at such approach becomes irrational, its bases casual, arbitrary?
The lecturer faces the same problems, as it seems to me. I am not sure, that expansion of the Prisoners’ Dilemma to the frameworks of model the Kind Jailer is simply natural development by the first as initial on one step further. As far as I have understood from the report, the Prisoners’ Dilemma does not assume in its basis any irrational moments, preconditions are normative, the same for any two prisoners: it is unimportant, what are their names, how old they are, in what town the prison is, what is a concrete crime they committed etc. It is important only, that on suspicion of having jointly committed a crime two persons have been detained and put into separate cells so that they are unable to communicate and that there is some common knowledge for both – different kinds of behavior are followed by quite definite results. For chess-players rules operate in the same way: it is indifferent, who plays, in what city, if the players are acquainted with each other - rules to which they should submit as some initial assumptions remain constant. Our lecturer introduces a number of irrational moments in initial preconditions of the Prisoners’ Dilemma on which the received result depend. Ideological motives of actions, such as myths, taboos, prejudices and other are mentioned. If actions of a player depend not only on the declared assumptions, but also on some non-rational moments, which are not assumed by normative preconditions and rules, the result of actions will be different in each concrete case. A. Blinov offers as a way out of a situation a compensatory collective epistemic irrationality when a certain correct kind of irrationality inherent in behavior of every, or nearly every player can be a medicine. But even if we agree with this thesis it is necessary to recognize, that the collective agreement each time will be another as it will be concluded between other persons, in other conditions. Each case will differ from another by its individuality, by its bases. It will be a whole event, alongside with other whole events. Hardly can we speak about its assumptions as normative ones. The paper gives an opportunity to contemplate about these problems, it puts them in the foreground, and that is in itself very important.
Владимир Колпаков (Россия). О современном кризисе экономической теории и путях его преодоления
Современную ситуацию в экономическом знании можно обозначить как кризисную, имея в виду что период «нормального» (по Т. Куну) его развития, длившийся почти пятьдесят лет от момента появления классических работ Дж. Кейнса, до середины восьмидесятых годов прошлого века закончился. На протяжении этого нормального периода, доминировала неоклассическая экономическая теория, получившая название «мейнстрим». В этом временном интервале экономисты были в основном заняты уточнением старых моделей и подходов, а не разработкой новых идей.
Ситуация стала меняться в 80х годах, причем озабоченность состоянием дел в экономической теории шла прежде всего от самих экономистов. Известный экономист Василий Леонтьев, а он был в то время главой Ассоциации американских экономистов, пожалуй, был первым, кто выступил с осуждением «формалистического уклона». Он показал, что более половины статей в ведущем журнале «American Economical Review» за последние десять лет вообще не содержали никаких эмпирических данных, а в некоторых даже не присутствовали эмпирические термины. Позднее Морган (T. Morgan), в 1988 и Освальд (A. Oswald), в 1991 на основе аналогичного анализа содержания других журналов по экономике, пришли к выводу о том, что экономика стала разновидностью математической философии» или своеобразной «социальной математикой». Отсюда был сделан следующий вывод: экономическая теория стала «умозрительной», она во многом утратила связь с реальной экономической жизнью людей. Это была одна из основных трудностей, с которой столкнулся «мейнстрим».
Другая трудность состояла в «утрате экономической теорией прогностической функции». Дело в том, что неоклассическая теория служила для стран старой демократии также и своеобразным «неолиберальным» символом веры. Когда процессы глобализации вовлекли в рыночную стихию страны Азии, а позднее и посткоммунистические страны, то экономическая теория оказалась не готова к этому новому вызову со стороны изменившейся социальной реальности. Когда рыночную экономику стали строить у себя «новые» страны с различными культурными традициями и политическими устройствами, то в этих новых для теории условиях западные экономисты не смогли предсказать многих последствий. Так Азиатский кризис 1996 года оказался для теоретиков полной неожиданностью.
Обозначенные выше трудности и целый ряд других обстоятельств позволили некоторым экономистам утверждать, что период «нормальной» науки закончился, и экономическая теория вступила в полосу кризиса, в период поиска новой экономической парадигмы или же целой матрицы таких парадигм. Видимо, уместно подчеркнуть, что понятия «нормальная наука» и «кризис» используются в основном как метафоры. На самом же деле аналогия между кризисом и физике и современным кризисом в экономике принципиальная. То, что я выше называю словом «кризис», на самом деле есть переосмысление экономической теории как теории, которая теперь все больше понимается социальной и гуманитарной дисциплиной, ориентированной на другие типы социально-гуманитарного знания - историю, психологию, литературоведение.
Преодоление означенного кризиса возможно на путях междисциплинарного взаимодействия, которое активно переосмысляется в современной философии науки. Междисциплинарность рассматривается не как процедура синтеза, а скорее как метод проблематизации познавательной ситуации, погружение ее в самые разнообразные контексты. Философ при этом выступает в роли медиатора, он организует само пространство дискурса, вовлекая в него не только научные, но и вненаучные ресурсы. Центр его интересов перемещается от анализа и фиксации изменений к анализу условий, при которых возникновение нового знания становится возможным.
Vladimir Kolpakov (Russia). On the Modern Economic Theory Crisis and Ways of Its Overcoming
Many economists agree that the modern period of economic knowledge development is in crisis keeping in mind the end of the “normal” (according to Th. Kuhn) 50-year period that continued from the end of 1930s till the middle of 1980s. The “normal” neoclassic economic theory that is also known as “mainstream” dominated through this normal period. “Mainstream” theories in contrast to other social sciences widely use mathematic formalism due to which one can obtain high level of model abstraction. During this time domain economists were mostly introducing clarity in old models, especially in the model of “homo economicus” instead of developing new ideas.
Things started to change in the mid 1980s when the anxiety about the current situation in the economic theory was typical for economists themselves. A famous economist Vasily Leontiev who used to be the head of the American Economic Association at those times was among the first to criticise the “formalistic deviation”. He proved that more than a half of the articles in the major journal “American Economic Review” during the last decade weren’t based on empirical data analysis, and some even didn’t have empirical terms. Afterward, T. Morgan in 1988 and A. Oswald in 1991 basing on the analogous analysis of other economic journals arrived at a conclusion that economics became “a sort of mathematical philosophy” or a sort of “social mathematics”82. This was the basis for drawing a conclusion that economic theory became “speculative” and in many ways had lost connection with the real economic life of people.
Thus the idea of universality and the abstractness of economic theories which are independent of their social and cultural usage contexts faced various challenges in the spheres of theory development and practical application for “new” economies choosing market development model.
Economic theory started to lose its prognostic function, as for countries of old democracy the neoclassic theory used to be a sort of “neoliberal” symbol of faith. As a matter of fact, “neoliberalism” equals formalism in social and political sphere. The behaviour of the acting man that is independent of historical, social and cultural conditions is considered to be a peculiar feature of neoliberalism as well as “mainstream” theories based on “homo economicus” model. These special conditions had been simply ignored within the framework of models mentioned above. Economic theory turned out to be unready for the new social reality of post communist and new globalized market countries of the Asian region. The market processes in the countries with greatly varied cultural traditions and political situations had frequently unforeseeable characteristics for Western economists.
The practical consequences of their theoretical approaches turned out to be unpredictable in many ways. For example, the Asian crisis of 1996 as well as the consequences of the post communist economic reforms were completely unexpected by theorists.
The challenges mentioned above and a diversity of other conditions let some economists to claim the end of the “normal” science and the fact that the economic theory is currently at the crucial point of looking for a new economic paradigm or the whole matrix of them. It’s important to remember that doesn’t refer to economic theory as a whole but to abstract mathematized “mainstream” theories in particular.
However, it will be wrong to draw an analogy between a famous “crisis in physics” and a contemporary crisis of economic theory. Actually, the “crisis of economic theory” is the reconsideration of its status as a theory which is now more commonly interpreted as a social and humanitarian science which is not based on antinaturalistic (that is mathematized or neoliberal) programme, but on antinaturalistic approaches that are typical for such humanities as history, psychology and literary studies. It’s an open secret that Newton’s mechanics had influenced economics formation a great deal that led to diffusion of the naturalism principle to the ideas of society. For instance, already in the theory of D. Ricardo economics becomes a social mechanics, and the society becomes a mechanistic conglomeration of “egoistic individuals” that obey the natural law83. A great diversity of economic life of society gradually reduced to quasinatural reality of capitalism’s economy. All economic forms and ways of life that were excluded from the focus of the theory were often claimed or supposed to be extinct. It is this “normal” approach that is currently being substituted by antinaturalistic, or culture-centrist84, and also interdisciplinary approaches.
Interdisciplinarity as a trend in overcoming the difficulties
The change in economics’ perception could be among the ways of coping with crisis that is treating it as a science which deals with social systems as well as human behaviour. From this point we can pass on generalized, synthetic, realistic or more credible idea of a human being in society that could become the basis of the scientific theory. In methodology this is known as a problem of relation of interdisciplinary study and model of human being that is in the basis of economic theories. The “homo economicus” model is indeed an idealization of quite high level, but during the normal period of science it operated successfully as an instrument of building credible theories. At the same time, the efficiency of this model could be subject to criticism in the process of universal radical social and economic transformations that led to reconsideration of the science as a social institute in the end of XX century. This is the point where the idea of interdisciplinary synthesis as an instrument of creating a more realistic theory model could be applied. Some economists tend to consider axiomatics of post-crisis economic theory to be inevitably interdisciplinary. Kenneth Boulding is less optimistic when writing in the end of his review of interdisciplinary interaction of economics with other social sciences: “Yet it’s not that silly to hope for the appearance of a more unified social science based on more integrated world culture”85. It can be more unified in the sense that it will cope with contemporary disciplinary boundaries but will detect new divisions in problem areas that allow some interdisciplinary connections. We can undoubtedly assume such questioning but the concept of interdisciplinary approach needs thorough philosophical investigation. How one can interpret the idea of interdisciplinary synthesis? Several meanings could be extracted on this matter.
Among the most obvious is overcoming the narrowness of the existing “homo economicus” model by supplementing it with paraphernalia of other humanities such as psychology that can achieve greater truthfulness of the model. It is clear that this process can lead to loss of various “instrumental” advantages of the model. Other challenges that can arise are known according to principle of complementarity: the more realistic and substantial is the model, the more complicated is its using as a means of precise prediction.
Another form of the interdisciplinary synthesis could be a transfer of more realistic model of a human being from social sciences to economics. There are numerous examples of transfers of models from psychology (behaviourism), sociology (institutionalism), game theory etc. to economic theory.
For an illustration of such constructive interaction of psychology and economics we can refer to investigations of D. Kahneman and A. Tversky on the “prospect theory” for which they were awarded a Nobel Prize. Their work is based on the social psychology fact that optimal consumption is derived not from utility maximization but instead from special heuristics based on given “psychologics”86.
Another famous example of cooperation between economics and psychology is known as “hierarchical model of human needs” of A. Maslow that is used for specification of rational economic behaviour87.
The interdisciplinary synthesis interpretation that was mentioned above is based on the assertion that data domains of social sciences are still isolated and that this condition is normal. This statement is not true for natural sciences and even less fair for the humanities. Modern philosophy of science is focused not only on analysis of natural-science but also of social-humanitarian knowledge. Thus interdisciplinary synthesis assumes cooperation of natural, and social and humanitarian sciences when substantiating economic knowledge. Social sciences in contemporary philosophy are not interpreted by analogy with natural science, but as specific humanitarian knowledge. However, it’s important to understand that change in focus and presuppositions of the analysis lead to change in the science perception.
The export of models from more developed area of knowledge to less developed one was typical for a classical interdisciplinary synthesis and helped to enrich theoretically less developed sciences thanks to more developed ones. Initially economics was using the same procedure to level out to the theoretical level of the natural science that was the leader at that times and became a science that followed the paradigm of the natural science. Thus, cooperation of sciences is typical for a classical interdisciplinary synthesis, but enrichment in this case is one-sided. Newton’s mechanics hadn’t been enriched while “delivering” its models for other sciences.
If we put the matrix of humanitarian knowledge in the focus of epistemological analysis we can get an example of neoclassical interdisciplinary synthesis, as science interacts and changes at the same time. For instance, the output of ethics and economics symbiosis is the economic ethics88.
Natural sciences also have some examples of neoclassical interdisciplinary synthesis. For instance, the interaction of biology and physics led to fundamentally new area of scientific exploration that is known as biophysics.
Hence it is necessary to analyse different historically based types of interdisciplinary interactions though it is not clear how to detach these types and what their constructive role in cognitive processes is.
It is obvious that for a contemporary philosophy of science an assertion about a distinct disciplinary division of sciences is considered to be old-fashioned. The idea that “on the contrary, it is interdisciplinary (without strict boundaries between all the disciplines) interaction that is the natural state of the science, which boundaries are defined not so much by systems of knowledge as by institutional forms”89 gets its basis in the framework of neoclassical theory of perception. In this case in the context of philosophy of science interdisciplinary interaction is supposed to be not a simple borrowing but rather a problematization of certain situations of a real scientific research. Philosophy of science offers a scientist a chance to look at emerging challenges from more common point of view as if plunging specific cognitive problem into various scientific and sociocultural contexts. Thus a methodologist helps a scientist to accept the idea of diversity of resources and approaches when solving a problem. It is as if the former prepares the stage of methodological synthesis that is prior to building a new scientific research trend. In this sense interdisciplinarity is not only the synthesis procedure but also an invitation to a methodological communication. Synthesis in such a way is not implemented by a discipline but by a problem and does not mean a transition to a new unified science.
The role of a methodologist in modern scientific perception is changing fundamentally.
Above I have tried to draw attention to the fact that the concept of “interdisciplinary synthesis” is ambiguous and is currently developing by present-day philosophy of science. In this sense the interaction of scientists and philosophers is necessary and highly constructive.