Thursday, January 1, 2015

Daniel Little — John Levi Martin on theory


Sociological theory.

Why is sociological theory important. I consider economics to be a subfield of sociology, as did Marx as a precursor of sociology. Some view him as a co-founder of the discipline that emerged from this type of work. Institutional economists, following Veblen rather than Marx, also take this tack.

There are three major categories of science based on the type of subject matter: natural or physical, biological or life, and social or human. Economics is clearly a social science that studies a subset of human action and the behavior and interaction of homo socialis. Homo economicus is an abstraction that is fictive (imaginary) and useful only for making assumptions to develop simple models that aren't generally representational. The actual subject is homo socialis, with all the complexity that reflexivitiy and emergence involve, complicated by epistemic and ontological uncertainty.

Additionally, to the degree that economics is normative, and this is to a great degree, it also involves social and political philosophy, and to the degree it is qualitative, it also involves qualitative disciplines like the humanities. Economics is also also a policy science so in involves political science as well as social and political philosophy. Since economics is a human science it involves psychology, cognitive science, and evolutionary science. And to the degree it is practical in involves government, business, finance and related institutions, especially law.

Conversely, axiomatic economics has developed into a specialized branch of mathematics largely divorced from reality. Continuing in this direction doesn't seem advisable to me. Economics needs an overhaul from the foundations on up.

Understanding Society
John Levi Martin on theory
Daniel Little | Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Professor of Philosophy at UM-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at UM-Ann Arbor

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