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Darwinism, causality and the social sciences

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Author Info
Geoffrey M. Hodgson

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Abstract

Recently the degree to which 'evolutionary economics' does or should involve Darwinian principles has come under debate. This essay builds on previous arguments that Darwinism has a potentially wide application to socioeconomic evolution, which does not involve biological reductionism. It is argued that at the core of Darwinism are presuppositions concerning causality and causal explanation. Contrary to widespread belief, these presuppositions do not downgrade or ignore human intentionality: they simply require that it too is in principle subject to causal explanation. Neither are these presuppositions 'deterministic' or 'mechanistic', at least by some prominent meanings of these terms. Furthermore, the presupposition of causal determination does not necessarily exclude or include stochastic or probabilistic determination.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Taylor and Francis Journals in its journal Journal of Economic Methodology.

Volume (Year): 11 (2004)
Issue (Month): 2 (June)
Pages: 175-194
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Handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:11:y:2004:i:2:p:175-194

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Related research
Keywords: Darwinism Ontology Causality Determinism Evolution Emergent Properties

Cited by:
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  1. Jack Vromen, 2008. "Ontological issues in evolutionary economics: The debate between Generalized Darwinism and the Continuity Hypothesis," Papers on Econonmics and Evolution 2008-05, Max Planck Institute of Economics, Evolutionary Economics Group. [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2008-8-24.


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