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The explanatory logic and ontological commitments of generalized Darwinism

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  • J. W. Stoelhorst

Abstract

The recent debate about the value of Darwinism as a source of ontological foundations for evolutionary economics reduces to a disagreement about whether or not the causal logic of Darwinism applies to economic evolution. However, this logic has not yet been fully specified. While the explanantia of Darwinism have been elaborately discussed, the explananda of Darwinism have not been given detailed consideration. It is shown how the specification of its explananda helps generalize Darwinism in a way that avoids biological analogies such as inheritance and replication mechanisms. It is furthermore shown that an explicit consideration of its explananda leads to a generalized Darwinism that acknowledges both the ontological continuity and ontological similarity of all evolutionary processes and that needs to be complemented with multi-level selection logic. The ontological commitments of such a generalized Darwinism are consistent with those that have been proposed in the wider search for ontological foundations in evolutionary economics.

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  • J. W. Stoelhorst, 2008. "The explanatory logic and ontological commitments of generalized Darwinism," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 343-363.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:15:y:2008:i:4:p:343-363
    DOI: 10.1080/13501780802506661
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    1. Ulrich Witt, 2003. "The Evolving Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2477.
    2. Elster,Jon, 1983. "Explaining Technical Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521270724.
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    Cited by:

    1. Rahmeyer Fritz, 2013. "Schumpeter, Marshall, and Neo-Schumpeterian Evolutionary Economics: A Critical Stocktaking," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 233(1), pages 39-64, February.
    2. Abatecola, Gianpaolo, 2014. "Research in organizational evolution. What comes next?," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 434-443.
    3. Zimmerman, Frederick J., 2013. "Habit, custom, and power: A multi-level theory of population health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 47-56.
    4. Georgy Levit & Uwe Hossfeld & Ulrich Witt, 2011. "Can Darwinism be “Generalized” and of what use would this be?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 545-562, October.
    5. Spagano, Salvatore, 2021. "Generalized Darwinism: An Auxiliary Hypothesis," MPRA Paper 108829, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Sylvie Geisendorf, 2009. "The economic concept of evolution: self-organization or Universal Darwinism?," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 377-391.
    7. Jack Vromen, 2011. "Heterogeneous Economic Evolution: A Different View on Darwinizing Evolutionary Economics," Chapters, in: John B. Davis & D. Wade Hands (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Recent Economic Methodology, chapter 15, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Gianpaolo Abatecola & Matteo Cristofaro & Federico Giannetti & Johan Kask, 2022. "How can biases affect entrepreneurial decision making? toward a behavioral approach to unicorns," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 693-711, June.
    9. Sylvie Geisendorf, 2011. "Internal selection and market selection in economic Genetic Algorithms," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 21(5), pages 817-841, December.
    10. Christian Schubert, 2009. "Darwinism in Economics and the Evolutionary Theory of Policy-Making," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2009-10, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    11. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2013. "Organizational adaptation and evolution: Darwinism versus Lamarckism?," Chapters, in: Anna Grandori (ed.), Handbook of Economic Organization, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. A. Madureira & F. Hartog & N. Baken, 2016. "A holonic framework to understand and apply information processes in evolutionary economics: survey and proposal," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 157-190, September.
    13. Stoelhorst, J.W. & Richerson, Peter J., 2013. "A naturalistic theory of economic organization," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(S), pages 45-56.
    14. Coccia, Mario, 2019. "The theory of technological parasitism for the measurement of the evolution of technology and technological forecasting," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 289-304.
    15. Rodrick Wallace, 2013. "A new formal approach to evolutionary processes in socioeconomic systems," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 1-15, January.
    16. Ojala, Arto, 2015. "Geographic, cultural, and psychic distance to foreign markets in the context of small and new ventures," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 825-835.
    17. Mario Coccia, 2019. "Technological Parasitism," Papers 1901.09073, arXiv.org.
    18. Essletzbichler Jürgen, 2012. "Generalized Darwinism, group selection and evolutionary economic geography," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 56(1-2), pages 129-146, October.
    19. Denise Dollimore & Geoffrey Hodgson, 2014. "Four essays on economic evolution: an introduction," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 1-10, January.
    20. Su, Tong-Yaa, 2016. "Competition between Firms in Economic Evolution: Its Characteristics and Differences to the Biological Sphere," MPRA Paper 72756, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Geoffrey M. Hodgson & Juha-Antti Lamberg, 2018. "The past and future of evolutionary economics: some reflections based on new bibliometric evidence," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 167-187, June.
    22. Imko Meyenburg, 2022. "A possibilist justification of the ontology of counterfactuals and forecasted states of economies in economic modelling," Working Papers hal-03751205, HAL.
    23. Geoffrey Hodgson & Kainan Huang, 2012. "Evolutionary game theory and evolutionary economics: are they different species?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 345-366, April.

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