Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Biology & Political Science. Foundational Issues of Political Biology

Contents:

Author Info

  • Boari, Mircea

    () (Department of Political Science, University of Bucharest, Visiting ESSEC)

Abstract

In their classic formulations, valid to this day, the issue of self-preservation is foundational for both political science and economics. In order to fixate this concept, the Modern theorists relied upon various assumptions about human nature. Due to the advances of biology and evolutionary theory, we are today in the position of explicating these assumptions in the form of stable scientific certainties. A foundational concept in biological theory is that of "fitness". The paper indicates the relationship between the less determined concept of self-preservation and the more rigorous one of fitness. By that, it accomplishes two things: it gives more solidity to the foundation of political theory and political economy, by anchoring them in biology; it opens the path towards a unification between two social sciences and their immediate juxtaposed science, biology. The emphasis of the paper is on political science, aiming to define, on the basis of the above argument, its proper object of study. The notion of fitness extraction is thus defined. A lateral exposition differentiates between political action, thus understood, and economic action, defined more generally as fitness transfer. The distinction is to be eventually furthered in a separate study.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://econtent.essec.fr/mediaBank/Research/Entrepot-doc/Papers/m.boari/Dr_internet_05006.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School in its series ESSEC Working Papers with number DR 05006.

as in new window
Length: 19 pages
Date of creation: Jun 2005
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ebg:essewp:dr-05006

Contact details of provider:
Postal: ESSEC Research Center, BP 105, 95021 Cergy, France
Email:
Web page: http://www.essec.edu/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: Biology; Evolution; Fitness; Foundational Theory; Foundations of Economics; Political Science;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

No references listed on IDEAS
You can help add them by filling out this form.

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebg:essewp:dr-05006

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Sophie Magnanou).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.