Revolutionary Changes in Understanding Man and Society

JOHANN GOTSCHL Over the last decades, social philosophers, economists. sociologists, utility and game theorists, biologists, mathematicians, moral philosophers and philosophers have created totally new concepts and methods of understanding the function and role of humans in their modern societies. The years between 1953 and 1990 brought drastic changes in the scientific foundations and dynamic of today's society. A burst of entirely new, revolutionary ideas, similar to those which heralded the beginning of the twentieth century in physics, dominates the picture. This book also discusses the ongoing refutation of old concepts in the social sciences. Some of them are: the traditional concepts ofrationality, for example, based on maximization of interests, the linearity of axiomatic methods, methodological individualism, and the concept of a static society. Today the revolutionary change from a static view of our society to an evolutionary one reverberates through all social sciences and will dominate the twenty-first century. In an uncertain and risky world where cooperation and teamwork is getting more and more important, one cannot any longer call the maximization of one's own expectations of utility or interests "rational" .

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There have been radical changes in science during the last 20 years: after the breathtaking unification of physical theories in a grand unified theory, the theories of evolution began to unify not only all social sciences but also the natural with the social sciences. emRevolutionary Changes in Understanding Man and Society/em provides a fascinating analysis of these new trends which lead into the 21st Century, together with a profound critique of the received view. Sixteen papers have been assembled, two of them written by Nobel laureates. Part I, Characteristic Features in Economic Science', criticizes the present status of traditional economic theories.Discovery, Creativity, Cognition, and Computation: Basic Structure'. Part II opens up new perspectives for the role of the new dynamic structures for the modern social sciences and philosophy. Part III, Towards a Science of Man and Society: Philosophical and Methodological Foundations', offers the philosophical consequences that are triggered by the breakthrough of modern ideas. Part IV,Rationality, Complexity and Uncertainty: New Interrelations', examines in detail the rise of new ideas in today's social sciences, such as the difference between cultural (societal) and biological evolution and the leading role of risk in decision making. It offers a critique of rational choice theory and of rationality. Finally, Part V, `Aesthetical and Ethical Patterns', deals with the new interrelations of both disciplines with our present sciences. br/

Contenu
I Characteristic Features in Economic Science.- The Economic Science of Today and Facts: A Critical Analysis of Some Characteristic Features.- Technical Change without Humans: Innovation in the Neoclassical Economic Theory.- II Discovery, Creativity, Cognition and Computation: Basic Structures.- The Theory of Scientific Discovery.- Understanding Creativity.- The Role of Simulation Models in the Cognitive Sciences.- The Mind and Computation.- III Towards a Science of Man and Society: Philosophical and Methodological Foundations.- Self-Organization: New Foundations Towards a General Theory of Reality.- Towards a Science of Man.- IV Rationality, Complexity and Uncertainty: New Interrelations.- The New Theory of Evolution A Theory of Democratic Societies.- Risk in Utility Theory, in Business and in the World of Fear and Hope.- Rational Choice Theory: A Critical Look at its Foundations.- Complexity, The Concept of Uncertainty and Bounded Rationality of Man.- Security, on the Reasons for the Sinking Acceptance of Risk.- V Aesthetical and Ethical Patterns.- Nature as a Work of Art.- Ethics in Science Substance or Rhetoric?.- Name Index.