Historical Small Events and the Eclipse of<i>Utopia</i>: Perspectives on Path Dependence in Human Thought

Yalcintas, Altug

doi:10.1080/14735780600624019

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…An intellectual path dependency worldview suggests that we are not really entitled to begin talking about intellectual and practical problems in the terms that we are accustomed to, especially when we are more knowledgeable than past generations about the shortcomings and imperfections of the constructions that we continue to construct. Historians of economics are within the same circle: we do not need a depiction of economics expressed in the terms (and the ideology) introduced by, say, Utopia (Yalçıntaş, 2006). We do not need one theory of economics providing us with solutions to all the worldly problems of human societies that have existed in history and all around the globe.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Error: Undisciplined Thoughts on One of the Causes of Intellectual Path Dependency

Yalcintas¹

2011

Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Dergisi

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Is there not any place in the history of ideas for the imperfect character of human doings (i.e. capability of error) that is repeated for so long until we lately start to think that it had long been wrong? The answer is: In the conventional histories of ideas there is almost none. The importance of the phenomenon, however, is immense. Intellectual history is full of errors. Scholarly errors are among the factors that generate intellectual pathways in which consequences of historical small events feed back up on each other positively and give rise to historical pathologies in the end. Pathways hold the intellectuals dependent on the consequences of errors which interact upon each other and prevent resulting pathologies to disappear fully. As a result, ideas do not converge to a level of perfection. Evolutionary account of errors suggests that errors in the history of ideas matter even though they are often corrected.Keywords: Errors in the history of ideas, intellectual path dependence, intellectual pathologies, the Coase Theorem, historical small events. Entelektüel Patikaya Bağımlılığa Yol Açan Sebeplerden Biri Üzerine Düşünceler ÖzetDüşünceler tarihinde insan ediminin mükemmel olmayan karakterine (yani, hata yapma kabiliyetine) ne kadar yer ayrılmıştır? Konvansiyonel düşünce tarihi yazımı içinde hemen hemen hiç. Oysa entellektüel tarih bu tür hatalarla doludur ve bu hatalar entelektüel patikaya bağımlılığın en büyük sebebidir. Entellektüel patikalar, düşünsel hataların sonuçlarının ortadan kalkmaması sebebiyle düşünürleri kendisine bağımlı hale getirir. Hatalar ne kadar küçük olursa olsun pozitif geri bildirimler nedeniyle düşünsel patikalar, çoğu zaman, düşünsel patolojilere dönüşür. Bu koşullar altında, bazı hatalar düzeltilse bile, düşüncelerin genel evrimi mükemmellik seviyesine yakınsamaz.Anahtar Sözcükler: Düşünce tarihinde hatalar, entelektüel patikaya bağımlılık, entellektüel patolojiler, Coase Kuramı, tarihsel küçük olaylar.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Error: Undisciplined Thoughts on One of the Causes of Intellectual Path Dependency

Yalcintas¹

2011

Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Dergisi

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“…Path dependence, on the other hand, is about the costs of switching to more efficient technologies, therefore emphasizing lock‐ins that come about as a consequence of “technical interrelatedness, economies of scale, and quasi‐irreversibility of investment” (David ). Thirdly, path‐dependent processes are outcomes of positive feedback mechanisms magnifying the significance of several historical accidents or chance events (Yalcintas ) whereas cumulative causation accounts for social processes in which social factors other than historical accidents and chance events as well as negative feedbacks are at play (Berger and Elsner ; Berger ).…”

Section: Failure In Academic Economicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Problem of Epistemic Cost: Why Do Economists Not Change Their Minds (About the “Coase Theorem”)?

Yalcintas

2013

American J Econ Sociol

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“…a species' better adaptation, however, does not necessarily mean that the species' are in any anatomical sense superior creatures. natural selection involves mechanisms of positive feedbacks in which consequences of historical contingencies (or "historical small events" (arthur, 1989;Yalcintas, 2006)) are sometimes reinforced in such a way that certain creatures survive, such as birds with an aerodynamic feather design or insects by way of mimicry that enable them to look like a leaf or a stick. optimal adaptation does not always occur in life's history.…”

Section: The Ideas Of Continual Progress and Perfectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Between a rock and a hard place: second thoughts on Laibman's Deep History and the theory of punctuated equilibrium with regard to intellectual evolution

Yalcintas

2012

Journal of Philosophical Economics

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In this article I reconsider Laibman’s Deep History (2007) in the light of Niles Eldredge and Stephan Jay Gould’s theory of punctuated equilibrium. I argue that the theory of punctuated equilibrium explains (1) why conceptions of inevitability and directionality in intellectual evolution may not be as useful as Laibman thinks they are in the context of social evolution and (2) why stasis (that is, intellectual path dependence) in intellectual evolution does not allow different pathways of thought to converge.

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Historical Small Events and the Eclipse ofUtopia: Perspectives on Path Dependence in Human Thought

Cited by 4 publications

References 17 publications

On Error: Undisciplined Thoughts on One of the Causes of Intellectual Path Dependency

On Error: Undisciplined Thoughts on One of the Causes of Intellectual Path Dependency

The Problem of Epistemic Cost: Why Do Economists Not Change Their Minds (About the “Coase Theorem”)?

Between a rock and a hard place: second thoughts on Laibman's Deep History and the theory of punctuated equilibrium with regard to intellectual evolution

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