This paper studies the welfare consequences of strategic voting in two commonly used parliamentary agendas by comparing the average utilities obtained in simulated voting under two behavioural assumptions: expected utility maximising behaviour and sincere behaviour. The average utility obtained in simulations is higher with expected utility maximising behaviour than with sincere voting behaviour under a broad range of assumptions. Strategic voting increases welfare particularly if the distribution of preference intensities correlates with voter types.

Like other mathematically intensive sciences, economics is becoming increasingly computerized. Despite the extent of the computation, however, there is very little true simulation. Simple computation is a form of theory articulation, whereas true simulation is analogous to an experimental procedure. Successful computation is faithful to an underlying mathematical model, whereas successful simulation directly mimics a process or a system. The computer is seen as a legitimate tool in economics only when traditional analytical solutions cannot be derived, i.e., only as a (...) purely computational aid. We argue that true simulation is seldom practiced because it does not fit the conception of understanding inherent in mainstream economics. According to this conception, understanding is constituted by analytical derivation from a set of fundamental economic axioms. We articulate this conception using the concept of economists' perfect model. Since the deductive links between the assumptions and the consequences are not transparent in ‘bottom‐up’ generative microsimulations, microsimulations cannot correspond to the perfect model and economists do not therefore consider them viable candidates for generating theories that enhance economic understanding. (shrink)

Robustness may increase the degree to which the robust result is indirectly confirmed if it is shown to depend on confirmed rather than disconfirmed assumptions. Although increasing the weight with which existing evidence indirectly confirms it in such a case, robustness may also be irrelevant for confirmation, or may even disconfirm. Whether or not it confirms depends on the available data and on what other results have already been established.

Business and Society Review, Volume 127, Issue S1, Page 223-251, Spring 2022.

Derivational robustness may increase the degree to which various pieces of evidence indirectly confirm a robust result. There are two ways in which this increase may come about. First, if one can show that a result is robust, and that the various individual models used to derive it also have other confirmed results, these other results may indirectly confirm the robust result. Confirmation derives from the fact that data not known to bear on a result are shown to be relevant (...) when it is shown to be robust. Second, robustness may increase the degree to which the robust result is indirectly confirmed if it increases the weight with which existing evidence indirectly confirms it. This may happen when it strengthens the connection between the core and the robust result by showing that auxiliaries are not responsible for the result. (shrink)

The most common argument against the use of rational choice models outside economics is that they make unrealistic assumptions about individual behavior. We argue that whether the falsity of assumptions matters in a given model depends on which factors are explanatorily relevant. Since the explanatory factors may vary from application to application, effective criticism of economic model building should be based on model-specific arguments showing how the result really depends on the false assumptions. However, some modeling results in imperialistic applications (...) are relatively robust with respect to unrealistic assumptions. Key Words: unrealistic assumptions • economics imperialism • rational choice • as if • robustness. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel argument for fatalism: if one accepts the logical possibility of fatalism, one must accept that fatalism is true. This argument has a similar structure to the ‘knowability paradox’, which proves that if every truth can be known by someone, then every truth is known by someone. In this paper, what I mean by ‘fatalism’ is that whatever happens now was determined to happen now in the past. Existing arguments for fatalism assume that the principle of (...) bivalence holds even for future propositions, that past truths are necessarily true, and/or that possible propositions never change into impossible propositions. However, my argument does not assume such premises. It assumes only the logical possibility of fatalism. Here, what I mean by ‘fatalism is logically possible’ is that there is at least one possible world where whatever happens now was determined to happen now in the past. Since this assumption is weak (thus is plausible), I believe it to be much stronger than the existing arguments for fatalism. In addition, I also show that what will happen in the future is determined now. (shrink)

This book provides the first comprehensive and critical examination of Mäki's realist philosophy of economics.

Researchers are able to estimate what subjects attend to by using eye tracking systems. Existing approaches for analyzing eye movements are very useful to estimate attention to still objects. But they are inadequate to estimate attention to moving objects, although paying attention to moving objects is usual human behavior. Thus, we propose a novel approach and algorithm to estimate attention to moving objects more precisely. Our approach is to extract "eye tracking movements". We phrase both saccadic eye movements and smooth (...) pursuit eye movements as "eye tracking movements". Because previous works reveal that humans often track a moving object by the eye movements when they pay attention to the object, our approach seems to be appropriate. Our algorithm used for extracting eye tracking movements is called Path Stitching (PS) algorithm. The PS algorithm is a kind of Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) discovery algorithms using Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) as a similarity measurement procedure. Eye tracking movements can be regarded as a situation that a subsequence of eye movements' trajectory is similar to a subsequence of the target's trajectory with a small or no time-difference. Because humans track a moving object by the eye movements with locally fluctuated time difference, we think the use of DTW is very appropriate. In addition, to make outputs more comprehensible, we employ the LCS discovery approach for the PS algorithm. The experimental results show that the PS algorithm is more able to extract eye tracking movements than the fixation extracting approach. The fixation extracting approach is the most popular and the strongest approach to analyze eye movements. Therefore, we conclude that our novel approach will advance the analysis of human behavior by the eye movements and human-computer interaction systems they utilize user's eye movements. (shrink)

Arrow's Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) has been under criticism for decades for not taking account of preference intensities. Computer-simulation results by Aki Lehtinen concerning strategic voting under various voting rules show that this intensity argument does not need to rest on mere intuition. Voters may express intensities by voting strategically, and that this has beneficial aggregate-level consequences: utilitarian efficiency is higher if voters engage in strategic behaviour than if they always vote sincerely. Strategic voting is thus unambiguously beneficial under (...) a utilitarian evaluation of outcomes. What has been considered the main argument for IIA turns out to be one against it. This paper assesses the implications of these results for interpretations of Arrow's theorem and the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem in a discussion on the methodological and philosophical arguments concerning preference intensities and IIA. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical critique of social choice theory insofar as it deals with the normative evaluation of voting and voting rules. I will argue that the very method of evaluating voting rules in terms of whether they satisfy various conditions is deeply problematic because introducing strategic behaviour leads to a violation of any condition that makes a difference between voting rules. I also argue that it is legitimate to make interpersonal comparisons of utilities in voting theory. Combining a (...) realistic account of voters’ behaviour with a utilitarian evaluation of the outcomes then leads to the judgment that strategic voting is beneficial. If it is, then Arrow's theorem does not have far-reaching consequences for democracy because one of its conditions is not normatively acceptable. (shrink)

This paper provides a conceptual framework that allows for distinguishing between different kinds of generalisation and applicability. It is argued that generalising models may bring epistemic benefits. They do so if they show that restrictive and unrealistic assumptions do not threaten the credibility of results derived from models. There are two different notions of applicability, generic and specific, which give rise to three different kinds of generalizations. Only generalising a result brings epistemic benefits concerning the truth of model components or (...) results. Abstracting the model and applying the model into new systems are not intrinsically epistemically beneficial in this way. The Dixit-Stiglitz model of monopolistic competition is used as an illustration. (shrink)

This paper criticises the Waltonian fictional view for misconstruing the role of imagination in scientific modelling, and for failing to provide an adequate account of the epistemology of modelling. It is argued that the central notions of prescribed imagination, props and principles of generation should be abandoned because they confuse more than clarify the philosophy of modelling. It is argued that the epistemic credibility of inferences in modelling require that results are explicitly derived with model descriptions in a proof, but (...) since prescribed imagination does not guarantee that any actual inferences are made, principles of indirect generation cannot determine the content of a model. An alternative epistemic account of model content is proposed, and it is shown that the Waltonian fictional view does not have resources to accommodate the practices in which such content is determined. This critique highlights the limitations of using concepts from fiction theory in scientific modelling, suggesting that the Waltonian fictional view obscures rather than clarifies modelling practices. (shrink)

Kirjasymposio Eerik Lagerspetzin Social Choice and Democratic Values – kirjasta. Kenneth Arrowia seuraten Lagerspetz pitää sosiaalisen valinnan teorian suurimpana vahvuutena sitä, että sen tuloksia voidaan käyttää monissa erilaisissa yhteyksissä. Minä taas pidän teorian suurimpana heikkoutena sen vaikeutta: tutkijat eivät ole päässeet yhteisymmärrykseen erityisesti ns. epärelevanttien vaihtoehtojen riippumattomuusehdon tulkinnasta ja muotoilusta. Lagerspetz hyväksyy kirjassaan nähdäkseni seuraavat väitteet: kaikki demokraattiset äänestyssäännöt rikkovat riippumattomuusehtoa, mutta että tuo ehto on silti normatiivisesti perusteltu. Arrow’n ehdot ovat intuitiivisesti ottaen hyväksyttävissä. Koska riippumattomuusehdon rikkoutumisesta seuraa strategista äänestämistä (...) ja strateginen äänestäminen on normatiivisesti katsottuna ei-toivottavaa tai jopa moraalisesti kyseenalaista, strategisen äänestämisen poissulkeminen olisi paras mahdollinen argumentti riippumattomuusehdon puolesta. Lisäksi säännöt jotka toteuttavat riippumattomuusehdon ovat immuuneja strategiselle käyttäytymiselle. Hyvin toimiva äänestyssääntö luo puhtaasti mekaanisen yhteyden yksilöiden mielipiteiden ja kollektiivisen valinnan välille. Tämän kirjoituksen ensisijainen tavoite on kumota jokainen edellisessä kappaleessa esitetty väite. (shrink)

Context holds a significant place mediating the conceptual and the empirical in ethnography. This modality of knowledge has also become a significant part of science and technology studies since the rise of laboratory studies. However, conventional modes of contextualization that locate the object of study within a whole—such as within a society or culture—have become a target of suspicion and criticism since the 1980s. This led to the radical alteration of the contextualizing strategies of actor–network theory and multisited ethnography. Anthropologist (...) Marilyn Strathern is also responding to this crisis by renovating the practice of ethnography in a way significantly different from both strategies. Since contextualization occupies a significant place in the formation of ethnography as a representation of a larger “out there” reality, her alternative contextualization requires a new characterization of ethnography other than representation. This article tries to expound the complicated, and often perplexing, ethnography of Strathern by making an analogy with objects familiar to most science, technology, and society scholars, namely, machines. By doing so, this article argues that Strathern is opening up a new way of dealing with context that is radically different both from ANT and from multisited ethnography. (shrink)

This paper aims to distinguish two main types of coarse graining, and reveal the relationship between the notions of coarse graining and emergence. In physics, some forms of coarse graining seem to be indispensable to show a physical property, and the other merely changes our descriptions of the system. To clarify the notion of coarse graining, this article investigates the cases of the renormalization group method and irreversibility, both of which have been important topics in philosophy of science, and the (...) case of the rigid body in classical mechanics, which is an elementary case including coarse graining. The case studies reveal the distinction between substantial and mere coarse-graining. This distinction clarifies the relationships between the notions of coarse graining and emergence and further provides some implications for the issues about emergence. (shrink)

This paper explores Erich Fromm’s contribution to Deweyan democratic education by referring to his psychoanalytic interpretation of John Dewey’s pragmatic theory. First, it employs the work by Gert Biesta to secure a space between critical pedagogy and Deweyan democratic education, from which Fromm’s theory can be discussed. Furthermore, it argues that Biesta’s perspective offers a valuable theoretical ground to extend the emancipatory potential of Deweyan democratic education, while avoiding some pitfalls of critical pedagogy. Subsequently, the paper contrasts Marcuse’s and Fromm’s (...) views on Dewey to show how Fromm’s understanding of Dewey was more effective than that of Marcuse for developing the potential of Dewey’s philosophy. Next, the paper clarifies key similarities and differences between Fromm’s psychoanalysis and Dewey’s pragmatism, as it is applicable specifically to emancipatory education. Finally, the paper argues that despite the differences between these two thinkers, Fromm’s theory further radicalizes Deweyan democratic education by adding new elements to the list of preconditions on the role of the emancipatory teacher. (shrink)

A review of Donald Katzner's book on economic modelling is provided. In addition to characterising the book, I give critical comments on the distinction between primary and secondary assumptions.

Following an established tradition, the current special issue collects five articles that originate from papers presented at the IX Conference of the International Network for Economic Method. The conference took place in Helsinki on 1–3 September 2011 and was hosted by TINT (Trends and Tensions in Intellectual Integration), University of Helsinki. The conference was successful both in terms of the number of participants and the quality of the presentations. Although the sample of papers that made it to this special issue (...) is relatively small, we think that it is representative of some of the major contemporary currents in the wider field of the philosophy and methodology of economics. The papers examine both long-debated and more recent issues. (shrink)

It is argued in this paper that amalgamating confirmation from various sources is relevantly different from social-choice contexts, and that proving an impossibility theorem for aggregating confirmation measures directs attention to irrelevant issues.

The Miyashita experiments are very interesting and the results should be examined from a viewpoint of attractor dynamics. Amit's target article shows a path toward realistic modeling by artificial neural networks (ANN), but it is not necessarily the only one. I introduce another model that can explain a substantial part of the empirical observations and makes an interesting prediction. This model consists of such units that have nonmonotonic input-output characteristics with local inhibition neurons.

近世儒学思想史のなかで大塩平八郎に至る陽明学思想により、礼教的教養主義から仁政的政治学へと転換した思想的経緯や、神儒仏などの混交的思想からなる庶民思想と位置づけられてきた石田梅岩『都鄙問答』の思想的基 層が陽明学から構成されていたことなど、近世思想史研究に一石を投ずる問題作から構成。.