C. Mantzavinos

This book consists of a dialogue between two interlocutors, Pablo and a student, who discuss a great range of issues in social philosophy and political theory, and in particular, the emergence, working properties and economic effects of institutions. It uses the dialogical form to make philosophy more accessible, but also to show how ideas develop through intellectual interaction. The fact that one of the interlocutors is the "student" in a place in the real world makes the dialogue quasi-fictive in character and enables the active engagement of the reader. After all, we are all philosophers and we develop our own philosophy by exchanging views and arguments. The dialogue form is and should remain the principal form of philosophizing, since ideas, like butterflies, do not merely exist – they develop. This is certainly the case in actual philosophical interaction, and it can be the case in written philosophical exposition. Although the dialogue does not presuppose prior acquaintance with the respective philosophical and social scientific literature under discussion in this book, it makes arguments more accessible, and conveys the feeling that there are no definite solutions to philosophical problems.

Scientific progress has many facets and can be conceptualized in different ways, for example in terms of problem-solving, of truthlikeness or of growth of knowledge. The main claim of the paper is that the most important prerequisite of scientific progress is the institutionalization of competition and criticism. An institutional framework appropriately channeling competition and criticism is the crucial factor determining the direction and rate of scientific progress, independently on how one might wish to conceptualize scientific progress itself. The main intention is to narrow the divide between traditional philosophy of science and the sociological, economic and political outlook at science that emphasizes the private interests motivating scientists and the subsequent contingent nature of the enterprise. The aim is to show that although science is a social enterprise taking place in historical time and thus is of a contingent nature, it can and in fact does lead to genuine scientific progress - contrary to the claims of certain sociologists of science and other relativists who standardly stress its social nature, but deny its progressive character. I will first deal with the factual issue by way of introducing the main concepts and mechanisms of modern institutional theory and by applying them to the analysis of the cultural phenomenon that we call modern science. I will then turn to the normative issue: what is the appropriate content of the institutional framework, for scientific progress to emerge and be sustained at which level should it be set and by whom? Addressing this problematic is equivalent to conducting a constitutional debate leading to a Constitution of Science.

Two interlocutors, Philip Pettit and a student, are exchanging views on liberal political and economic philosophy during lunch at Prospect House, the faculty club of Princeton. The dialogue begins with clarifications of the notion of liberty, and, against objections of the student, Pettit introduces and defends his own conception of freedom as non-domination rather than as non-interference. It proceeds with an exchange of arguments regarding the different kinds of institutional settings that entrench liberty and all the other things valued by humans. The interlocutors reach a preliminary consensus that in order to substantiate the republican ideal of freedom as non-domination in concrete institutional realities, two things are required: the establishment of a mixed constitution – so that no single, unconstrained body can exercise lawmaking and other government functions – as well as eternal vigilance on the part of the citizens. The second part of the dialogue deals with a major challenge to the republican political philosophy expressed by the student: the issue of non-domination in markets, which is diagnosed as an important lacuna in republican thought.

This paper articulates and defends three interconnected claims: first, that the debate on the role of values for science misses a crucial dimension, the institutional one; second, that institutions occupy the intermediate level between scientific activities and values and that they are to be systematically integrated into the analysis; third, that the appraisal of the institutions of science with respect to values should be undertaken within the premises of a comparative approach rather than an ideal approach. Hence, I defend the view that the issue be framed in reference to the following question: "What kind of institutional rules should be in place in order for the scientific process to unfold in such a way that the values that we deem more important come to the fore?" Addressing this concern is equivalent to conducting a debate on institutions and their role for science.

A philosophical theory of explanation should provide solutions to a series of problems, both descriptive and normative. The aim of this essay is to establish the claim that this can be best done if one theorizes in terms of explanatory games rather than focusing on the explication of the concept of explanation. The development of the precise meaning of the concept of scientific explanation occupies centre-stage in all contemporary approaches. The alternative position that seems obvious and which is adopted is that of an explanatory pluralism. At every moment of time there is a stock of explanations available in a society proposed by ordinary people “in the wild” or by specialists organized formally or semi-formally within specific organizational structures such as churches, universities, etc. The terms of provision, control, and dissemination of explanations in this collective explanatory enterprise are regulated by the different rules that the participants have come to adopt over time. These rules incorporate the normative standards that guide the processes of discovery and justification of explanations as well as the modes of their communication, dissemination, and adoption. They constitute the rules of the explanatory game that the participants are playing. The philosophical project consists in describing and normatively appraising the rules that constitute these games. This project is fundamentally liberal, in the sense that participants and non-participants to the game alike engage in the critical discussion and revision of the rules or to put it in other terms, the project is fundamentally naturalistic - philosophers and scientists equally take part in it.

We are all philosophers and we develop our own philosophy by exchanging views and arguments. The dialogue form is and should remain the principal form of philosophizing, since ideas, like butterflies, do not merely exist – they develop. This is certainly the case in actual philosophical interaction, and it can be the case in written philosophical exposition. The book consists of a dialogue between two interlocutors, Philip and a student, who discuss about the philosophical theory of explanation. It is situated on Cape Sounion, near Athens where the two interlocutors enjoy the view over the Aegean Sea. An initial exchange of arguments leads to a dialogue unfolding the panorama of the contemporary philosophical theory of explanation. The second part of the dialogue is devoted to an exchange of arguments on explanatory pluralism as a novel approach to the philosophical theory of explanation. Historical cases are discussed as well as the ways in which explanatory progress in science can be attained.

Die herausragende Stellung Carl Mengers in der Volkswirschaftslehre wird in dogmenhistorischen Studien hauptsächlich darin gesehen, dass er den entscheidenden Schritt in Richtung einer subjektivistisch fundierten Erklärung des Wertes unternommen hat. Das Hauptziel dieses Aufsatzes ist es, zu zeigen, inwiefern in seinem Werk darüber hinaus auch Ansatzpunkte vorhanden sind, die für das moderne Wettbewerbsverständnis theoretisch relevant sind und Menger außer als Preistheoretiker auch als Wettbewerbstheoretiker erscheinen lassen können. Es wird gezeigt, dass alle fünf wichtigen Elemente der modernen Wettbewerbstheorie in mehr oder weniger entwickelter Form in Mengers Werk zu finden sind: der prozessuale Charakter des Wettbewerbs, die Vielfalt an Wettbewerbsparametern, die Bedeutung der Zeit und der Wachstumsaspekt.

This paper defends the claim that social scientists who are interested in the study of institutions should not conduct fights about the meaning of the terms "institution", "organization" and the other terms that are used in the theory of institutions. They should instead concentrate on constructing theories in order to explain the phenomena they are interested in. Defining the terms that one wants to use is a legitimate part of the theoretical endeavor, but it is by no means as important as most institutional theorists tend to think. The paper argues in favor of this claim by drawing on a relevant discussion in the philosophy of science which deals with the role of definitions in the process of constructing a theoretical system.

Explaining phenomena is one of the main activities in which scientists engage. This book proposes a new philosophical theory of scientific explanation by developing and defending the position of explanatory pluralism with the help of the notion of 'explanatory games'. Mantzavinos provides a descriptive account of the explanatory activity of scientists in different domains and shows how they differ from commonsensical explanations offered in everyday life by ordinary people and also from explanations offered in religious contexts. He also shows how an evaluation and a critical appraisal of explanations put forward in different social arenas can take place on the basis of different values. Explanatory Pluralism provides solutions to all important descriptive and normative problems of the philosophical theory of explanation as illustrated in sophisticated case studies from economics and medicine, but also from mythology and religion.

Ce livre montre qu'il est possible de défendre la position selon laquelle les actions humaines ont un sens, et en même temps la position que les actions humaines et tous les éléments qui ont un sens peuvent être appréhendés scientifiquement à partir de la méthode prévalant dans les sciences naturelles. Il adopte une position originale et radicale : la thèse qu'il n'y a pas de différence méthodologique fondamentale entre les sciences naturelles d'un côté, les sciences sociales et les humanités de l'autre. Avec l'aide de la méthode hypothético-déductive, l'appréhension du sens des actions, de même que l'appréhension du sens des textes, peut se faire sans difficulté : dans les humanités et les sciences sociales, les données empiriques consistent dans une large mesure en matériaux significatifs, un fait qui peut dans certains cas compliquer le processus de test des hypothèses, mais ne le rend pas en principe impossible. C. Mantzavinos fait preuve d`une grande originalité. L’édition allemande du présent ouvrage a été publiée sous le titre Naturalististische Hermeneutik par Mohr Siebeck en 2006 et l’édition anglaise sous le titre Naturalistic Hermeneutics par Cambridge University Press en 2005.

In diesem Aufsatz wird ein Wettbewerbsleitbild vorgeschlagen, das auf den Ergebnissen der Neuen Institutionenökonomik und der Evolutorischen Ökonomik aufbaut. Um ein Leitbild zu gewinnen, braucht man zweierlei, d.h. erfahrungswissenschaftliche Grundlagen und Überlegungen zur Behandlung von Normen. Es werden zunächst die erfahrungswissenschaftlichen Grundlagen erläutert und es stellt sich heraus, dass der Wettbewerb als ein evolutionärer Prozess zu analysieren ist, der innerhalb von Regeln abläuft. Danach wird die Frage nach der zweckmäßigen Behandlung von Normen behandelt und die Schwächen der gängigen normativen Konzeptionen innerhalb der Volkswirtschaftslehre, d.h. der Wohlfahrtsökonomie und der Konstitutioneökonomie, aufgezeigt und stattdessen die Anwendung des Prinzips der kritischen Prüfung vorgeschlagen. Darauf aufbauend wird das institutionenökonomisch-evolutionäre Wettbewerbsleitbild in seinen Grundzügen skizziert und für eine regelgeleitete Wettbewerbspolitik, die sich hauptsächlich auf per se Verbote stützt, plädiert.

Dieter Schmidtchen hat mein institutionenökonomisch-evolutionäres Wettbewerbsleitbild einer kritischen Würdigung unterzogen. In dieser Replik werden drei Arten von Argumenten zugunsten meines Wettbewerbsleitbildes vorgetragen. Zunächst wird mit Hilfe von wissenschaftstheoretischen Argumenten gezeigt, dass die Konkurrenz von Erkenntnisprogrammen auch im Fall der Wettbewerbstheorie durchaus wünscheswert ist. Dann werden die normativen Grundlagen des Leitbildes erläutert und gezeigt, wie das Prinzip der kritischen Prüfung zum Tragen kommt. Schließlich wird für eine regelgeleitete Wettbewerbspolitik plädiert, die den Schutz des Wettbewerbs als minimalistisches Ziel anstrebt.

Dans cet article, nous offrons un large aperçu des interactions entre cognition, systèmes de croyances et institutions, et comment elles affectent la performance économique. Nous estimons qu'une meilleure compréhension de l’émergence des institutions, de leurs propriétés de fonctionnement et de leurs effets sur les résultats politiques et économiques doit commencer par une analyse des processus cognitifs. Nous explorons la nature de l'apprentissage individuel et collectif, en soulignant que la question n'est pas de savoir si les agents ont une rationalité parfaite ou limitée, mais plutôt de savoir comment les êtres humains raisonnent ou choisissent réellement, individuellement et collectivement. Nous avons ensuite lié les processus d'apprentissage à l'analyse institutionnelle, fournissant des arguments en faveur de ce qui peut être qualifiée d’« institutionnalisme cognitif ». En outre, nous montrons qu’un traitement complet du phénomène de sentier de dépendance devrait commencer au niveau cognitif, se poursuivre au niveau institutionnel, et aboutir au niveau économique.

One way to show that text interpretation can be treated as a scientific problem is to show that the standards that are currently used in the natural sciences when dealing with problems not involving meaningful material can also be successfully employed in the case of text interpretation. These standards involve intersubjective intelligibility, testability with the use of evidence, rational argumentation, and making methodological decisions aiming at the attainment of truth, accuracy, simplicity and other epistemic values. In the case of text interpretation—despite the fact that we deal with meaningful material—hypotheses can be formulated, consequences can be drawn by deduction, and these can be tested against empirical data. This claim is substantiated by the provision of an example of a scientific text

Naturalistic Hermeneutics proposes the position of the unity of the scientific method and defends it against the claim to autonomy of the human sciences. Mantzavinos shows how materials that are 'meaningful', more specifically human actions and texts, can be adequately dealt with by the hypothetico-deductive method, the standard method used in the natural sciences. The hermeneutic method is not an alternative method aimed at the understanding and the interpretation of human actions and texts, but it is the same as the hypothetico-deductive method applied to meaningful materials. The central thesis advocated by Mantzavinos is, thus, that there is no fundamental methodological difference between natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Advanced students and professionals across philosophy, social and political theory, and the humanities will find this a compelling and controversial book.

Individuals, Institutions, and Markets offers a theory of how the institutional framework of a society emerges and how markets within institutions work. The book shows that both social institutions, defined as the rules of the game, and exchange processes can be analyzed along a common theoretical structure. Mantzavinos' proposal is that a problem solving model of individual behavior inspired by the cognitive sciences provides such a unifying theoretical structure. Integrating the latest scholarship in economics, sociology, political science, law, and anthropology, Mantzavinos offers a genuine political economy showing how social institutions affect economic outcomes

English summary: C. Mantzavinos offers a theory of how the institutional framework of a society emerges and how markets within institutions work. He shows that both social institutions, defined as the rules of the game, and exchange processes can be analyzed along a common theoretical structure. Mantzavinos's proposal is that a problem-solving model of individual behaviour inspired by the cognitive sciences provides such a unifying theoretical structure. Integrating the latest scholarship in economics, sociology, political science, law, and anthropology, the author offers a genuine political economy showing how social institutions affect economic outcomes. His book was first published in English by Cambridge University Press. German description: C. Mantzavinos entwickelt eine Theorie der Entstehung des institutionellen Rahmens einer Gesellschaft und der Funktionsweise von Markten innerhalb dieses Rahmens. Er zeigt, dass sowohl Institutionen, d.h. Spielregeln, als auch Austauschprozesse mit Hilfe einer gemeinsamen theoretischen Struktur analysiert werden konnen. Als gemeinsame vereinheitlichende Struktur schlagt er ein kognitionswissenschaftlich inspiriertes Problemlosungsmodell individuellen Verhaltens vor. Indem er neueste Erkenntnisse aus Okonomik, Soziologie, Politikwissenschaften, Rechtswissenschaft und Anthropologie integriert, entwickelt der Autor eine genuin politische Okonomie, die zeigt, wie soziale Institutionen okonomische Ergebnisse beeinflussen.Das englische Original ist unter dem Titel Individuals, Institutions, and Markets bei Cambridge University Press erschienen.Die Institutionenanalyse hat jungst Fortschritte in der Ausweitung ihrer Domane gemacht und sich Fragen des Wissens und der Kognition zugewandt. Dieses Buch zahlt zu den ersten und einzigen, die dieses wichtige Thema systematisch behandeln. Ausserdem umfasst es sowohl die Diskussion und Analyse dieses Themas als auch die eher traditionelle institutionelle Analyse. Es ist ein Meilenstein und wird als Referenzmass fur kunftige Forschung dienen.Avner Greif, Stanford University.

This volume is a unique contribution to the philosophy of the social sciences, presenting the results of cutting-edge philosophers' research alongside critical discussions by practicing social scientists. The book is motivated by the view that the philosophy of the social sciences cannot ignore the specific scientific practices according to which social scientific work is being conducted, and that it will be valuable only if it evolves in constant interaction with theoretical developments in the social sciences. With its unique format guaranteeing a genuine discussion between philosophers and social scientists, this thought-provoking volume extends the frontiers of the field. It will appeal to all scholars and students interested in the interplay between philosophy and the social sciences.

Le cercle herméneutique a été utilisé par tous ceux qui ont défendu la thèse de l’autonomie méthodologique des sciences humaines par rapport aux sciences naturelles. Il est généralement perçu comme un problème ontologique ou logique par les Herméneutistes. Le but de cet article est de montrer que le cercle herméneutique n’est ni l’un ni l’autre. Tout indique, plutôt, qu’il fait référence à un phénomène empirique, qui peut être étudié dans le cadre de la psycholinguistique et d’autres disciplines empiriques. Il ne peut pas, par conséquent, être utilisé comme argument pour légitimer la séparation entre les sciences naturelles et les sciences humaines, et ne peut donc pas contribuer à soutenir la thèse de l’autonomie des sciences humaines.

There is a long tradition in the philosophy of the social sciences that emphasizes the meaningfulness of human action. This tradition doubts or even negates the possibility of causal explanations of human action precisely on the basis that human actions have meaning. This paper provides an argument in favour of methodological naturalism in the social sciences. It grants the main argument of the Interpretivists, i.e. that human actions are meaningful, but it shows how a transformation of a “nexus of meaning” into a “causal nexus” can take place, proposing the “successful transformation argument”. Based on previous work presented in my Naturalistic Hermeneutics, Cambridge University Press, 2005 the paper discusses four approaches that describe the “nexus of meaning” connected with a human action based on the motives, the intentions, the reasons, and the rationality of the action respectively. From the standpoint of eachapproach a causal nexus can arise, namely, if the respective motives, intentions, reasons, or the human rationality that are manifest in the different nexuses of meaning exhibit certain invariances. These approaches can be formulated as theories, which explain human action every time that the nexuses of meaning – described with the diverse conceptual apparatuses – can be transformed into causal nexuses. It is shown that explanations based on motives, intentions, reasons, or rationality are possible, as are explanations of human action based on, at least in principle, an unlimited number of other theories.