Witten/Herdecke University
Alumnus, 2013
Hannover, NDS, Germany
  •  803
    Imagination Rather Than Observation in Econometrics: Ragnar Frisch’s Hypothetical Experiments as Thought Experiments
    Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 9 (1): 35-74. 2019.
    In economics, thought experiments are frequently justified by the difficulty of conducting controlled experiments. They serve several functions, such as establishing causal facts, isolating tendencies, and allowing inferences from models to reality. In this paper, I argue that thought experiments served a further function in economics: facilitating the quantitative definition and measurement of the theoretical concept of utility, thereby bridging the gap between theory and statistical data. I su…Read more
  •  215
    One striking observation in the history of rational choice models is that those models have not only been used in economics but spread widely across the social and behavioral sciences. How do such model transfers proceed? By closely studying the early efforts to transfer such models by William Riker – a major protagonist in pushing the adoption of game theoretic models in political science – this article examines the transfer process as one of ‘translation’ by which abstract and mathematical rat…Read more
  •  170
    In this paper, we examine how a research institution’s social structure and academic opinion leaders’ presence shaped the early adoption of a scientific innovation. Our case considers the early engagement of mathematical economists at the Cowles Commission with John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. We argue that scholars with administrative leadership functions who were not only scientifically but also organizationally central – in our case the director …Read more
  •  163
    Progress in Economics
    with Marcel Boumans
    In Yafeng Shan (ed.), New Philosophical Perspectives on Scientific Progres. forthcoming.
    In this chapter, we discuss a specific kind of progress that occurs in most branches of economics today: progress involving the repeated use of mathematical models. We adopt a functional account of progress to argue that progress in economics occurs through the use of what we call “common recipes” and model templates for defining and solving problems of relevance for economists. We support our argument by discussing the case of 20th century business cycle research. By presenting this case study …Read more
  •  84
    In this paper, I review the literature on rational choice theory to scrutinize a number of criticisms that philosophers have voiced against its usefulness in economics. The paper has three goals: first, I argue that the debates about RCT have been characterized by disunity and confusion about the object under scrutiny, which calls into question the effectiveness of those criticisms. Second, I argue that RCT is not a single and unified choice theory—let alone an empirical theory of human behavior…Read more
  •  83
    Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate edited by Julie Zahle and Finn Collin is reviewed. Each of the contributions contained in the volume is summarized. The review concludes by assessing the volume’s usefulness for bringing clarity into the debate in the light of the editors’ self-set goal of rethinking the individualism-holism debate as one of the more important yet confused debates in philosophy of the social sciences.
  •  75
    The diffusion of scientific innovations: A role typology
    with Malte Doehne
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 77 64-80. 2019.
    How do scientific innovations spread within and across scientific communities? In this paper, we propose a general account of the diffusion of scientific innovations. This account acknowledges that novel ideas must be elaborated on and conceptually translated before they can be adopted and applied to field-specific problems. We motivate our account by examining an exemplary case of knowledge diffusion, namely, the early spread of theories of rational decision-making. These theories were grounded…Read more
  •  62
  •  61
    Model Transfer in Science
    In Tarja Knuuttila, Natalia Carrillo & Rami Koskinen (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Scientific Modeling, Routledge. 2024.
    A conspicuous feature of contemporary modelling practices is the use of the same mathematical forms and modelling methods across different scientific domains. This model transfer raises many philosophical questions concerning, for example, the exact object of transfer, the relationship between the model and the target domain, the specific challenges such transfer confronts, and the ways in which model transfer relates to scientific progress. While the interest in studying model transfer has incr…Read more
  •  54
    This paper addresses the explanatory role of the concept of a motive for action in economics. The aim of the paper is to show the difficulty economists have to accommodate the motive of commitment into their explanatory and predictive framework, i.e. rational choice theory. One difficulty is that the economists’ explanation becomes analytic when assuming preferences of commitment. Another difficulty is that it is highly doubtful whether commitment can be represented by current frameworks while s…Read more
  •  45
    From theories of human behavior to rules of rational choice
    History of Political Economy 50 (1): 1-48. 2018.
    This article traces a normative turn between the middle of the 1940s and the early 1950s reflected in the reformulation, interpretation, and use of rational choice theories at the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics. This turn is paralleled by a transition from Jacob Marschak’s to Tjalling Koopmans’s research program. While rational choice theories initially raised high hopes that they would serve as empirical accounts to inform testable hypotheses about economic regularities, they becam…Read more
  •  39
    Thick Concepts in Economics: The Case of Becker and Murphy’s Theory of Rational Addiction
    with Charles Djordjevic
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 51 (4): 371-399. 2021.
    In this paper, we examine the viability of avoiding value judgments encoded in thick concepts when these concepts are used in economic theories. We focus on what implications the use of such thick concepts might have for the tenability of the fact/value dichotomy in economics. Thick concepts have an evaluative and a descriptive component. Our suggestion is that despite attempts to rid thick concepts of their evaluative component, economists are often not successful. We focus on the strategy of e…Read more
  •  38
    Using Rational Choice Theory to account for moral agency has always had some uncomfortable aspect to it. Economists’ attempts to include the moral dimension of behaviour either as a preference for moral behaviour or as an external constraint on self-interested choice, have been criticized for relying on tautologies or lacking a realistic picture of motivation. Homo Oeconomicus, even when conceptually enriched by all kinds of motivations, is ultimately still characterized as caring only for what …Read more
  •  37
    Revisiting the criticisms of rational choice theories
    Philosophy Compass 17 (1). 2021.
    Theories of rational choice are arguably the most prominent approaches to human behaviour in the social and behavioral sciences. At the same time, they have faced persistent criticism. In this paper, I revisit some of the core criticisms that have for a long time been levelled against them and discuss to what extent those criticisms are still effective, not only in light of recent advancements in the literature but also of the fact that there are different variants of rational choice theories th…Read more
  •  34
    Review: Marcel Boumans: Science outside the Laboratory (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. forthcoming.
  •  34
    Rational choice as a toolbox for the economist: an interview with Itzhak Gilboa
    Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 7 (2): 116-141. 2014.
  •  33
    The many faces of rational choice theory
    Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 6 (2): 117. 2013.
  •  32
    Knowledge transfer and its contexts
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 77 1-10. 2019.
    Knowledge transfer across different contexts has become an increasingly prevalent feature of current science. As such, it is a relevant topic also for history and philosophy of science. This special issue presents a set of papers that study knowledge transfer in various disciplines. The contributions approach the topic from either an integrated history and philosophy of science perspective, 2) a systematic philosophical perspective, or 3) a historical perspective. This overview article is organi…Read more
  •  29
    Concept formation has recently become a widely discussed topic in philosophy under the headings of “conceptual engineering”, “conceptual ethics”, and “ameliorative analysis”. Much of this work has been inspired either by the method of explication or by ameliorative projects. In the former case, concept formation is usually seen as a tool of the sciences, of formal disciplines, and of philosophy. In the latter case, concept formation is seen as a tool in the service of social progress. While rece…Read more
  •  23
    Five reasons for the use of network analysis in the history of economics
    with Malte Doehne
    Journal of Economic Methodology 25 (4): 311-328. 2018.
    Network analysis is increasingly appreciated as a methodology in the social sciences. In recent years, it is also receiving attention among historians of science. History of economics is no exception in that researchers have begun to use network analysis to study a variety of topics, including collaborations and interactions in scientific communities, the spread of economic theories within and across fields, or the formation of new specialties in the discipline of economics. Against this backdro…Read more
  •  22
    This paper discusses why mathematical economists of the early Cold War period favored formal-axiomatic over behavioral choice theories. One reason was that formal-axiomatic theories allowed mathematical economists to improve the conceptual and theoretical foundations of economics and thereby to increase its scientific status. Furthermore, the separation between mathematical economics and other behavioral sciences was not as clear-cut as often argued. While economists did not modify their behavio…Read more
  •  21
    The world in axioms: an interview with Patrick Suppes
    Journal of Economic Methodology 23 (3): 333-346. 2016.
  •  19
    Since the early days of economics, the rationality principle has been a core element of economic theorizing. It is part of almost any theoretical framework that economists use to generate knowledge. Despite its central role, the principle’s epistemic status and function continue to be debated between empiricists and rationalists, and a clear winner is yet to emerge. One point of contention is that we cannot explain the principle’s special status in light of clear evidence against its empirical v…Read more
  •  19
    Rational choice explanations in political science
    with Johannes Marx
    In Harold Kincaid & Jeroen van Bouwel (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Political Science, Oxford University Press. 2023.
    In this chapter, it is described and assessed how political scientists use rational choice theories to offer causal explanations. We observe that the ways in which rational choice theories are considered to be successful in political science differs, depending on the explanandum in question. Political scientists use empirical variants of rational choice theories to explain the political behavior of individual agents and analytical variants to explain the behavior of collective actors. Both varia…Read more
  •  16
    The soul of economics: editorial
    Journal of Economic Methodology 30 (2): 71-79. 2023.
    The Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 has been one of the worst economic crises since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In addition to directly impacting the economy, it had substantial ramifications...