Tommaso Ostillio

In this work, I investigate the implications of reversing the common assumption of rationality on behalf of human agents typically underlying philosophical research. Instead, I assume that human agents can become rational only if they learn to edge against their dumbness. Specifically, I show that intelligence cannot be considered the opposite of dumbness. To this end, I embrace the difference among System 1, System 2, and System 1.5. On these grounds, I argue that System 2 can be considered the system of intelligence, whereas Systems 1 and 1.5 can be viewed as the systems of rationality. More precisely, I argue that System 2 concerns theoretical reasoning, whereas System 1 and 1.5 concern practical reasoning. Accordingly, I show that people are dumber whenever they fail to have rational control over System 1 via System 1.5, whereas people become more rational whenever they manage to have rational control over System 1 via System 1.5. Interestingly, both cases can be considered the causes of two distinct social processes. On one side, when dumbness increases among individuals, social groups achieve coordination that detriments general welfare. On the other, when dumbness decreases among individuals, social groups achieve coordination that maximizes general welfare.

Several studies have lately revealed that social media conceal at least three dangerous pitfalls. Firstly, social media can negatively impact sociopolitical processes in advanced liberal democracies by becoming vehicles for the spread of false information that augments political polarization (Lee et al. 2017; Ostillio 2018). Secondly, as a result of the first point, social mediacan rapidly become a source of incorrect beliefs for those subjects with low digital literacy (Guess et al. 2019). Thirdly, because of the first and second points, intentionally deceitful manipulations of social media content are potent generators of information cascades that increase group polarizations across groups of vulnerable social media users (Jang and Kim2018, Wang et al. 2018, Colliander 2019). These findings support the claim that the circulation of biased content on social media potentially threatens sociopolitical stability in liberal Western democracies (Duffy 2018; Sunstein 2018). Although this claim is far from being speculative, as shown by the FacebookFile investigations (Wall Street Journal 2019) and the center for humane technology’s recen tresearch, it introduces a thorny dilemma regarding the founding principles of liberal Western democracies. Namely, should Western legislators limit free speech by introducing severe penalties for those who spread fake news and the likes on social media? Or should they let the free market autonomously produce efficient technology allowing people to identify biased social media content?In other words, is a libertarian solution to the plight of online fake news and the like preferable to adequate legislation that punishes those who spread such content? Though appealing, it is unrealistic to believe that the free market can resolve this problem. On the other hand, it is realistic to suppose that Western governments should engage in a merciless battle against biased social media content. For instance, following the publication of the Report of the independent High level Group on fake news and online disinformation in 2018, the European Union introduced new directives to limit the spread of fake news online in 2021, when the Covid19 pandemic started fading. Although initiatives as such might look like limitations of free speech, there is solid philosophical ground to defend such initiatives. To prove this contention, we resort to Hobbes’s (1651, Part II, §18 and §29) argument that humans can avoid falling back into the Hobbesian state of war only if they stipulate a covenant. Specifically, we appeal to Hobbes’s (1651) argument in favor of bestowing the sovereign the right to ban those seditious doctrines that might undermine peace and sociopolitical stability in the Hobbesian Commonwealth. In this regard, we show that the Hobbesian covenant resolves conflict among humans in the same way a correlated equilibrium limits noncooperation in game theory. Namely, like game theory players, citizens enjoy greater welfare whenever they observe rules that mitigate conflict (Slomp 2010). Accordingly, we argue that citizens would be better off only if Western governments introduced severe penalties for those who intentionally spread fake news. Notably, we argue that effective regulation would create disincentives for spreading biased content and incentives for spreading truthful content. Furthermore, we argue that effective regulation against online fake news would assuage the polarizing effects of online availability cascades on social networks. Importantly, we provide empirical evidence supporting these claims by showing that the lack of effective regulation led the American government to miserably fail to contain the devasting effects of the online infodemic (i.e., the epidemic of false online information)that took place during the first two waves of the Covid19 pandemic (Evanega et al. 2020, Milosh et al. 2020).

This paper attempts to construct a short epistemology of economic models by using as a benchmark a comparison between the methodological issues of contemporary physics and of economics. In particular, the paper focuses on the role of indeterminacy in either sciences. Herein the general claim is that the models of economics fail at dealing with uncertainty as effectively as the models of natural sciences because economists did not manage to overcome the identification problem that is peculiar to economics. In this respect, the paper shows that the models of economics assume an untenable determinism that derives from the notion of rationality of agents. The paper is divided in three sections: the first section deals with the issues related to assumptions in the models of physics and economics; the second section deals with the problem of uncertainty in quantum mechanics and in economics; the third section deals with the problem of causality in both sciences. Eventually, the paper concludes that several methodological problems affect the efficiency of economic models. Most importantly, the paper finds that economic models abstract too much from the reality and, thus, do not provide deep investigations of agents’ discrete choices. This is shown to affect the consistency of models and their explanatory power.

This dissertation compares the notions of homo rationalis in Philosophy and homo oeconomicus in Economics. Particularly, in Part I, we claim that both notions are close methodological substitutes. Accordingly, we show that the constraints involved in the notion of economic rationality apply to the philosophical notion of rationality. On these premises, we explore the links between the notions of Kantian and Humean rationality in Philosophy and the constructivist and ecological approaches to rationality in economics, respectively. Particularly, we show that the constraints involved in both approaches to rationality in economics apply to the notions of Kantian and Humean rationality. That is why we introduce the notion of minimal global rationality. In a nutshell, the latter links one’s rationality to one’s ability to make good use of their cognitive apparatus to process contextual variables. On this basis, in Part II, we present two empirical tests showing that minimal global rationality is at work in philosophical experiments because systematic manipulations of contextual variables predictably affect philosophical judgment in the Trolley Problem and in some Knobe-like vignettes. In the first case, the manipulation of the information provided to subjects predictably causes inconsistent judgments. More precisely, subjects’ response to information shocks predictably causes them to issue inconsistent judgments. Instead, in the second case, our experimental results reveal that the Knobe Effect activates only if the perpetrator of an action is likely to be perceived as evil and unfriendly. Besides, when the Knobe-like vignettes include probabilistic outcomes, the Knobe Effect does not activate or is reduced in magnitude. For these reasons, we maintain that the availability heuristic bias arguably affects one’s judgment in Knobe-like experiment settings. Eventually, in Part III, we survey the general implications of the findings presented in Part II. First and foremost, we show that when manned social media algorithms produce wide-ranging availability cascades, agents predictably respond to those cascades by herding around biased claims. Interestingly, we find that the exposure to similarly redundant online content makes new social groups emerge unhindered. That is why populists and conspiracy theorists obtain such a large follow-up online. Secondly, we find that manned social media algorithms can exploit the flaws of minimal global rationality at a faster pace than humans. Yet, given that latter algorithms cannot do so on their own, we argue that the Turing Test is still an open game. Specifically, we argue so because state-of-the-art technology can request a service to be supplied (e.g., Google Duplex) but cannot operate direct sales. This constraint of state-of-the-art technology is linked to its inability to exploit the flaws of global minimal rationality as well as humans can. Importantly, we show that if algorithms were able to do so, the involved sociopolitical risk would be high. Therefore, we argue that only some form of regulation over state-of-the-art technology can prevent and reduce such sociopolitical risks. In case you want a copy of this dissertation, please email me.

This dissertation attempts to settle some challenging historiographic issues concerning the origin and development of the concept of economic equilibrium. Specifically, our research goal is to identify the philosophical and historical drivers of the mathematization of economic theory. To this end, we attempt to answer three fundamental research questions. First, why (and not how) has economics become a mathematical science? Second, what are the major methodological blunders that lie at the foundations of Modern General Equilibrium Theory? Third, is the contemporary criticism of Modern General Equilibrium Theory meaningful and well-founded? In order, chapters 1-3 address the first question, chapters 4 and 5 address the second, whereas chapter 6 addresses the third question. Regarding the first question, we investigate the methodological relationships between Modern Physics, Modern Philosophy, and Walras’s Theory of General Equilibrium. Interestingly, our findings reveal that while the study of motion in Modern Physics relies upon a clear distinction between static and dynamic equilibrium, early mathematical economics borrows its methodology from Modern Physics but relies upon an Aristotelian conception of equilibrium. Furthermore, we identify exciting analogies between Kant’s philosophy and Walras’s Elements. Finally, we show that the so-called Walras Paradox also features another unexplored dimension. Namely, Walras’s work overall relies upon a bottom-up approach to mathematics. Yet Walras’s work includes problems that require a top-down approach to mathematics to be solved. Regarding the second question, we delve into the tight relationship between the History of Mathematics in the 19th Century, the Philosophy of Mathematics in the 20th Century, and the development of Modern General Equilibrium Theory in the 20th Century. Notably, we find that the top-down approach to mathematics provides economists with a reliable methodology to resolve the problems in Walras’s original work. Hence, the mathematization of General Equilibrium Theory in the 20th Century is a child of its time that carries the inapplicability of pure mathematics to real-world problems along with itself. Therefore, although the mathematization of General Equilibrium Theory is an unprecedented milestone in economic theory, the foundations of Modern General Equilibrium Theory inherit the methodological shortcomings of Contemporary Mathematics. That is why the Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu does not overtake the Aristotelian conception of equilibrium. Accordingly, we rebut the claim that Debreu and colleagues' mathematization of General Equilibrium Theory resolves the fundamental methodological shortcomings of Walras’s original work. Eventually, we use our answers to our first and second research questions to address the contemporary criticism of General Equilibrium Theory. On the one hand, we show that the latter criticism does not account for the fact that General Equilibrium Theory inherits the scientific realism and determinism of Modern Physics. In other words, we argue that the inability of General Equilibrium models to manage uncertainty effectively has nothing to do with its mathematization in the 20th Century. Instead, it results from the unexplored dimension of the Walras Paradox, which we uncover. On the other hand, we show that common accusations of inconsistency, incompleteness, and undecidability in General Equilibrium Theory are ill-founded. That is because other rigorous alternatives to axiomatization in economics are not paradox-free. On these grounds, we conclude that a much better option is to employ a topic-neutral language to provide rigorous presentations of contested concepts in economics. Particularly, we show that formal mereology offers a convenient methodological framework to resolve the disagreement between the Neoclassical and Institutionalist economists’ respective definitions of the concept of the market. In this way, we show that the latter concept is definable as a process. But, more importantly, we note that formal mereology also offers a convenient framework to reformulate other economic concepts concisely and rigorously. In this regard, we observe that formal mereology might provide a resolution for Hayek’s Problem because it would enable economists to define general equilibrium as a perduring socioeconomic process. In case you want a copy of my dissertation, please email me.

This paper attempts to construct a short epistemology of economic models by using as a benchmark a comparison between the methodological issues of contemporary physics and of economics. In particular, the paper focuses on the role of indeterminacy in either sciences. Herein the general claim is that the models of economics fail at dealing with uncertainty as effectively as the models of natural sciences because economists did not manage to overcome the identification problem that is peculiar to economics. In this respect, the paper shows that the models of economics assume an untenable determinism that derives from the notion of rationality of agents. The paper is divided in three sections: the first section deals with the issues related to assumptions in the models of physics and economics; the second section deals with the problem of uncertainty in quantum mechanics and in economics; the third section deals with the problem of causality in both sciences. Eventually, the paper concludes that several methodological problems affect the efficiency of economic models. Most importantly, the paper finds that economic models abstract too much from the reality and, thus, do not provide deep investigations of agents’ discrete choices. This is shown to affect the consistency of models and their explanatory power. Keywords: economics; philosophy of science, epistemology, rationality, uncertainty,

This paper argues that economics is epistemologically limited in at least two main ways: first, economics fails at managing uncertainty as effectively as natural sciences do; second, economics assumes that rational patterns of utility maximization are real just to ensure deduction within economic models. Hence, this paper maintains that the high level of abstraction from reality of economics limits its explanations of its constantly changing ontology, i.e. markets. In particular, this paper shows that the epistemological limitations of economics become evident once two examples from today’s world are considered, namely: the substitution of physical labor with AI-powered machines; and the introduction of the so-called Universal Basic Income (UBI), i.e. governmental stipends paid to those citizens whose job has been replaced by machines. Importantly, this paper argues that if an economy were to reach to the point where machines run any sort of private or public business and humans earn only the UBI, then such a situation would represent a limit case for economics. Indeed, this paper finds that although machines would represent the perfect example of rational utility-maximizers, in such a limit situation standard economic theory would most likely fail at predicting long-term economic outcomes.

This research study focuses on the problem of populistic propaganda online. In particular, this research study provides three case studies gathered in a Facebook Group of the Italian populistic movement Movimento 5 Stelle. On the one hand, the three case studies provide three powerful counterexamples to the thesis that online media are purposeful aggregator of people. In fact, this research study finds that online media are the perfect environment for populism to thrive. For online media seem to foster the aggregation of people into groups whose main common denominator is the total refusal of anything that opposes the groups’ views. On this basis, this paper provides evidence that online media may impoverish democratic confrontation. On the other hand, this paper finds that the one of the causes of the rapid rise of populistic movements in Western countries might also be related to the problem of cognitive biases. Indeed, the case studies presented in the paper posit the existence of something that is addressed as the trigger effect, i.e. agents’ tendency to react impulsively to any kind of content that fits agent’s views about current events. Specifically, this research study finds that the activation of the trigger effect might be a direct consequence of the activation of the narrow framing bias and of the anchoring heuristic in presence of fake news.

This paper contributes to the existing philosophical literature on the Knobe Effect (KE) in two main ways: first, this paper disconfirms the KE by showing that the latter does not hold in contexts with probable outcomes; second, this paper shows that KE is strongly sensitive to the availability heuristic bias. In particular, this paper presents two main findings from three empirical tests carried out between 2016 and 2018: the first finding concerns the fact that if the issuer of a decision with consequences on third parties is unlikely to be perceived as unfriendly, then KE is reduced or absent; the second finding regards instead the fact that if an action has two possible outcomes (one likely to obtain with strong intensity and one likely to obtain with less intensity), then KE does not obtain for decisions whose side-effects have limited consequences on third parties.