Charles Brown: > Yet, this new behaviorism is > still, in Marx's term, a Robinsonade, > based in the fictional typical individual, > not in an analysis of _social_ > relations. It is a reductionist > explanation, reducing a social > phenomenon to a "collection > of individuals" with a type of > "psychology". The "rational man'/ > reasonable man " of classical > economics and law is replaced > with the "irrational/rational reasonable > unreasonable person". But the > error is not in attributing rationality, but in > in reducing the social market to > a collection of individual psyches, > bouncing off of each other like > Newtonian particles. It is an error of > the old type of thinking the whole is the > sum of its parts and particles.
right: the new behavioral economics (which isn't, strictly speaking, behaviorist) is individualistic. But it doesn't just look at the "typical" individual: some heterogeneity is allowed for in their view. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
