O mito do referencial

Publicado originalmente com o título “The Myth of the Framework”. In: Joseph C. Pitt & Marcello Pera (Eds.) – Rational Changes in Science: Essays on Scientific Reasoning – Reidel, Dordrecht, 1976, p. 35-62. © Sir Karl Popper 1976.Tradução de Mário A. Eufrásio (Departamento de Sociologia – FFLCH-USP, Pesquisador do CNPq) e de Pedro Motta de Barros (doutorando em história da ciência, pesquisador do Centro de História da Ciência da Universidade de São Paulo-CHC/USP)

Dilemmas of public election

In this brief comment, the public choice theory aims to distinguish the dilemmas and conflicts in formal and empirical. The hypothesis argues that the reality more complex than the principles of choice of Pareto and Liberalism*. Both the ethics and politics are taking decisions that are not always in line with the requirements of rationality and complete informatio

Science and Ideology in Economic, Political, and Social Thought

This paper has two sources: One is my own research in three broad areas: business cycles, economic measurement and social choice. In all of these fields I attempted to apply the basic precepts of the scientific method as it is understood in the natural sciences. I found that my effort at using natural science methods in economics was met with little understanding and often considerable hostility. I found economics to be driven less by common sense and empirical evidence, then by various ideologies that exhibited either a political or a methodological bias, or both. This brings me to the second source: Several books have appeared recently that describe in historical terms the ideological forces that have shaped either the direct areas in which I worked, or a broader background. These books taught me that the ideological forces in the social sciences are even stronger than I imagined on the basis of my own experiences. The scientific method is the antipode to ideology. I feel that the scientific work that I have done on specific, long standing and fundamental problems in economics and political science have given me additional insights into the destructive role of ideology beyond the history of thought orientation of the works I will be discussing

Agent-Based Simulation as an Implementation of Methodological Individualism

This paper investigates the relationship between methodological individualism (MI) and Agent-Based Simulation (ABS). We discuss and analyze a thesis defended by philosophers Caterina Marchionni and Petri Ylikoski (2013). The thesis maintains that, since MI is often considered to be a reductionist approach, it is confusing and meaningless to assume that ABS, which is a non-reductionist and emergentist explanatory model, is committed to MI. We reject this thesis arguing that, from a philosophical standpoint, addressing the problem of the consistency between MI and ABS from a strictly utilitarian perspective is unsatisfactory. We analyze this problem in more substantial terms, i.e. focusing on its more theoretical and conceptual aspects. Moreover, we maintain that ABS explanations must be regarded as individualist explanations and provide a set of logical and historical arguments against the widespread interpretation of MI in terms of reductionism