Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vfjqv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T05:38:31.923Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Why evolutionary realism underpins evolutionary economic analysis and theory: A reply to Runde's critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2010

KURT DOPFER  and
JASON POTTS
KURT DOPFER*
Affiliation:
University of St Gallen, St Gallen, Switzerland
JASON POTTS
Affiliation:
School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, AustraliaCCI, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
*
*Email: kurt.dopfer@unisg.ch
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This paper offers a reply to Jochen Runde's critical appraisal of the ontological framework underpinning Dopfer and Potts's (2008) General Theory of Economic Evolution. We argue that Runde's comprehensive critique contains several of what we perceive to be misunderstandings in relation to the key concepts of ‘generic’ and ‘meso’ that we seek here to unpack and redress.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , September 2010 , pp. 401 - 413
Copyright
Copyright © The JOIE Foundation 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aldrich, H., Hodgson, G., Hull, D., Knudsen, T., Mokyr, J., and Vanberg, V. (2008), ‘In Defence of Generalised Darwinism’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 18 (5): 577–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castellacci, F. (2006), ‘A Critical Realist Interpretation of Evolutionary Growth Theorizing’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 30 (6): 861–880.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dopfer, K. (1970), Ost-West Konvergenz, Zürich: Polygraphischer Verlag.Google Scholar
Dopfer, K. (1988), ‘Classical Mechanics with an Ethical Dimension: Professor Tinbergen's Economics’, Journal of Economic Issues, 22 (3): 675–706CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dopfer, K. (1989), ‘The Natural Axioms of Economics’, paper presented at sixteenth annual meeting of History of Economics Society, University of Richmond (Rev. version publ. as ‘Elemente einer Evolutionsökonomik. Prozess, Struktur und Phasenübergänge’, Studien zur evolutorischen Ökonomik, 195/1, Witt, U. (ed.) Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 19–47).Google Scholar
Dopfer, K. (2001), ‘Evolutionary Economics: Framework for Analysis’, in Dopfer, K. (ed.), Evolutionary Economics: Program and Scope, Dortrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dopfer, K. (2004), ‘The Economic Agent as Rule Maker and Rule User: Homo Sapiens Oeconomicus’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 14 (2): 177–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dopfer, K. (2005), ‘Evolutionary Economics: A Theoretical Framework’, in Dopfer, K. (ed.), The Evolutionary Foundations of Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dopfer, K. and Potts, J. (2004a), ‘Evolutionary Realism: A New Ontology for Economics’, Journal of Economic Methodology, 11: 195–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dopfer, K. and Potts, J. (2004b), ‘Evolutionary Foundations of Economics’, in Metcalfe, J. S. and Foster, J. (eds.), Evolution and Economic Complexity, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, Chapter 1, pp. 3–23.Google Scholar
Dopfer, K. and Potts, J. (2008), The General Theory of Economic Evolution, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Dopfer, K., Foster, J., and Potts, J. (2004), ‘Micro–Meso–Macro’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 14: 263–279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodgson, G. (2002), ‘Darwinism in Economics: From Analogy to Ontology’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 12 (3): 259–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Juniper, J. (2008), ‘A Critique of Dopfer and Potts's Evolutionary Realism’, Proceedings of the 32nd ANZRSAI Conference, available at: http://www.anzrsai.org/system/files/f1/f54/o305//Juniper.pdfGoogle Scholar
Lawson, C., Latsis, J., and Martins, N. (eds.) (2007), Contributions to Social Ontology, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lawson, T. (1997), Economics and Reality, London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawson, T. (2003), Reorienting Economics, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lawson, T. (2004), ‘A Conception of Ontology’, Unpublished manuscript, Cambridge University.Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. (1958/1966), Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings (Values in a Universe of Chance), edited by Wiener, P. P., New York: Dover Publications.Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. (2004), The Cambridge Companion to Peirce, edited by Misak, C., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Philip, P. (1995), ‘Transcendental Realism: A Foundation for Evolutionary Economics?’, International Journal of Social Economics, 22 (12): 19–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potts, J. (2000), The New Evolutionary Microeconomics: Complexity, Competence and Adaptive Behaviour, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Runde, J. (2009), ‘Ontology and the Foundations of Evolutionary Economic Theory: On Dopfer and Potts’, General Theory of Economic Evolution’ Journal of Institutional Economics, 5 (3): 361–378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitehead, A. N. (1926/1979), Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, edited by Griffin, D. and Sherburne, D., New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar