Introduction to Jack Birner

Jack Birner is a very interesting, productive and versatile scholar, operating on the boundary of economics and cognitive science with a firm grasp of epistemology and methodology. He also operates across the Popper/Hayek divide, or rather does not acknowledge that there is a serious divide (unlike the Popperian social democrats who disparage Hayek and the libertarians who can't abide Popper), just differences.

This is a list of publications and cv type stuff

This list has even more stuff listed. WARNING Do not read if suffering from jet lag

He is based in the Dipartimento di sociologia e ricerca sociale, Uni of Trento, Italia and these are working papers by some of his colleagues.

Among some of his recently updated working papers is a particularly interesting one called The Mind Body Problem and Social Evolution which compares and contrasts Popper and Hayek on evolution and the human mind.

1. Introduction
2. Against obscurantism
3. Hayek’s theory of social evolution
4. Popper’s “early” theory of evolution
5. When does a theory qualify as a theory of evolution?
6. The place of the human mind in the world
7. The influence of Kant and Hume
8. Psychology and the theory of knowledge
9. Epistemology and the knowing subject
10. Popper’s criticism of Hayek
11. Group selection: Popper’s “late” theory of evolution
12. Self-reference as a problem for theories of cultural evolution
13. Some conclusions

"What can we learn from the confrontation between Popper’s and Hayek’s systems of ideas? I will indicate, too briefly, incompletely and sketchily, just a few answers.
In order for a theory of cultural evolution to account for the role of human knowledge without falling into contradictions must be indeterministic and non-materialistic. Popper’s theory of “behavioural monsters” that create ecological niches which subsequently act as units of selection is an interesting attempt that may be adapted to the domain of social and cultural evolution. The mechanism would be, very briefly, that the rational response of individuals to changes in their language receives confirmation from an unexpected quarter. Goals and preferences may lead to new institutions which may or may not prove to be able to be stable.
If we translate Popper’s theory of evolution to the social domain, I think that he has indicated that it is possible to construct an evolutionary theory that can account for the interaction between individuals and their institutional environment; that rapid change in social evolution does not need Lamarckian instruction; that group selection can be given a sound and non-tautologous content; and that our ontological conviction that ideas matter can find a place in such a theory.
If the contents of the human mind, its functioning and deliberate interventions guided by it do not make a difference to social evolution on the macro level, this has to be demonstrated. The mechanisms by which individual actions create unintended consequences must be specified.
(Pietro Terna is engaged in a research project that examines whether, and to what extent, the mental structure of individuals makes a difference for collective effects. He uses computer simulations. But it is good to keep in mind that he limits himself to one very particular collective efect, price formation.) This is the as yet largely unexplored domain of social amplifiers.

This is a previous reference to Birner's views on Popper and Hayek, written in response to Bruce Caldwell's position.