How Do You Know?
The Economics of Ordinary Knowledge
Published on 26. April 2009
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-0-691-13755-1 (ISBN)
Description
How do ordinary people come to know or believe what they do? We need an account of this process to help explain why people act as they do. You might think I am acting irrationally--against my interest or my purpose--until you realize that what you know and what I know differ significantly. My actions, given my knowledge, might make eminently good sense. Of course, this pushes our problem back one stage to assess why someone knows or believes what they do. That is the focus of this book. Russell Hardin supposes that people are not usually going to act knowingly against their interests or other purposes. To try to understand how they have come to their knowledge or beliefs is therefore to be charitable in assessing their rationality. Hardin insists on such a charitable stance in the effort to understand others and their sometimes objectively perverse actions. Hardin presents an essentially economic account of what an individual can come to know and then applies this account to many areas of ordinary life: political participation, religious beliefs, popular knowledge of science, liberalism, culture, extremism, moral beliefs, and institutional knowledge.
All of these can be enlightened by the supposition that people are attempting reasonable actions under the severe constraints of acquiring better knowledge when they face demands that far outstretch their possibilities.
All of these can be enlightened by the supposition that people are attempting reasonable actions under the severe constraints of acquiring better knowledge when they face demands that far outstretch their possibilities.
Reviews / Votes
"This book is an exceptionally clear statement of why individuals believe and act as they do and should be especially useful to policy makers."--Choice "Overall, this book is a good choice for anybody with broad interests, as Hardin is highly knowledgeable on an impressive broad scale of issues. It is well-written, and the many international examples give this book a rare global perspective... [I]t is an essential reference that serves as an excellent guide to a fast, multidisciplinary theme."--Hans Dubois, CEU Political Science Journal "[Hardin] he offers an insightful lens on popular knowledge in society and politics."--Mark B. Brown, Perspectives on PoliticsMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New Jersey
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Trade binding
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-691-13755-1 (9780691137551)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
04/2014
1st Edition
Princeton University Press
€21.99
Available for download
Person
Russell Hardin is professor of politics at New York University and the author of many books, including "David Hume: Moral and Political Theorist, Indeterminacy and Society" (Princeton), "Liberalism, Constitutionalism, and Democracy", and "One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict" (Princeton).
Content
Preface xi Acknowledgments xiii Chapter 1: Ordinary Knowledge 1 An Economic Theory of Knowledge 4 The Social Generation of Knowledge 10 Knowledge from Authority 11 The Division of Labor and Individual Knowledge 14 The Internalization of Norms 15 Standard Philosophical Theories of Knowledge 19 Concluding Remarks 25 Chapter 2: Popular Knowledge of Science 28 Medical Knowledge 35 Estrangement from Science 41 The Science Wars 44 Religion versus Science 45 A New Science? 49 Concluding Remarks 58 Chapter 3: Democratic Participation 60 The Logic of Collective Action 62 The Economic Theory of Democracy 63 Voting and Ordinary Knowledge 65 Knowledge of How to Vote 66 Median Knowledge 69 Understanding Whether to Vote 70 Multidimensional Issues 78 Concluding Remarks 80 Chapter 4: Liberalism 83 Austrian Social Theory 84 Legibility and Democracy 87 Seeing like Hayek 89 Distributed Knowledge and Policy 91 Civil Liberties 93 Liberty and Welfare 96 Concluding Remarks 99 Chapter 5: Moral Knowledge 101 Individual Moral Knowledge 103 Testing Moral Theories against Common Sense 105 The Strategy of Knowing 111 The Economics of Moral Motivation 113 Social Evolution of Collective Moral Knowledge 114 Authority and Moral Knowledge 118 Concluding Remarks 119 Chapter 6: Institutional Knowledge 121 Strategic Interaction and Institutions 123 Institutions and Moral Knowledge 124 Institutions as Meliorative 126 Apparent Mutual Advantage 130 Interpersonal Comparisons of Welfare 131 Concluding Remarks 133 Chapter 7: Religious Belief and Practice 135 Religious Knowledge by Authority 138 Incentive to Believe, or Count as True 142 Adaptive Knowledge Revision 143 Communal Sources of Belief 147 Communal Enforcement of Belief 148 Sincerity of Belief and Knowledge 150 Fundamentalist, Infallible Belief 153 Concluding Remarks 159 Chapter 8: Culture 161 Group-Specific Implications of Individual Knowledge 162 Knowledge and Culture 166 A Functional Account of Culture 175 The Goodness of a Culture 176 Collective Identity 179 Concluding Remarks 181 Chapter 9: Extremism 185 Knowledge by Authority, Again 186 Normal Politics 187 The Belief System of Extremism 188 Nationalism 191 Fanatical Action without Fanatical Belief 195 Interests and Knowledge 196 Knowledge, Fanaticism, and Nationalism 200 Coerced Ignorance 201 Concluding Remarks 203 References 205 Index 219