Orthodox Theories Research Articles

Unification without pragmatism

AbstractBoth actions and beliefs are subject to normative evaluation as rational or irrational. As such, we might expect there to be some general, unified story about what makes them rational. However, orthodox approaches suggest that the rationality of action is determined by practical considerations, while the rationality of belief is determined by properly epistemic considerations. This apparent disunity leads some, like Rinard (2019), to reject orthodox theories of the rationality of belief in favor of pragmatism. In this paper, I argue we should reject pragmatist approaches to unifying the rationality of action and belief. Instead, I argue, we should embrace a correctness‐based view of rationality, on which rationality is fundamentally about getting things correct as best we can, given our epistemic limitations. On such a view, the facts about rational action and belief are a function of the facts about correct action and belief. I contend that the apparent disunity of orthodox theories is created by the fact that action and belief have different correctness conditions. Nevertheless, on the correctness‐based view, this disunity is merely apparent. This renders pragmatism's revisionary implications for the rationality of belief unnecessary to take on in order unify it with the rationality of action.

The military in Zimbabwean politics

The military remains active in Zimbabwean politics, yet military practices within and outside the barracks have received scant attention, especially regarding how the military sustains political parties in power. This article argues that the military is the power behind the survival of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) as a political party. Understanding the Zimbabwe military requires a detailed understanding of its relationship with ZANU-PF, but also of the ways in which the military’s economic interests inform its deep involvement in politics. The Zimbabwe military produces a political threat and then seeks to protect against the same threat it created within and beyond ZANU-PF. However, the relationship between ZANU-PF and the military is deeply rooted in history and determines the political path of the party. There has never been a period in which the military has been the apolitical and professional organisation which orthodox theories of its role would suggest.

Journeying to the past: time travel and mental time travel, how far apart?

Spatial models dominated memory research throughout much of the twentieth century, but in recent decades, the concept of memory as a form of mental time travel (MTT) to the past has gained prominence. Initially introduced as a metaphor, the MTT perspective shifted the focus from internal memory processes to the subjective conscious experience of remembering. Despite its significant impact on empirical and theoretical memory research, there has been limited discussion regarding the meaning and adequacy of the MTT metaphor in accounting for memory. While in previous work I have addressed the general limitations of the MTT metaphor in explaining memory, the objective of this article is more focused and modest: to gain a better understanding of what constitutes MTT to the past. To achieve this objective, a detailed analysis of the characteristics of MTT to the past is presented through a comparison with time travel (TT) to the past. Although acknowledging that TT does not refer to an existing physical phenomenon, it is an older concept extensively discussed in the philosophical literature and provides commonly accepted grounds, particularly within orthodox theories of time, that can offer insights into the nature of MTT. Six specific characteristics serve as points of comparison: (1) a destination distinct from the present, (2) the distinction between subjective time and objective time, (3) the subjective experience of the time traveler, (4) their differentiation from the past self, (5) the existence of the past, and (6) its unchangeability. Through this research, a detailed exploration of the phenomenal and metaphysical aspects of MTT to the past is undertaken, shedding light on the distinct features that mental time travel to the past acquires when it occurs within the realm of the mind rather than as a physical phenomenon. By examining these characteristics, a deeper understanding of the nature of mental time travel is achieved, offering insights into how it operates in relation to memory and the past.

A New Theory of Expectations

Expectations are essential for understanding the economic choices of individuals as well as cyclical developments in an economy over time. The initial theory of how people form their expectations was first introduced by Aristotle more than two millennia ago. The core elements he advanced were that forward-looking decisions must be based on expectations and those expectations must be formed by reason, free from the corrupting influence of passion. These guidelines have been formalized in theories of rational expectations. There has been no consensus among social scientists, however, about whether rationality should be defined by how expectations are formed (favored in psychology) or by the outcomes of the formation process (favored in economics). Data collected by the University of Michigan over the past half-century appear to support both views: the psychological thesis of bounded rationality in the formation of expectations by individuals as well as the unbounded rationality thesis of economics when applied to the expectations observed across the entire economy. The goal of this paper is to correct empirical misspecifications, and to incorporate recent advances in neuroscience, including the dominance of nonconscious processes over conscious deliberation, the critical role of affective evaluations, and the formation of expectations by a Bayesian updating procedure. The new theory highlights the importance of contextual factors, and provides a more accurate assessment of costs and benefits. Although these innovations represent a radical departure from orthodox theories, they are justified by the increase in explanatory power provided by this new theory of expectations.

A Relational Perspective on Collective Agency

The discussion of collective agency involves the reduction problem of the concept of a collective. Individualism and Cartesian internalism have long restricted orthodox theories and made them face the tension between an irreducible concept of a collective and ontological reductionism. Heterodox theories as functionalism and interpretationism reinterpret the concept of agency and accept it as realized on the level of a collective. In order to adequately explain social phenomena that have relations as their essence, in this paper we propose a relational, holistic account of collective agency and argue that functionalism and interpretationism can be integrated into such an account.

Land Rights, Industrialization, and Urbanization: China in Comparative Context.

What do studies of land rights in China contribute to the broader discipline of political science? First, the Chinese case challenges orthodox theories of secure, private property rights as a prerequisite for growth and sheds light on the distinctly fiscal roots of urban bias, a phenomenon pervasive in countries making the transition from agriculture to industry. Second, studies of land grabbing in the Chinese case provide a basis for comparisons of state-society relations in authoritarian vs. democratic regimes. While democratic institutions create more openings for aggrieved actors to organize and shape policy, ordinary citizens in both authoritarian and democratic regimes use protest in order to capture a greater share of rents from land. Third, land grabbing exacerbates inequalities; research on the Chinese case in comparative context shows that exclusionary modes of land ownership and limits on full social and political citizenship are mutually reinforcing across all types of regimes.

De se thinking and modes of presentation

De se thoughts have traditionally been seen to be exceptional in mandating a departure from orthodox theories of attitudes. Against this, skeptics about the de se have argued that the de se phenomena demand no more of our theories of attitudes than traditional Frege cases. In this camp one view is that the de se can be accounted for by MOPs in the same way that MOPs can account for how it can be rational to believe, for instance, "Hesperus is shining" while also believing "Phosphorus is shining." This paper formulates some minimal conditions that de se MOPs must have in order to explain the relevant de se phenomena. Some potential replies are answered. I conclude that de se MOPs are not exceptional.

The Social Science of Practice Approach to the Study of China’s Development: A Methodological Discussion

The basic facts of China’s economic development have called into question Western transition economic theory, most famously presented in the works of János Kornai. On the other hand, the three most representative approaches to explaining China’s development experience have variously emphasized the resource endowment structure, or the property rights system, or the incentive mechanism behind the behavior of local governments, as the key to China’s economic development. Although they focus on different dimensions of China’s economic practices, they ultimately converge on the logic of marketism as the explanation. The “social science of practice” approach proposed by Philip Huang is distinguished from these orthodox theories in that, first, it attends to the rise of the huge informal economy in China and reveals the historical roots of contemporary social inequality. This approach has three closely related characteristics: theoretical formulations based on analyses of paradoxical phenomena, a broad historical perspective on current problems, and the idea of substantive justice. The main significance of this approach lies not only in its insightful and practice-focused understanding of the key realities that have been ignored by mainstream theories, but, more importantly, in its multiple inspirations for constructing a social science theory that incorporates Chinese subjectivity.

Universal Basic Income and Inflation: Reviewing Theory and Evidence

One of the most common arguments against universal basic income is the idea that it will cause inflation. In this paper I will review the theoretical interactions between an universal basic income and the price level, as well as emerging empirical price effects from cash transfer programs across the world. I discuss what type of macroeconomic shock universal basic income qualifies as, and I also characterize universal basic income through the lens of orthodox and heterodox monetary theories. Applying Milton Friedman’s Quantity Theory of Money, I theorize about under what conditions universal basic income may cause inflation. Finally, I dissect how public policy choices may affect the inflationary potential of universal basic income.

Cidade, patrimônio e favela no Rio de Janeiro

O presente trabalho tem como foco, fundamentado nas problematizações teóricas de Michel de Certeau, discutir novas práticas museais e museológicas na cidade do Rio de Janeiro, a saber: o Museu de Favela Pavão-Pavãozinho Cantagalo; a Galeria Providência; e o Museu Nami. Também analisamos como essas novas iniciativas se pautam em visões não ortodoxas dos conceitos de patrimônio, memória e museu. Consideramos que a entrada de novos atores em cena com voz ativa sobre suas histórias e experiências cria novas relações de forças, modelos e iniciativas que, muitas vezes, escapam a modelos tradicionais já consagrados e contribuem para a dinâmica fluída da compreensão de patrimônio e memória. Além disso, percebe-se a vontade das favelas de se mostrarem como parte integrante da cidade, desafiando a lógica do senso comum. O estudo, pois, mescla pesquisas de campo realizadas nos três locais, com pressupostos teóricos da Museologia Social.

David Harrison: a career in the anthropology of tourism and the sociology of development

This paper analyses the career of the sociologist/social anthropologist of tourism David Harrison. An important figure in tourism studies across disciplinary boundaries and regional specialisation, Harrison went from academic appointments in Britain to the University of the South Pacific in Fiji and back to Britain again, conducting field studies in the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, and Asia and the Pacific. He engaged in and anticipated theoretical debates in the anthropology of tourism and the sociology of development, publishing key books, articles, and book chapters. In this paper, Harrison discusses the main theoretical position he came to take up. This entailed a political economy position that simultaneously considered the interaction of world economic and political systems with local systems of behaviour and meaning, yet based on empirical first-hand research, all with a kind of fundamental skepticism of foregone conclusions offered by pre-approved orthodox theories. The paper provides detailed information on Harrison's early life and unconventional path to the profession, his theoretical influences and directions, and his career trajectory.

From concept to conceptions: Can the Broad View overcome the debate between orthodox and political theories of human rights?

In Humanity without Dignity, Sangiovanni offers an interesting new approach to human rights theory called the “Broad View” (BV) of human rights. The BV involves an innovative attempt to overcome the debate between orthodox and political theories of human rights. While orthodox and political theories each capture certain roles or functions that human rights have in practice, it remains unclear how to reconcile some of their differences. The BV seeks to resolve this debate by drawing a distinction between the concept and particular conceptions of human rights. It offers a general concept of human rights, and then allows for both orthodox and political conceptions of this concept. The aim is to show that neither orthodox nor political theories make a conceptual mistake about human rights, while also accommodating their recognition of the various roles or functions human rights have in practice. This article assesses the success of the BV in resolving the debate, suggesting that several types of indeterminacy bring into question whether it has accomplished this aim.

Innovation on the Digital Economies and Sustainability of the Global Communities

The development of digital economies induces the corporation to employ knowledge about personal behaviors of consumption for the sales strategies and distributional policies. The behavior of consumers immediately can reflect on the supply system. The orthodox theories of organizations mainly focus on efficiency in the supply systems. To explore improvement of informational connection between the production and the consumption, this paper provides an integrated theory of market organizations and external economies. By utilizing the analytical method that stakeholders are divided into three groups; inside, outside and external stakeholders, we make the following results. Digital economies in the centralized scheme develop rules of market transactions and sustainable governance of market economies and save the overproduction globally.

Marx and Economic Crisis Theories: A Comparative Analysis In the Context of 2007 Global Financial Crisis

The aim of this article is to compare orthodox and heterodox economic crisis theories in the context of 2007 Global Financial Crisis with a special reference to Marx. There is almost a consensus that orthodox economic crisis theories are hardly relevant to explain 2007 Global Financial Crisis. Since the monopolization in economies, intensively in finance sector, hegemony of financial sector over real sector, manipulations in interest rates in financial sector controlled by the financial elite that is identified by Piketty are the issues that are foreseen by Marxists, Post Keynesians and Austrians, it is fair to state that these three heterodox economic crisis theories are of a theoretical and philosophical share in understanding and explaining 2007 Global Financial Crisis.

Legal and Regulatory Aspects of Mobile Financial Services

The thesis deals with the emergence of bank and non-bank entities that provide a range of unique transaction-based payment services broadly called Mobile Financial Services (MFS) to unbanked, underserved and underbanked persons via mobile phones. Models of MFS from Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), banks, combinations of MNOs and banks, and independent Mobile Financial Services Providers are covered. Provision by non-banks of ‘bank-type’ services via mobile phones has been termed ‘transformational banking’ versus the ‘additive banking’ services from banks. All involve the concept of ‘branchless banking’ whereby ‘cash-in/cash out’ services are provided through ‘agents.’ Funds for MFS payments may available through a Stored Value Product (SVP), particularly through a Stored Value Account SVP variant offered by MNOs where value is stored as a redeemable fiat- or mobile ‘airtime’-based Store of Value. The competitive, legal, technical and regulatory nature of non-bank versus bank MFS models is discussed, in particular the impact of banking, payments, money laundering, telecommunications, e-commerce and consumer protection laws. Whether funding mechanisms for SVPs may amount to deposit-taking such that entities could be engaged in the ‘business of banking’ is discussed. The continued use of ‘deposit’ as the traditional trigger for the ‘business of banking’ is investigated, alongside whether transaction and paymentcentric MFS rises to the ‘business of banking.’ An extensive evaluation of ‘money’ based on the Orthodox and Claim School economic theories is undertaken in relation to SVPs used in MFS, their legal associations and import, and whether they may be deemed ‘money’ in law. Consumer protection for MFS and payments generally through current statute, contract, and payment law and common law condictiones are found to be wanting. Possible regulatory arbitrage in relation to MFS in South African law is discussed. The legal and regulatory regimes in the European Union, Kenya and the United States of America are compared with South Africa. The need for a coordinated payments-specific law that has consumer protections, enables proportional risk-based licensing of new non-bank providers of MFS, and allows for a regulator for retail payments is recommended. The use of trust companies and trust accounts is recommended for protection of user funds.

소련 경제학계의 ‘리베르만 논쟁’과 그 결과

Yevsei Liberman posed a reformist agenda to improve the material incentive system and increase the profitability of enterprises, as a person at the center of the controversy related to the reform or improvement of the system of Soviet and Eastern Socialism during the Cold War. This was a question of how to provide incentives to increase the profitability of individual and whole enterprises. His argument is also directly related to the debate on the essential nature of the socialist economy in that it discusses how to provide specific economic incentives to increase the profitability of an individual enterprise in a socialist society not intended for private profit. Existing studies range from the introduction of capitalist factors to the argument that Liberman’s argument elaborates the pricing mechanism under the planned economy. However, this is based on the dichotomical idea of the introduction of market elements or the elaboration of the central plan for the Soviet economic system. A review of the progress of the Liberman debate and its acceptance into policy reveals that it can not be judged whether or not the economic debate and the reform program of 1965 coincide with Liberman’s argument. The controversy between the material incentive system and the profitability of companies since 1955 has been converged with orthodox theories such as Gatovsky and reformist theories such as Liberman and Nemchinov. In other words, the debate over Liberman’s claims at the time was an attempt to solve problems within the Soviet socialist economic system.

HETERODOX THEORIES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION: A PARTIAL SURVEY

AbstractHeterodox theories of economic growth and income distribution are surveyed, focusing on major theories and recent contributions. First, a general framework for examining growth and distribution is discussed, in terms of which classical‐Marxian and post‐Keynesian–Kaleckian and other theories are presented. Since this framework examines how variables are determined in equilibrium, second, dynamics behind equilibria are examined, focusing on goods market and labor market changes. Third, the framework is extended in a variety of ways to examine additional models addressing productivity growth and technical change, money and inflation, finance and debt, additional distributional considerations, multisector issues, open economy questions, and the environment. It is concluded that the literature on heterodox theories of growth and distribution is vibrant, large, and growing, and addresses many issues that are ignored or neglected in orthodox theories, including power, unemployment, and aggregate demand.

Defensive planning in Belfast

The paper examines redevelopment in one religiously divided area of inner city Belfast. Plans are examined from the standpoint of defensible space, road network rationalisation and sectarian conflict, and it is concluded that although the two orthodox theories of planning are being adhered to, future sectarian conflict has been considered in drawing up the plans. Such considerations have had a dramatic effect on redevelopment for the area.

Well-being orthodox theories and Islamic views

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess orthodox theories of well-being in western civilization at first, and second, to investigate Islamic views regarding this concept. Then, comparing these two groups of views, it tries to show that there is a kind of convergence between them that it provides a common point for political aspect of well-being. Design/methodology/approach – To investigate this convergence, orthodox theories of well-being were analyzed critically and Islamic views were revealed. Both orthodox theories and Islamic views of well-being were discussed theoretically (not practically) via descriptive-analytical method and based on a philosophical approach. Since the problem that this paper is going to involve and resolve is conceptual (concept and nature of human well-being and finding a common point among different theories), so the proper method will be the descriptive-analytical and dialectic discussion. Findings – This paper found that, despite some similarities between orthodox theories and Islamic views of well-being, the most important difference between Avicenna and hedonistic view is his approach to the concept of enjoyment and his spreading of the meaning of it. Molla Sadra’s approach to well-being is close to the objective list theories of well-being – particularly that of Sen’s and Nussbaum’s. It is concluded that there is a convergence in theories based on movement from instrumental reason to the intellect in specification and investigation of people’s well-being and its elements. Social implications – There is a kind of convergence, so that we can achieve a common point which could be the base for policy making in national and international level to solve problems arising from complexity, ambiguity and boring and dismal disagreements regarding this concept which is an important obstacle in front of the policy makers. Moreover, moving from instrumental reason to the intellect and considering ethical virtues in people’s well-being could be helpful in removing some social problems such as conflicts between labor and employers and financial crises. Originality/value – Description and calcification theories of well-being especially for economists that they are very far from these subjects and introducing of Islamic views via philosophical approach is absolutely original in this paper. Moreover, paper attempts to show the convergence in orthodox theories and between orthodox and Islamic views in which it provides a common point for practical aspect of well-being.

Natural resource rent and stakeholder politics in Africa: towards a new conceptualisation

This paper critically revisits the debate on natural resource rent, curse and conflict, interrogating some of the key assumptions that have become received knowledge in extant discourses. The paper demonstrates how orthodox theories’ preoccupation with issues of resource rent and resource curse tend to be marred by slants of ahistoricity and state-centricity. Adopting a stakeholder approach to the issues of resource rent and conflict in Africa, the author argues that natural resource rents produce and attract a multiplicity of competitive stakeholders, both domestic and external, in the resource-rich states. The competition and jostling of stakeholders for access to, and appropriation of, rentier resources is too often an antagonistic process in many emerging economies that has consequences and implications for violent conflict. The paper attempts a new conceptual explanation of how natural resource rents dialectically generate stakes, stakeholders and political conflict. The paper concludes by proposing the need for the more conflict-prone African rentier states to transition to a more functional state model, the transformative state.