IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jecmet/v15y2008i4p343-363.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The explanatory logic and ontological commitments of generalized Darwinism

Author

Listed:
  • J. W. Stoelhorst

Abstract

The recent debate about the value of Darwinism as a source of ontological foundations for evolutionary economics reduces to a disagreement about whether or not the causal logic of Darwinism applies to economic evolution. However, this logic has not yet been fully specified. While the explanantia of Darwinism have been elaborately discussed, the explananda of Darwinism have not been given detailed consideration. It is shown how the specification of its explananda helps generalize Darwinism in a way that avoids biological analogies such as inheritance and replication mechanisms. It is furthermore shown that an explicit consideration of its explananda leads to a generalized Darwinism that acknowledges both the ontological continuity and ontological similarity of all evolutionary processes and that needs to be complemented with multi-level selection logic. The ontological commitments of such a generalized Darwinism are consistent with those that have been proposed in the wider search for ontological foundations in evolutionary economics.

Suggested Citation

  • J. W. Stoelhorst, 2008. "The explanatory logic and ontological commitments of generalized Darwinism," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 343-363.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:15:y:2008:i:4:p:343-363
    DOI: 10.1080/13501780802506661
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13501780802506661
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13501780802506661?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ulrich Witt, 2003. "The Evolving Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2477.
    2. Elster,Jon, 1983. "Explaining Technical Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521270724, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Coccia, Mario, 2019. "The theory of technological parasitism for the measurement of the evolution of technology and technological forecasting," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 289-304.
    2. Rodrick Wallace, 2013. "A new formal approach to evolutionary processes in socioeconomic systems," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 1-15, January.
    3. Rahmeyer Fritz, 2013. "Schumpeter, Marshall, and Neo-Schumpeterian Evolutionary Economics: A Critical Stocktaking," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 233(1), pages 39-64, February.
    4. Abatecola, Gianpaolo, 2014. "Research in organizational evolution. What comes next?," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 434-443.
    5. Ojala, Arto, 2015. "Geographic, cultural, and psychic distance to foreign markets in the context of small and new ventures," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 825-835.
    6. Zimmerman, Frederick J., 2013. "Habit, custom, and power: A multi-level theory of population health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 47-56.
    7. Wilson David Sloan & Snower Dennis J., 2024. "Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Economics I: The Multilevel Paradigm," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-18.
    8. Mario Coccia, 2019. "Technological Parasitism," Papers 1901.09073, arXiv.org.
    9. Georgy Levit & Uwe Hossfeld & Ulrich Witt, 2011. "Can Darwinism be “Generalized” and of what use would this be?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 545-562, October.
    10. Spagano, Salvatore, 2021. "Generalized Darwinism: An Auxiliary Hypothesis," MPRA Paper 108829, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Sylvie Geisendorf, 2009. "The economic concept of evolution: self-organization or Universal Darwinism?," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 377-391.
    12. Essletzbichler Jürgen, 2012. "Generalized Darwinism, group selection and evolutionary economic geography," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 56(1-2), pages 129-146, October.
    13. Denise Dollimore & Geoffrey Hodgson, 2014. "Four essays on economic evolution: an introduction," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 1-10, January.
    14. Su, Tong-Yaa, 2016. "Competition between Firms in Economic Evolution: Its Characteristics and Differences to the Biological Sphere," MPRA Paper 72756, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Geoffrey M. Hodgson & Juha-Antti Lamberg, 2018. "The past and future of evolutionary economics: some reflections based on new bibliometric evidence," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 167-187, June.
    16. Imko Meyenburg, 2022. "A possibilist justification of the ontology of counterfactuals and forecasted states of economies in economic modelling," Working Papers hal-03751205, HAL.
    17. Jack Vromen, 2011. "Heterogeneous Economic Evolution: A Different View on Darwinizing Evolutionary Economics," Chapters, in: John B. Davis & D. Wade Hands (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Recent Economic Methodology, chapter 15, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Gianpaolo Abatecola & Matteo Cristofaro & Federico Giannetti & Johan Kask, 2022. "How can biases affect entrepreneurial decision making? toward a behavioral approach to unicorns," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 693-711, June.
    19. Sylvie Geisendorf, 2011. "Internal selection and market selection in economic Genetic Algorithms," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 21(5), pages 817-841, December.
    20. Christian Schubert, 2009. "Darwinism in Economics and the Evolutionary Theory of Policy-Making," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2009-10, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    21. Geoffrey M. Hodgson, 2013. "Organizational adaptation and evolution: Darwinism versus Lamarckism?," Chapters, in: Anna Grandori (ed.), Handbook of Economic Organization, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    22. A. Madureira & F. Hartog & N. Baken, 2016. "A holonic framework to understand and apply information processes in evolutionary economics: survey and proposal," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 157-190, September.
    23. Stoelhorst, J.W. & Richerson, Peter J., 2013. "A naturalistic theory of economic organization," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(S), pages 45-56.
    24. Geoffrey Hodgson & Kainan Huang, 2012. "Evolutionary game theory and evolutionary economics: are they different species?," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 345-366, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hodgson, Geoffrey M. & Knudsen, Thorbjorn, 2006. "Why we need a generalized Darwinism, and why generalized Darwinism is not enough," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 1-19, September.
    2. Brian J. Glenn, 2001. "Collective Precommitment From Temptation," Rationality and Society, , vol. 13(2), pages 185-204, May.
    3. Duschl, Matthias & Schimke, Antje & Brenner, Thomas & Luxen, Dennis, 2011. "Firm growth and the spatial impact of geolocated external factors: Empirical evidence for German manufacturing firms," Working Paper Series in Economics 36, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    4. Sandra Silva & Aurora Teixeira, 2009. "On the divergence of evolutionary research paths in the past 50 years: a comprehensive bibliometric account," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 19(5), pages 605-642, October.
    5. Ron Boschma & Ron Martin, 2010. "The Aims and Scope of Evolutionary Economic Geography," Chapters, in: Ron Boschma & Ron Martin (ed.), The Handbook of Evolutionary Economic Geography, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Nathalie Lazaric & Pasquale Tridico & Sebastiano Fadda, 2020. "Governing structural changes and sustainability through (new) institutions and organizations," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(5), pages 1267-1273, November.
    7. Fritz W. Scharpf, 1991. "Games Real Actors Could Play: The Challenge of Complexity," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 3(3), pages 277-304, July.
    8. Etienne Montaigne & Alfredo Coelho & Samson Zadmehran, 2021. "A comprehensive economic examination and prospects on innovation in new grapevine varieties dealing with global warming and fungal diseases," Post-Print hal-03461901, HAL.
    9. Argandoña, Antonio, 2007. "Anthropological and ethical foundations of organization theory," IESE Research Papers D/707, IESE Business School.
    10. Krafft, Jackie, 2004. "Entry, exit and knowledge: evidence from a cluster in the info-communications industry," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(10), pages 1687-1706, December.
    11. Guido Buenstorf, 2008. "Comparative Industrial Evolution and the Quest for an Evolutionary Theory of Market Dynamics," Chapters, in: Hardy Hanappi & Wolfram Elsner (ed.), Advances in Evolutionary Institutional Economics, chapter 3, pages 59-78, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    12. Ramser, Hans Jürgen, 1985. "Schumpetersche Konzepte in der Analyse des technischen Wandels," Discussion Papers, Series I 203, University of Konstanz, Department of Economics.
    13. Dedeurwaerdere, Tom, 2005. "From bioprospecting to reflexive governance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 473-491, June.
    14. Carina Altreiter & Claudius Graebner & Stephan Puehringer & Ana Rogojanu & Georg Wolfmayr, 2020. "Theorizing competition: an interdisciplinary framework," ICAE Working Papers 120, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    15. Peter Stone, 2009. "Rationality, Intelligibility, and Interpretation," Rationality and Society, , vol. 21(1), pages 35-58, February.
    16. Jack Vromen, 2013. "Competition as an evolutionary process: Mark Blaug and evolutionary economics," Chapters, in: Marcel Boumans & Matthias Klaes (ed.), Mark Blaug: Rebel with Many Causes, chapter 9, pages 98-124, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Yoosik Youm & Edward O. Laumann, 2003. "The Effect of Structural Embeddedness on the Division of Household Labor: A Game-Theoretic Model Using a Network Approach," Rationality and Society, , vol. 15(2), pages 243-280, May.
    18. Silvano Cincotti & Wolfram Elsner & Nathalie Lazaric & Anastasia Nesvetailova & Engelbert Stockhammer, 2020. "Towards an evolutionary political economy. Editorial to the inaugural issue of the Review of Evolutionary Political Economy REPE," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 1-12, May.
    19. Muramatsu, Roberta & Hanoch, Yaniv, 2005. "Emotions as a mechanism for boundedly rational agents: The fast and frugal way," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 201-221, April.
    20. Leonard Dudley, 2010. "General Purpose Technologies and the Industrial Revolution," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2010-11, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:15:y:2008:i:4:p:343-363. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.