IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/37911.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On error: undisciplined thoughts on one of the causes of intellectual path dependency

Author

Listed:
  • Yalcintas, Altug

Abstract

Is there not any place in the history of ideas for the imperfect character of human doings (i.e. capability of error) that is repeated for so long until we lately start to think that it had long been wrong? The answer is: In the conventional histories of ideas there is almost none. The importance of the phenomenon,however, is immense. Intellectual history is full of errors. Scholarly errors are among the factors that generate intellectual pathways in which consequences of historical small events feed back up on each other positively and give rise to historical pathologies in the end. Pathways hold the intellectuals dependent on the consequences of errors which interact upon each other and prevent resulting pathologies to disappear fully. As a result, ideas do not converge to a level of perfection. Evolutionary account of errors suggests that errors in the history of ideas matter even though they are often corrected.

Suggested Citation

  • Yalcintas, Altug, 2011. "On error: undisciplined thoughts on one of the causes of intellectual path dependency," MPRA Paper 37911, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:37911
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/37911/1/MPRA_paper_37911.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arthur, W Brian, 1989. "Competing Technologies, Increasing Returns, and Lock-In by Historical Events," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 99(394), pages 116-131, March.
    2. David, Paul A, 1985. "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 332-337, May.
    3. Ronald H. Coase, 2000. "The new institutional economics," Chapters, in: Claude Ménard (ed.), Institutions, Contracts and Organizations, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Ziliak, Stephen T. & McCloskey, Deirdre N., 2004. "Size matters: the standard error of regressions in the American Economic Review," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 527-546, November.
    5. Pierre Garrouste & Stavros Ioannides (ed.), 2001. "Evolution and Path Dependence in Economic Ideas," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1790.
    6. William Coleman, 2005. "Taking Out The Pins: Economics As Alive And Living In The History Of Economic Thought," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 24(2), pages 107-115, June.
    7. Coase, R H, 1992. "Contracts and the Activities of Firms," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 451-452, October.
    8. Michael Butler & Robert Garnett, 2003. "Teaching the coase theorem: Are we getting it right?," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 31(2), pages 133-145, June.
    9. Pierson, Paul, 2000. "Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(2), pages 251-267, June.
    10. Altman, Morris, 2004. "Statistical significance, path dependency, and the culture of journal publication," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 651-663, November.
    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. Erkan Gurpinar & Altug Yalcintas, 2015. "One Long Argument in Economics: Explaining Intellectual Inertia in terms of Evolutionary Ontology," STOREPapers 2_2015, Associazione Italiana per la Storia dell'Economia Politica - StorEP.

    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. Yalcintas, Altug, 2010. "The ‘Coase Theorem’ vs. Coase theorem proper: How an error emerged and why it remained uncorrected so long," MPRA Paper 37936, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Gagliardi, Francesca, 2008. "Institutions and economic change: A critical survey of the new institutional approaches and empirical evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 416-443, February.
    3. Arne Petermann & Georg Schreyögg & Daniel Fürstenau, 2019. "Can hierarchy hold back the dynamics of self-reinforcing processes? A simulation study on path dependence in hierarchies," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 12(2), pages 637-669, December.
    4. Frank, Joshua, 2005. "Technological lock-in, positive institutional feedback, and research on laboratory animals," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 557-575, December.
    5. Hugo Priemus & Bert van Wee (ed.), 2013. "International Handbook on Mega-Projects," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14791.
    6. Foxon, Timothy J. & Pearson, Peter J.G. & Arapostathis, Stathis & Carlsson-Hyslop, Anna & Thornton, Judith, 2013. "Branching points for transition pathways: assessing responses of actors to challenges on pathways to a low carbon future," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 146-158.
    7. Esther Pittroff, 2016. "Whistle-blowing regulation in different corporate governance systems: an analysis of the regulation approaches from the view of path dependence theory," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 20(4), pages 703-727, December.
    8. Luigi Marengo & Paolo Zeppini, 2016. "The arrival of the new," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 171-194, March.
    9. Choi, Chang Gyu & Lee, Sugie & Kim, Heungsoon & Seong, Eun Yeong, 2019. "Critical junctures and path dependence in urban planning and housing policy: A review of greenbelts and New Towns in Korea’s Seoul metropolitan area," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 195-204.
    10. Porfírio, José & Jacquinet, Marc & Carrilho, Tiago, 2009. "The Concept of Agricultural District and the Question of Rural Development," Spatial and Organizational Dynamics Discussion Papers 2009-3, CIEO-Research Centre for Spatial and Organizational Dynamics, University of Algarve.
    11. Pamela Jeziorska-Biel & Katarzyna Leśniewska-Napierała & Konrad Czapiewski, 2021. "(Circular) Path Dependence—The Role of Vineyards in Land Use, Society and Regional Development—The Case of Lubuskie Region (Poland)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-20, December.
    12. Ron Martin, 2010. "Roepke Lecture in Economic Geography—Rethinking Regional Path Dependence: Beyond Lock-in to Evolution," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 86(1), pages 1-27, January.
    13. Altman, Morris, 2004. "Statistical significance, path dependency, and the culture of journal publication," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 651-663, November.
    14. Foxon, Timothy J., 2011. "A coevolutionary framework for analysing a transition to a sustainable low carbon economy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(12), pages 2258-2267.
    15. Björn Toelstede, 2019. "How path-creating mechanisms and structural lock-ins make societies drift from democracy to authoritarianism," Rationality and Society, , vol. 31(2), pages 233-262, May.
    16. Ann Hartell, 2013. "Path dependence in economic theory and research," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2013_03, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    17. Martin Henning & Erik Stam & Rik Wenting, 2013. "Path Dependence Research in Regional Economic Development: Cacophony or Knowledge Accumulation?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(8), pages 1348-1362, September.
    18. Jukka Luhas & Mirja Mikkilä & Ville Uusitalo & Lassi Linnanen, 2019. "Product Diversification in Sustainability Transition: The Forest-Based Bioeconomy in Finland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-19, June.
    19. Grazia Cecere & Nicoletta Corrocher & Cédric Gossart & Muge Ozman, 2014. "Lock-in and path dependence: an evolutionary approach to eco-innovations," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 24(5), pages 1037-1065, November.
    20. Strambach Simone & Halkier Henrik, 2013. "Editorial. Reconceptualizing change: Path dependency, path plasticity and knowledge combination," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 57(1-2), pages 1-14, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Errors in the history of ideas; intellectual path dependence; intellectual pathologies; the Coase Theorem; historical small events;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B52 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Modern Monetary Theory;
    • B25 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm School
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:pra:mprapa:37911. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.