Notes on Albert Hirschman
Just read the review of Jeremy Adelman's book, "Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O Hirschman" in the New York Review of Books and was dismayed I'd never heard of this guy before. So, off on a exploratory journey to see what I can find on the net.
Cass Sunstein, the author of the review, notes H had four major books: Exit, Voice and Loyalty, The Passions and the Interests, Shifting Involvements, and The Rhetoric of Reaction. It seemed that H was interested in not only understanding what needed to be done but how to navigate the world of isms and personalities in order to accomplish those goals. It's a sad commentary that so many decisions are made by people who have no interest in the rational or the wise and make no effort to be learned (in fact, despise the learned).
Hirschman, Sunstein notes, was a great believer in doubt not just in doubting the world around him but in doubting his own ideas as well. This was not to say that he was a pessimist or didn't believe anything but rather he held a view or idea in his mind as always possible until evidence came along to show him it was not so. Sunstien states that H got pleasure out of discovering that something he believed was wrong--there is a satisfaction in sharpening whether it is in the discarding of an idea or the adding. There is no fear in being wrong. Developing knowledge is a process of testing ideas and discarding those that don't hold up; it is not in holding onto ideas developed when young, idealistic and largely unlearned despite any and all evidence to the contrary. There is no strength in cemented ignorance. And yet, our greatest fear is to admit that we made a mistake or that we don't know.
He coined the term "possiblism" to emphasize the possibility of outcomes that do not seem possible.
He sounds a lot like Montaigne, and Sunstein notes, was influenced by him, particularly in his focus on the small ideas, the importance of observations, the inevitability that some ideas will be wrong, and in the keeping of a commonplace book. He believed in close observation and not in meta narratives. He seems to be the exception to those philosophers who hope to impose order through a philosophical system but rather to recognize that the system is disordered and the best you can do is note the bits and pieces you observe in your life.
(Seemingly tangential connection to the book, Why Have Kids. Sunstein notes that H was able to help over 2000 refugees exit France in WWII after the government collapsed, and this immediately made me think of Valenti's argument that mothers are not doing the most important job in the world and nor should they be told that)
He emphasized the importance of listening to one another with humility--imagine approaching an argument or debate with the firm belief that you could be wrong rather than the view that you need to prove the other wrong!
One of his essays, "Against Parsimony" argues that there is often much to be gained by making things more complicated. What a radical concept! When we think of the keep it simple stupid, or the notion that we should reduce things to their simplest, we often forget that what is left out often matters. This essay looks particularly at economics and places where things need more complexity.
Looks at distinction made by Harry Frankfurt between "wantons", those who are in the grip of their passions without reflection or reason, and those able to reflect of their metapreferences (before they buy something, they ask themselves do they really want that and measure desire against other values). He also distinguishes between changes in taste and changes in values and the importance of recognizing the difference (minor changes that don't really reflect reflection are changes in taste).
Intriguing essay about H's book Strategy of Economic Development (1958), by Paul Krugman. Krugman argues that H's unwillingness to engage in or emphasize rigorous scholarship led to a disregarding of his ideas, which K calls "high development theory", which was harmful to economics. H railed against reductivism and K is arguing that it is only through doing "violence to the richness and complexity of the real world" that we can model key concepts. High development theory, K summarizes, as the notion that modernization leads to modernization, progress through association with progress.
Maps as metaphor. In The Shallows, Carr discusses how maps changed our sense of space and in essence changed how we thought and how we viewed the world. In The Book of Woe, we are reminded of how the map is not the territory (which is also the caution that H is giving us when he asks us to throw out reductivism). In Krugman's essay, he discusses how as African maps evolved they became less accurate, not more, because as explorer's provided more information about the edges of the map,the standard for what was valid was increased and now all the speculation that used to clutter the map was thrown out, leaving very little information if any about the interior of the map (obviously, this period of confusion and lack of clarity ended when all of Africa was explored--or did it?). Raising the very important issue of whether vague or unsupported knowledge is better than no knowledge at all if you cannot verify it.
Now, looking back at Carr's analogy, in what ways did mapping create more confusion in our heads? In what ways did they increase our mind's desire for "true" representations in a way that if it was represented it must have been "true"? Otherwise it wouldn't be included. In fact suggesting that if we are only going to included that which has been "verified", then everything included must have been verified.
So related to The Book of Woe because as I was reading it, I kept thinking but what's the solution? If there is no way to verify what causes mental illness or even what a mental illness is then is the process of "doing science" on these topics just creating more havoc by making us think that the mess is scientific? Is our desire to make a better map actually making us adopt maps that are even more problematic? It seems that asking for more scientific rigor where psychology (and economics) are concerned is not the solution.
Krugman raises the issue that in social science, modeling is problematic but necessary. But, it doesn't seem to me that it is actually the modeling or the mapping that is the problem, but something more essential in human processing of such models and maps that leads us perhaps back to the Wallace Stevens quote in my previous post, Blessed Rage for Order. Humans seem to have a very difficult time holding an idea in their minds and not letting it get fixed there. H emphasized the importance of doubting and doubting models would be very useful. But, we are not taught to doubt and perhaps we are not programmed genetically to be doubters (or, at the very least, some of us are not or we are more or less).
Cass Sunstein, the author of the review, notes H had four major books: Exit, Voice and Loyalty, The Passions and the Interests, Shifting Involvements, and The Rhetoric of Reaction. It seemed that H was interested in not only understanding what needed to be done but how to navigate the world of isms and personalities in order to accomplish those goals. It's a sad commentary that so many decisions are made by people who have no interest in the rational or the wise and make no effort to be learned (in fact, despise the learned).
Hirschman, Sunstein notes, was a great believer in doubt not just in doubting the world around him but in doubting his own ideas as well. This was not to say that he was a pessimist or didn't believe anything but rather he held a view or idea in his mind as always possible until evidence came along to show him it was not so. Sunstien states that H got pleasure out of discovering that something he believed was wrong--there is a satisfaction in sharpening whether it is in the discarding of an idea or the adding. There is no fear in being wrong. Developing knowledge is a process of testing ideas and discarding those that don't hold up; it is not in holding onto ideas developed when young, idealistic and largely unlearned despite any and all evidence to the contrary. There is no strength in cemented ignorance. And yet, our greatest fear is to admit that we made a mistake or that we don't know.
He coined the term "possiblism" to emphasize the possibility of outcomes that do not seem possible.
He sounds a lot like Montaigne, and Sunstein notes, was influenced by him, particularly in his focus on the small ideas, the importance of observations, the inevitability that some ideas will be wrong, and in the keeping of a commonplace book. He believed in close observation and not in meta narratives. He seems to be the exception to those philosophers who hope to impose order through a philosophical system but rather to recognize that the system is disordered and the best you can do is note the bits and pieces you observe in your life.
(Seemingly tangential connection to the book, Why Have Kids. Sunstein notes that H was able to help over 2000 refugees exit France in WWII after the government collapsed, and this immediately made me think of Valenti's argument that mothers are not doing the most important job in the world and nor should they be told that)
He emphasized the importance of listening to one another with humility--imagine approaching an argument or debate with the firm belief that you could be wrong rather than the view that you need to prove the other wrong!
One of his essays, "Against Parsimony" argues that there is often much to be gained by making things more complicated. What a radical concept! When we think of the keep it simple stupid, or the notion that we should reduce things to their simplest, we often forget that what is left out often matters. This essay looks particularly at economics and places where things need more complexity.
Looks at distinction made by Harry Frankfurt between "wantons", those who are in the grip of their passions without reflection or reason, and those able to reflect of their metapreferences (before they buy something, they ask themselves do they really want that and measure desire against other values). He also distinguishes between changes in taste and changes in values and the importance of recognizing the difference (minor changes that don't really reflect reflection are changes in taste).
Intriguing essay about H's book Strategy of Economic Development (1958), by Paul Krugman. Krugman argues that H's unwillingness to engage in or emphasize rigorous scholarship led to a disregarding of his ideas, which K calls "high development theory", which was harmful to economics. H railed against reductivism and K is arguing that it is only through doing "violence to the richness and complexity of the real world" that we can model key concepts. High development theory, K summarizes, as the notion that modernization leads to modernization, progress through association with progress.
Maps as metaphor. In The Shallows, Carr discusses how maps changed our sense of space and in essence changed how we thought and how we viewed the world. In The Book of Woe, we are reminded of how the map is not the territory (which is also the caution that H is giving us when he asks us to throw out reductivism). In Krugman's essay, he discusses how as African maps evolved they became less accurate, not more, because as explorer's provided more information about the edges of the map,the standard for what was valid was increased and now all the speculation that used to clutter the map was thrown out, leaving very little information if any about the interior of the map (obviously, this period of confusion and lack of clarity ended when all of Africa was explored--or did it?). Raising the very important issue of whether vague or unsupported knowledge is better than no knowledge at all if you cannot verify it.
Now, looking back at Carr's analogy, in what ways did mapping create more confusion in our heads? In what ways did they increase our mind's desire for "true" representations in a way that if it was represented it must have been "true"? Otherwise it wouldn't be included. In fact suggesting that if we are only going to included that which has been "verified", then everything included must have been verified.
So related to The Book of Woe because as I was reading it, I kept thinking but what's the solution? If there is no way to verify what causes mental illness or even what a mental illness is then is the process of "doing science" on these topics just creating more havoc by making us think that the mess is scientific? Is our desire to make a better map actually making us adopt maps that are even more problematic? It seems that asking for more scientific rigor where psychology (and economics) are concerned is not the solution.
Krugman raises the issue that in social science, modeling is problematic but necessary. But, it doesn't seem to me that it is actually the modeling or the mapping that is the problem, but something more essential in human processing of such models and maps that leads us perhaps back to the Wallace Stevens quote in my previous post, Blessed Rage for Order. Humans seem to have a very difficult time holding an idea in their minds and not letting it get fixed there. H emphasized the importance of doubting and doubting models would be very useful. But, we are not taught to doubt and perhaps we are not programmed genetically to be doubters (or, at the very least, some of us are not or we are more or less).
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