Quotes from “From The Philosophy of Mind to the Philosophy of the Market”

By Peter Boettke & Robert Subrick (2002)

• The argument that cuts against the case for conceiving of the economic problem that society confronts as one in principle capable of solution through centralized planning is strikingly similar to the one that cuts against conceiving the mind as a hierarchical system under the command of a single unifying will.#
  EpistemologyEconomics
• General equilibrium theory was able to capture in abstract form the interconnectedness of all markets in an economic system, but it did so at the cost of assuming away the processes through which the division of knowledge in society is coordinated so that the interconnectedness can be realized. . . . Similarly, work in hard AI is able to replicate the mind as a ‘thinking machine’ and the interconnectedness of different parts of the brain, but at the cost of losing the human attributes of meaning and intentionality.#
  EpistemologyEconomicsMethodologyEquilibrium
• Problems of computational complexity can be solved through advancements in computing technology; problems of the contextual nature of decision-making cannot be addressed outside an examination of the institutions within which those decisions are being made.#
  Epistemology
• Humans are able to zero in on relevant features of their environment and ignore the irrelevant features precisely because they experience the objects of the world as already interrelated and full of meaning.#
  Epistemology