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Economic Theory and Cognitive Science
In this study Don Ross explores the relationship of eco-
nomics to other branches of behavioral science, asking,
in the course of his analysis, under what interpretation
economics is a sound empirical science. The book
explores the relationships between economic theory
and the theoretical foundations of related disciplines
that are relevant to the day-to-day work of economics-
the cognitive and behavioral sciences. It asks whether
the increasingly sophisticated techniques of microeco-
nomic analysis have revealed any deep empirical regu-
larities-whether technical improvement represents
improvement in any other sense. Casting Daniel
Dennett and Kenneth Binmore as its intellectual heroes,
the book proposes a comprehensive model of econom-
ic theory that, Ross argues, does not supplant but
recovers the core neoclassical insights and counters
the caricaturish conception of neoclassicism so derided
by advocates of behavioral or evolutionary economics.
Because he approaches his topic from the view-
point of the philosophy of science, Ross devotes one
chapter to the philosophical theory and terminology on
which his argument depends and another to related
philosophical issues. Two chapters provide the theoreti-
cal background in economics, one covering develop-
ments in neoclassical microeconomics and the other
treating behavioral and experimental economics and
evolutionary game theory. The three chapters at the
heart of the argument then apply theses from the phi-
losophy of cognitive science to foundational problems
for economic theory. In these chapters economists will
find a genuinely new way of thinking about the implica-
tions of cognitive science for economics and cognitive
scientists will find in economic behavior a new testing
site for the explanations of cognitive science.
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