7/27/2019 Transforming Socio-Economics With a New Epistemology, Hollingsworth

1/2

This is the html version of the file http://www.uni-lj.si/risc/files/RISC/userfiles/Transforming_Socio-Economics_with_a_New_Epistemology.pdf .

Google automatically generates html versions of documents as we crawl the web.

Page 1

Transforming socio-economics with a new

epistemology

Rogers Hollingsworth1 and Karl Mu ller2

1University of Wisconsin, Office 4126 Mosse Building, 455 North Park Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA

2Wiener Institut f r Sozialwissenschaftliche Dokumentation und Methodik (WISDOM), Vienna Institute for Social

Science

Correspondence: hollingsjr@aol.com

This paper argues that a new scientific framework (Science II) has been slowly

emerging, rivaling the DescartesNewtonian perspective (Science I) dominant

for several hundred years. The Science II framework places a great deal of empha-

sis on evolution, dynamism, chance and/or pattern recognition. As both cause

and effect of the new perspective, scholars in the physical, biological and social

sciences are increasingly addressing common problems, bor rowing insights

from and interacting with each other. The epistemology of Science II has enor-

mous potential for understanding problems of fundamental interest to socio-

economists. The paper focuses on five useful concepts in the f ramework of

Science II: self-organizing processes, complex networks, power-law distributions,

the general binding problem and multi-level analysis.

Keywords: complex networks, power-law distributions, multi-level analysis,

interdisciplinarity, epistemology, inequality, socio-economics

JEL classification: A14 sociology of economics, D85 network formation and

analysis, Y80-related disciplines

1. Introduction

For several hundred years, the dominant framework shaping Western science has

been the Descartes Newtonian paradigm. Historically, this frameworkwith its

epistemologyhas been powerful in shaping the thinking of both natural and

social scientists. Yet, an alternative view of explaining reality has slowly been

emerging, and the influence of this new perspective is rapidly diffusing. In the fol-

lowing discussion, we focus on these perspectives, especially the more recent one,

and suggest its potential for enriching the field of socio-economics.

The current status of socio-economics can be crudely summarized as follows:

socio-economics has been quite strong in empir ical and comparative analyses and

The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press and the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics.

All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Socio-Economic Review (2008) 132 doi:10.1093/ser/mwn006

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Page 2

in relentless criticism of the neoclassical paradigm. However, socio-economics

has remained relatively weak in developing a comprehensive theoretical alterna-

tive to the dominant neoclassical f ramework. We suggest that the emerging

alternative perspective for conducting science heightens the potential for an

enriched socio-economic research agenda and for richer exchange between

natural and social scientists.

P age 2 of 32 R. Holl ingsworth and K. Mu l le r

45

nsformingsocio-economicswithanewepistemology http:/ /webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bViwq...

2 1.10.201311:18

7/27/2019 Transforming Socio-Economics With a New Epistemology, Hollingsworth

2/2

Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7Page 8Page 9Page 10Page 11Page 12Page 13Page 14Page 15Page 16Page 17Page 18Page 19Page 20Page 21Page 22Page 23Page 24Page 25Page 26Page 27Page 28Page 29Page 30Page 31Page 32

nsformingsocio-economicswithanewepistemology http:/ /webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bViwq...

2 1.10.201311:18