Document Type
Article
Language
eng
Format of Original
9 p.
Publication Date
12-2013
Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Source Publication
Journal of Economic Methodology
Source ISSN
1350-178X
Abstract
George Soros makes an important analytical contribution to understanding the concept of reflexivity in social science by explaining reflexivity in terms of how his cognitive and manipulative causal functions are connected to one another by a pair of feedback loops (Soros, 2013). Fallibility, reflexivity and the human uncertainty principle. Here I put aside the issue of how the natural sciences and social sciences are related, an issue he discusses, and focus on how his thinking applies in economics. I argue that standard economics assumes a ‘classical’ view of the world in which knowledge and action are independent, but that we live in a complex reflexive world in which knowledge and action are interdependent. I argue that Soros's view provides a reflexivity critique of the efficient market hypothesis seen as depending on untenable claims about the nature of random phenomena and the nature of economic agents. Regarding the former, I develop this critique in terms of Cauchy distributions; regarding the latter I develop it in terms of rational expectations and rational addiction reasoning.
Recommended Citation
Davis, John B., "Soros’s Reflexivity Concept in a Complex World: Cauchy Distributions, Rational Expectations, and Rational Addiction" (2013). Economics Faculty Research and Publications. 385.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/econ_fac/385
Comments
Accepted version. Journal of Economic Methodology, Vol. 20, No. 4 (December 2013): 368-376. DOI. © 2013 Taylor & Francis (Routledge). Used with permission.