/ Séminaire « Capitalismes : crises, critiques, alternatives »

Uskali Mäki : « Puzzled by idealizations and understanding their functions »

2 décembre 2019, 14h30-16h30 à la MSH Lyon St-Etienne, 14 avenue Berthelot (salle André Bollier)

Présentation

  • Uskali Mäki est professeur de philosophie à l’université d’Helsinki et de Nankai et spécialisé en philosophie des sciences sociales.

Résumé de l’intervention :

Idealization is ubiquitous in human cognition, and so is the inclination of being puzzled by it : what to make of ideal gas, infinitely large populations, homo economicus, perfectly just society ? This is apparent in domains such as social science theorizing (from J.H. von Thünen, JS Mill and Max Weber to Milton Friedman and Thomas Schelling) ; recent philosophy of science addressing issues of idealization in scientific modelling (from Leszek Nowak to numerous others) ; and the debate over ideal and non-ideal theory in political philosophy and political theory (from John Rawls to more recent contributions). I will offer a set of concepts and principles that may start helping settle some of the confusions and puzzlements. The key is to improve transparency about the precise contents of idealizations as well as their distinct functions, such as contributing to minimal modelling, benchmark modelling, and how-possibly modelling.

/ Séminaire « Capitalismes : crises, critiques, alternatives »