Lars P. Syll

Probability and rationality — trickier than most people think The Coin-tossing Problem My friend Ben says that on the first day he got the following sequence of Heads and Tails when tossing a coin: H H H H H H H H H H And on the second day he says that he got the following sequence: H T T H H T T H T H Which report makes you suspicious? Most people yours truly asks this question says the first report looks suspicious. But actually both reports are equally...

.[embedded content] What a treasure!

Keynes was not a Keynesian. He was a Post Keynesian! But these more recent writers like their predecessors were still dealing with a system in which the amount of the factors employed was given and the other relevant facts were known more or less for certain. This does not mean that they were dealing with a system in which change was ruled out, or even one in which the disappointment of expectation was ruled out. But at any given time facts and expectations...

Was Kant a racist? .[embedded content]

Yours truly var för några år sedan inbjuden till en debatt på Handelshögskolan i Göteborg. Temat var tillväxt och miljö. Jag vet inte om jag lyckades övertyga alla som lyssnade om att det faktiskt är möjligt att leva bra och fullvärdiga liv utan att överkonsumera. De som till äventyrs inte övertygades av mina åberopade teoretiska inspirationskällor — Soddy, Georgeescu-Roegen och Boulding — kanske istället kan få sig åtminstone en tankeväckare av Nina Hedenius underbara — och...

Cancel culture — an Orwellian perspective

Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance. Sapere aude! “Have the courage to use your own understanding,” is therefore the motto of the enlightenment. Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of...

Behavioural economics and complexity economics What is to take the place of neoclassical economics and its neoliberal policy offshoot? There is no shortage of candidates, grouped under the broad banner of economic heterodoxy. Some of these successor doctrines – behavioral economics and complexity economics are examples of note – take the neoclassical orthodoxies as a point of departure. They therefore continue to define themselves in relation to those...

How to do philosophy A contest was announced to see who could do the best job of carving up a side of beef.  The judge was announced as a famous chef, who had earned two Michelin stars.  Attracted by the prize money, a butcher and an analytic philosopher entered the contest. The Analytic Philosopher went first.  A fresh side of beef was placed on a large wooden table, and he approached to begin.  He was dressed in freshly pressed chinos and a button-down...

Was aus dem Arabischen Frühling wurde .[embedded content]