Lars P. Syll

Pedagogisk forskning — postmodern mumbo jumbo Efter att ha tagit del av ‘modern’ pedagogisk forskning i tidskriften Pedagogisk Forskning i Sverige — där författaren till artikeln “En pedagogisk relation mellan människa och häst — på väg mot en pedagogisk filosofisk utforskning av mellanrummet” ger följande intressanta ‘programförklaring’ — är man föga förvånad över sakernas tillstånd inom svensk pedagogisk ‘vetenskap’: Med en posthumanistisk ansats belyser...

Based on a re-reading of some of the great Western thinkers and philosophers (Kierkegaard, Hegel, Marx) and a radical critique of the idea of infinity, Hägglund argues that faith is not a question of believing in an eternity but rather of how to live our finite lives together and be true to our belief in the pursuit of authentic freedom. An ambitious and impressive attempt at weaving together existential and political issues, questioning our way of living and organising our...

The methods economists bring to their research There are other sleights of hand that cause economists problems. In their quest for statistical “identification” of a causal effect, economists often have to resort to techniques that answer either a narrower or a somewhat different version of the question that motivated the research. Results from randomized social experiments carried out in particular regions of, say, India or Kenya may not apply to other...

A grief observed (personal) We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination … But those two circles, above all the point at which they touched, are the very thing I am mourning for, homesick for, famished for. You tell me ‘she...

Why do economists never mention power? The intransigence of Econ 101 points to a dark side of economics — namely that the absence of power-speak is by design. Could it be that economics describes the world in a way that purposely keeps the workings of power opaque? History suggests that this idea is not so far-fetched … The key to wielding power successfully is to make control appear legitimate. That requires ideology. Before capitalism, rulers legitimised...

The vanity of deductivity Modelling by the construction of analogue economies is a widespread technique in economic theory nowadays … As Lucas urges, the important point about analogue economies is that everything is known about them … and within them the propositions we are interested in ‘can be formulated rigorously and shown to be valid’ … For these constructed economies, our views about what will happen are ‘statements of verifiable fact.’ The method of...

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Learning from econophysics’ mistakes By appealing to statistical mechanics, econophysicists hypothesize that we can explain the workings of the economy from simple first principles. I think that is a mistake. To see the mistake, I’ll return to Richard Feynman’s famous lecture on atomic theory. Towards the end of the talk, he observes that atomic theory is important because it is the basis for all other branches of science, including biology: “The most...

John von Neumann on mathematics

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