Media Contact:
Carrie Conko
Director of Communications
Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Office: 703-993-4899
Email: cconko@gmu.edu
Liberty, Cognition, and Beliefs
| Start: | Thursday, April 4, 2002 08:00 AM |
| End: | Sunday, April 7, 2002 05:00 PM |
| Location: | Ritz Carlton Hotel |
This conference was the first of our three-part series “Liberty, Responsibility, and Economic Change,” and is a continuation of a series of workshops on the theme “Knowledge, Social Change, and Economic Performance” also led by Douglass North and Paul Edwards. A major goal of the conference was to continue building enthusiasm and a common vocabulary for an interdisciplinary research program into the nature of social change that moves beyond reductive assumptions about rationality, and takes seriously the full reality of human belief and its role in behavior.
About the three-part series
This series of Liberty Fund sponsored conferences, co-directed by Nobel Laureate Douglass North of Washington University and Paul Edwards, of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, engaged scholars from a variety of disciplines in the project of developing a dynamic theory of social and economic change.
In recent years many parts of the world have experienced tremendous and accelerated social and economic change. Although there has been a steady stream of technical and financial assistance into many of these transitional countries, we have yet to witness the rise of wide spread, self-sustaining market economies. Economists who have worked closely with these transitional economies are increasingly aware that belief and culture seem to be playing a role in the differential acceptance of market processes and market sustaining institutions. As of yet, however, economists have not been able to turn that observation into anything approaching a meaningful, robust theory of social and economic change.
This series of conferences is intended to bring us closer to having a meaningful and theoretically sophisticated way of discussing the role that culture and belief play in the process of economic and social change. By bringing together economists and political theorists puzzled by these questions with anthropologists, sociologists, and cognitive psychologist who address such issues, we hope to catalyze a rich and well-informed discussion of what scholars need to take into account as they address these issues. In particular, we will explore the role that beliefs about liberty and personal responsibility play in the process of social and economic change.
Agenda
Session 1: The cognitive and psychological foundations of beliefs
Emotions and Beliefs: How Feelings Influence Thoughts. Nico H Frijda, Anthony S.R. Manstead, and Sacha Bem, editors. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Chapters 1 and 2.
Session 2: The cognitive implications of beliefs
Paradigms and Conventions: Uncertainty, Decision Making, and Entrepreneurship, Young Back Choi. University of Michigan Press, 1993. Chapters 2 and 3.
Session 3: Types of beliefs
The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion, Pascal Boyer. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Pages 22-59.
Session 4: The social implications of belief-based decision-making
Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory, Mary Douglas. New York: Routledge, 1992. Chapter 3.
Session 5: Beliefs and economic performance
“The Islamic Commercial Retreat: Institutional Roots of Economic Underdevelopment in the Middle East,” Timur Kuran. Manuscript, November, 2001.
