| Abstract: | 代理人基計算經濟學在發展了二十五年後，它研究航程的下一站在那裏，它除了繼續扮演與主流經濟學角色互補的功能外，還能不能在科學歷史與哲學更巨觀的框架中扮演更積極、整合的角色?在本研究中，本計畫分兩年進行兩項基礎工作的探索。一項是在科學史的框架中，討論自啓蒙時期就存在的人文與科學間知識契合(consilience)的問題，本計畫將聚焦在兩種不同形式的契合，一者為哈佛大學生物學家Edward Wilson所提出的貫通式的契合，也就是將自然科學的成就，引入社會科學，再引入人文學。另者則是由哈佛大學已過世的生物學家Stephen Jay Gould所提出的對等式契合，亦即科學與人文是對等的關係，契合的進行是雙向的。本計畫將檢視代理人基計算經濟學在這兩種契合所扮演的角色，以及其如何可以從早期「刺蝟型契合」，在受到晚近敘事經濟學及數位人文的影響，走向「刺蝟與狐狸型契合」。第二項工作則是在科學哲學的脈絡裏，延續探討自本世紀初來由劍橋大學Tony Lawson所領導的經濟學「本體論轉向」倡議，我們將一方面澄清Lawson對代理人基計算經濟學的誤解，一方面將擴展最早的代理人基模型，即James Sakoda的社會互動模型，來說明代理人基計算經濟學與異端經濟學的聯繫，從而指出代理人基計算經濟學正是Lawson經濟學本體論轉向之方法論蘊涵。
In this research project, we ask what the next major missions are for agent-based computational economics (ACE), given what it has progressed over the past 25 years and what it is standing now. The `baton’ in this academic relay points to its potential contributions to two separate but related fundamental domains: the history of science and the philosophy of science, where ACE has not formally advanced.
In the history of science, the issue we are interested in addressing in this project is known as the “consilience” issue, first proposed by Edward Wilson (Wilson, 1998) and followed by Stephen Jay Gould (Gould, 2003) with a rejoinder. Economists have known consilience, or the linkage attempt, as `economic imperialism’ for more than half a century. However, the economic imperialism is receding due to many infelicities of the mainstream economics, the intellectual environment which propels the linkage attempt remains, and a thriving new form of `imperialism’ known as natural computationalism. In this research, we shall place agent-based computational economics (ACE) in this conventional pursuit while simultaneously considering both the Wilson approach and the Gould approach. We expect to show that, unlike the early “economic imperialism” shaped by neoclassical economics, ACE can serve as an extension of the Wilson approach, if reductionism is replaced by emergentism, as well as the concretization of the Gould approach, if ACE can be used as narrative or imagination generator. We will also take into account the recent progress in digital narratives, historical simulation, and narrative economics. Hence, in this part of the project, We will show that the next stage of the substantial development of ACE is to lend itself as a linkage between social sciences and humanities.
The fundamental issue in the domain of the philosophy of science to be addressed is the “ontological turn” in economics, a turn long advocated by Tony Lawson. Lawson listed five ontological properties of economics, which are largely missing in the mainstream economics but partially owned by different branches of heterodox economics, such as institutional economics, radical political economics, feminist economics, Austrian economics, and post-Keynesian economics. However, the methodological implications of the Lawsonian critique of economics need to be reified. In this project, we shall argue that ACE is not just methodological individualism, but also ontological individualism. Therefore, the development of ACE represents an ontological turn in economics. We will study this aspect by going back to a social interaction model invented by James Sakoda in 1949, which is considered the origin of ACE, and connecting this pioneering work to the foundations of social theory laid by James Coleman forty years later. We will review the key pathbreaking elements in between, which helps develop a general social interaction model with various identities. This extended model can be used, pedagogically, to demonstrate the ontological properties of heterodox economics.
With the above two major efforts, this research will contribute to elucidating the role that ACE can play in the contemporary pluralism in economics. |
