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"Elster's book is a success. It is lively, modest, thoughtful, and laced with the sort of vivid images that effectively make abstract ideas come alive." Economics and Philosophy
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This book is intended as an introductory survey of the philosophy of the social sciences. It is essentially a work of exposition which offers a toolbox of mechanisms - nuts and bolts, cogs and wheels - that can be used to explain complex social phenomena. Within a brief compass, Jon Elster covers a vast range of topics. His point of departure is the conflict we all face between our desires and our opportunities. How can rational choice theory help us understand our motivation and behaviour? More significantly, what happens when the theory breaks down but we still cleave to a belief in the power of the rational? Elster describes the fascinating range of forms of irrationality - wishful thinking, the phenomenon of sour grapes, discounting the future in noncooperative behaviour. He shows how these issues bear very directly upon our lives in such concrete situations as wage bargaining, economic cartels, political strikes, voting in elections, and court decisions involving child custody. This is a remarkably lucid and comprehensive introduction to the social sciences for students of political science, philosophy, sociology and economics. It will also prove fascinating to any non-academic readers who want to understand a little better the forces governing human behaviour in its social context.
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THE emphasis in this book is on explanation by mechanisms. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
THE emphasis in this book is on explanation by mechanisms. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am the author of this book. Please remove the 1997 customer review from the site. (Once you have done that you can remove this review as well.) It refers to an older, much shorter and vastly different version. As a guide to the new book it is seriously misleading.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Elster opens his book by posing some questions which rational choice theory has had difficulty answering, such as:
Why do some gamblers bet on trends, and others on reversals?
Why do humiliating initiation rituals make group members more and not less loyal?
Why does switching prescription drugs from bottles to blister packs significantly reduce the incidence of suicide?
Why do stocks offer a much higher long-run return than bonds?
Why can a reputation for irrational behaviour improve your bargaining situation?
Rational choice theory -- which assumes that people objectively and unbiasedly pursue their goals -- has had little success in explaining these (and more) phenomena of the real world. Elster invokes a number of different fields, such as psychology, behavioural economics, neuroscience, biology, history, and political science in search of sensible answers.
Not only are Elster's answers intuitively appealing, but they also eschew the mind-bendingly complicated mathematics and implausible assumptions of rational choice. However, he doesn't entirely denigrate rational choice: we do, after all, want to act more-or-less rationally in life, and Elster provides a number of mechanisms by which we can attain greater rationality in our decision making.
Why do some gamblers bet on trends, and others on reversals?
Why do humiliating initiation rituals make group members more and not less loyal?
Why does switching prescription drugs from bottles to blister packs significantly reduce the incidence of suicide?
Why do stocks offer a much higher long-run return than bonds?
Why can a reputation for irrational behaviour improve your bargaining situation?
Rational choice theory -- which assumes that people objectively and unbiasedly pursue their goals -- has had little success in explaining these (and more) phenomena of the real world. Elster invokes a number of different fields, such as psychology, behavioural economics, neuroscience, biology, history, and political science in search of sensible answers.
Not only are Elster's answers intuitively appealing, but they also eschew the mind-bendingly complicated mathematics and implausible assumptions of rational choice. However, he doesn't entirely denigrate rational choice: we do, after all, want to act more-or-less rationally in life, and Elster provides a number of mechanisms by which we can attain greater rationality in our decision making.
10 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A very cogent summary of Elster's main themes: rationality and how one departs from it, especially from the static notion common in current rational choice theory. Anyone interested in rationality and departures from rationality--a topic much-ignored in current thinking and applications of rational choice theory-- should read this book. While I don't find that I agree with every conclusion Elster makes, he does make me think hard, which is about the best I ever expect.
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