How Do You Know? (ebook)

Argumento de How Do You Know? (ebook)

"[Hardin] he offers an insightful lens on popular knowledge in society and politics."--Mark B. Brown, Perspectives on Politics

"Overall, this book is a good choice for anybody with broad interests, as Hardin is highly knowledgeable on an impressive broad scale of issues. It is well-written, and the many international examples give this book a rare global perspective. . . . [I]t is an essential reference that serves as an excellent guide to a fast, multidisciplinary theme."--Hans Dubois, CEU Political Science Journal

"This book develops a general, economic theory of ordinary knowledge and applies it to many different kinds of knowledge and belief, providing a clear and convincing view of many of the world's problems, such as fanaticism and nationalism. A significant contribution that will be useful to readers in many different fields, How Do You Know? is also beautifully written and a pleasure to read."--Jonathan Baron, University of Pennsylvania

"Russell Hardin's How Do You Know? is original, thought provoking, and important. It raises questions of both practical and intellectual significance and it is very well written--indeed, it is an engrossing read."--Geoffrey Brennan, Duke University and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"This book is an exceptionally clear statement of why individuals believe and act as they do and should be especially useful to policy makers."--Choice0Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii

Chapter 1: Ordinary Knowledge 1
An Economic Theory of Knowledge 4
The Social Generation of Knowledge 10
Knowledge from Authority 11
The Division of Labor and Individual Knowledge 14
The Internalization of Norms 15
Standard Philosophical Theories of Knowledge 19
Concluding Remarks 25

Chapter 2: Popular Knowledge of Science 28
Medical Knowledge 35
Estrangement from Science 41
The Science Wars 44
Religion versus Science 45
A New Science? 49
Concluding Remarks 58

Chapter 3: Democratic Participation 60
The Logic of Collective Action 62
The Economic Theory of Democracy 63
Voting and Ordinary Knowledge 65
Knowledge of How to Vote 66
Median Knowledge 69
Understanding Whether to Vote 70
Multidimensional Issues 78
Concluding Remarks 80

Chapter 4: Liberalism 83
Austrian Social Theory 84
Legibility and Democracy 87
Seeing like Hayek 89 Distributed Knowledge and Policy 91
Civil Liberties 93
Liberty and Welfare 96
Concluding Remarks 99

Chapter 5: Moral Knowledge 101
Individual Moral Knowledge 103
Testing Moral Theories against Common Sense 105
The Strategy of Knowing 111
The Economics of Moral Motivation 113
Social Evolution of Collective Moral Knowledge 114
Authority and Moral Knowledge 118
Concluding Remarks 119

Chapter 6: Institutional Knowledge 121
Strategic Interaction and Institutions 123
Institutions and Moral Knowledge 124
Institutions as Meliorative 126
Apparent Mutual Advantage 130
Interpersonal Comparisons of Welfare 131
Concluding Remarks 133

Chapter 7: Religious Belief and Practice 135
Religious Knowledge by Authority 138
Incentive to Believe, or Count as True 142
Adaptive Knowledge Revision 143
Communal Sources of Belief 147
Communal Enforcement of Belief 148
Sincerity of Belief and Knowledge 150
Fundamentalist, Infallible Belief 153
Concluding Remarks 159

Chapter 8: Culture 161
Group-Specific Implications of Individual Knowledge 162
Knowledge and Culture 166
A Functional Account of Culture 175
The Goodness of a Culture 176
Collective Identity 179
Concluding Remarks 181 Chapter 9: Extremism 185
Knowledge by Authority, Again 186
Normal Politics 187
The Belief System of Extremism 188
Nationalism 191
Fanatical Action without Fanatical Belief 195
Interests and Knowledge 196
Knowledge, Fanaticism, and Nationalism 200
Coerced Ignorance 201

Concluding Remarks 203
References 205
Index 219