Uncertainty and imagination, illusion and order: Shackleian connections

Brian Loasby

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2011, vol. 35, issue 4, 771-783

Abstract: Shackle's work has many connections, to economic, scientific and philosophical ideas and also to the practicalities of economic organization and business management. Uncertainty is not only a pervasive problem, but a necessary condition for human intelligence, initiative and imagination; unpredictability is essential to both scientific progress and entrepreneurship. We create knowledge by making patterns that enable us to impose order and envisage new combinations in an evolutionary process, driven by human purpose, of competing and complementary conjectures, many of which turn out to be false representations. Though academia was Shackle's natural environment, he was always concerned with applicability, and testament to the practical relevance of his ideas is provided by two former senior managers, with particular emphasis on the fundamental and domain-specific issues of what to think about and how to think about it. Copyright The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.

Date: 2011
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