Knowing and Acting: on uncertainty in economics

David Levine

Review of Political Economy, 1997, vol. 9, issue 1, 5-17

Abstract: Economists who speak of uncertainty tend to attribute it to the objective, external, world, which they sometimes describe as being uncertain. However plausible this way of speaking about uncertainty, it also causes problems. This essay explore some of these problems, which have to do with what it means to attribute uncertainty to the state of the world, particularly to bring in the flow of 'historical' time. The essay advances the idea that uncertainty be understood not as an intrinsic attribute of the flow of time, but in connection with a specific moment in human history and the situation in which individuals find themselves at that moment. The essay focuses attention on the status of the subject of agent in economics, and the conditions under which knowing and acting are possible. Special emphasis is placed on the implications for knowing and acting on the distinction between traditional and modern society.

Date: 1997
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09538259700000016 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:9:y:1997:i:1:p:5-17

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CRPE20

DOI: 10.1080/09538259700000016

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Political Economy is currently edited by Steve Pressman and Louis-Philippe Rochon

More articles in Review of Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().