Carsten Herrmann-PillathUniversität Erfurt | UE · Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies
Carsten Herrmann-Pillath
Professor, Dr.rer.pol., M.A., Dipl.-Volkswirt
About
362
Publications
65,414
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1,753
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Citations since 2017
Introduction
I am a transdisciplinary researcher aiming at a synthesis of the humanities and the sciences by taking economics as the interface. Recently, I have completed foundational work on these issues which I summarize on my personal homepage www.cahepil.net. Currently, I concentrate on elaborating the normative and political implications, resulting into a critical theory of economics.
Additional affiliations
April 2016 - present
Erfurt University
Position
- Professor
April 2015 - December 2016
October 2014 - March 2016
Publications
Publications (362)
For decades, funeral reform has been a key concern for cultural governance in China as the state has attempted to manage “feudal” and “superstitious” practices and economize resources such as land devoted to cemeteries. We analyse the status of funeral reforms in Shenzhen, combining general observations with a case study of an urban village. We sho...
The concept of NbS bridges between researchers and practitioners who search for innovative solutions to a wide range of societal problems and challenges, mostly related to ecological issues. Our conceptual paper aims at grounding the concept in theorizing NbS as a variant of ‘co-evolutionary technology’ CET, informed by ecological and institutional...
Seit Erscheinen der „Grenzen des Wachstums“ im Jahre 1972 versagt die Menschheit, ihrer planetaren Verantwortung gerecht zu werden. Erforderlich ist eine Revolution des Wirtschaftssystems mit vier zentralen Punkten: Die Transformation des Rechts, die Abschaffung der Haftungsbeschränkung, eine nicht produktivistische Konzeption der Arbeit und die Ei...
In the past two decades, Evolutionary Cultural Science (ECS) has been emerging as a transdisciplinary field crossing evolutionary economics, economic sociology and evolutionary biology. The methodological key is co-evolutionary theory in terms of multi-level selection, evo-devo systemic approaches, and formal homologies in modelling tools, which al...
Motivated by our empirical research on an urban village in Shenzhen, China, the paper introduces the distinction of three modes of appropriation: property, possession, and ownership. In the land regime of urban villages, we observe significant family resemblances with conditions in Late Imperial China, which we characterize as 'state-centred legal...
Our conceptual paper presents the case for strengthening ritual theory in family business research. Ritual theory integrates various recent strands in qualitative research, such as on history, emotions, and narratives. We develop a new conceptual frame that builds on anthropological and sociological theories of rituals, while directly connecting wi...
The concept of NbS bridges between researchers and practitioners who search for innovative solutions to a wide range of societal problems and challenges, mostly related to ecological issues. Our conceptual paper aims at grounding the concept in theorizing NbS as a variant of ‘co-evolutionary technology’ CET, informed by ecological and institutional...
The present paper reflects on the state of evolutionary approaches to culture, which are mostly seen as essential for defining ‘cultural science’. They manifest two flaws that still block a productive synthesis between the sciences and the humanities. First, they employ an inflationary generic concept of culture that covers all information that is...
A geocentric turn in economics would radically transform the performative functions of economics in contemporary capitalism; inspired by John Stuart Mill, I outline the idea of understanding the Earth as a ‘community of advantage’. The argument consists of two stages: First, to switch from an anthropocentric to a geocentric conceptualisation of the...
This paper explores the theory of ‘interaction ritual chains’ proposed by the sociologist Randall Collins in understanding popular religion in China today. It contributes to ongoing conceptual debates over approaching Chinese religions and draws conclusions for general socio-economic theory. We concentrate on the specific phenomenon of the resurgen...
In the standard ‘three circle model’ of family business the role of employees and of the embedding local community is neglected. However, both are an important element in current family business research on ‘socio-emotional wealth’ as forms of ‘benevolent social ties’. We suggest adding a ‘community’ circle to the three circle (aka systems) model o...
Information is a core concept in modern economics, yet its definition and empirical specification is elusive. One reason is the intellectual grip of the Shannon paradigm which marginalizes semantic information. However, a precise concept of economic information must be based on a theory of semantics, since what counts economically is the meaning, f...
This paper develops a new conceptual frame of macroeconomics, dubbed 'institutional macroeconomics', which continues with the MMT agenda but introduces novel and partly dissenting aspects which are inspired by Silvio Gesell's theory of interest and money. The argument aims at diagnosing deeper structural forces determining the current macroeconomic...
Recently, the concept of “cultural governance” has gained analytical traction in research on Chinese urban development. This is mostly diagnosed as a top-down process of defining and imposing cultural forms in government-led projects, such as in tourism. We argue that the case of Shenzhen manifests important differences, and is highly significant,...
The paper outlines the institutional innovation of ›Community Money‹ COMMON, a securitized claim on a monthly income transfer that can also be used as a tax allowance in an up to 100 percent inheritance tax. It can be accumulated on a special citizens’ account and is a substitute for all other kinds of public income transfers such as pensions and u...
Hayek’s seminal contribution to theoretical neurosciences, The Sensory Order (1952) remains neglected in current efforts at integrating the neurosciences, psychology and economics. I defend the view that Hayek presents the case for an evolutionary alternative to leading paradigms in the field and look at two in more detail: the good-based model in...
Neuroeconomics has emerged as a paradigmatic field where neuroscience and the social sciences are integrated in one analytical and empirical approach. However, the different disciplines involved often only relate to each other via the shared object of research, and less through the constructing of precise models of integrative mechanisms.
Social N...
The paper overviews recent debates among Japanese scholars about the possible transition to post-capitalism in Japan.
The paper explores the relevance of Karl Polanyi for understanding the role of economics in our contemporary malaise.
This chapter proposes a geocentric turn in economics that aims at radically transforming the performative functions of economics in contemporary capitalism: Inspired by an expression of John Stuart Mill, I outline the idea of the Earth as a 'community of advantage'. The argument proceeds in two steps. The first is to switch from an anthropocentric...
Introducing the new concept of deliberative trade policy and sketch application on reforming the WTO
Relating thermodynamics and economics has been mainly achieved by investigating thermodynamic constraints on growth and the role of energy. The economic connection between energy and information remains neglected because physical concepts of information are mostly informed by the Shannon view, which downplays the semantic dimensions of information....
Defending the case for an evolutionary turn in neuroeconomics that is informed by Hayek's seminal contribution 'The Sensory Order'.
In the economic development of Shenzhen, 'urban villages' play an essential role. As observers have noticed earlier, this went hand in hand with the revival of lineages. In terms of socioeconomic organization, the 'Shareholding Cooperatives' establish the link between municipal governance and grassroots-level social and cultural structures. We expl...
Today, the status of science in society is increasingly contested. One reason is immanent to science: Facing hypercomplex systems and ‘wicked problems’, science cannot provide an unequivocal and binding basis for action and policy design. This problem is especially pronounced in systemic contexts in which epistemic subjects and objects are entangle...
The paper discusses Weber's classical views on the 'religion of China' in the light of new approaches to economy and religion in China.
North et al. (2009) have presented a new theory of economic institutions which explains property rights in ‘limited access orders’ as outcome of intra-elite political conflict. Property rights are explained as a means of governing violence in society via the distribution of rents among elites. However, this theory does not establish systematic link...
I discuss the problem of the endogeneity of values and institutions that results from performativity and suggest a solution.
The paper reflects on the theory behind Tönnies' famous distinction between 'Gemeinschaft' and 'Gesellschaft' which is rarely considered when these concepts are invoked, presumably because of its very pronounced patriarchal stance regarding the gender issue. I turn Tönnies 'from head to feet' and show how norms in critical economics might be ground...
Today, the status of science in society is increasingly contested. One reason is immanent to science: Facing hypercomplex systems and ‘wicked problems’, science cannot provide an unequivocal and binding basis for action and policy design. This problem is especially pronounced in systemic contexts in which epistemic subjects and objects are entangle...
The firm is the central institution of modern capitalism, predominantly in the shape of the "corporation" in which entrepreneurs and investors cooperate under certain legal forms, especially limited liability. Although in modern capitalism, the emergence of these legal and organizational forms was intimately tied to technological innovation and the...
Increasingly, economists study narratives and their causal impact on economic processes. This paper proposes a new theoretical framework of narrative analysis that is based on the philosophy of language, especially speech act theory, motivated by the observation that the economic approaches often only focus on the representational function of narra...
The canonical model of neuroeconomics centres on the notion of subjective value and analyses choice along the lines of neoclassical economics. Recently, this model has been challenged by approaches that introduce selectionist models of parallel and distributed neural networks. This perspective was already developed by Hayek in his book 'The Sensory...
The chapter explores the performativity of economics and the role of critical reflection in opening up new ways to design real world economies. This establishes a principled role for politics and ethics in economics.
Culture, mainly defined as values and beliefs, has recently attracted much attention in economics. Cultural practices receive less attention, as emphasized in anthropology. We argue that the notion of ‘ritual’ can enrich economic research on culture as a specific form of socially standardized interactions that create shared contexts and emotions to...
Many observers of contemporary China notice the revival of the so-called traditional culture. This includes the public presence of rituals and artefacts that relate with traditional kinship, such as ancestral halls. This article explores a case in Shenzhen, the Huang lineage and the larger surname group. A methodological issue looms large: What exa...
In the recently published ‘Festschrift’ for Karl-Heinz Brodbeck I have a paper (in German) that argues in favour of an ‘Aristotelian Oath’ in finance. This goes back to the insights gained by our INSOSCI project. The core idea is that agency in the financial sector manifests a collectively shared identity. Hence, resolving certain problems of regul...
Spring lecture at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University
Spring lecture at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University
Spring lecture at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University
The paper analyses the methodology of economic lab experiments on human behaviour in the light of Barad’s ‘agential realism’. Experimenters conventionally think that experiments identify properties that human individuals have, independent from the experimental setting (the ‘preferences’ or ‘values’, etc.), so that lab results generalize for the ent...
Building on an overview of dual systems theories in behavioural economics, the paper presents a methodological assessment in terms of the mechanistic explanations framework that has gained prominence in philosophy of the neurosciences. I conclude that they fail to meet the standards of causal explanations and I suggest an alternative ‘dual function...
Mechanistic philosophy of science is mostly flourishing in the context of the neurosciences and the life sciences one the one hand, and sociology on the other hand. This paper suggests a conceptual frame that links the two approaches aiming at enabling transdisciplinary integration in terms of theories and hypotheses that bridge both domains withou...
Thirty years ago, the eminent sinologist James Watson published a paper in Anthropos on ‘common pot’ dining in the New Territories of Hong Kong, a banquet ritual that differs fundamentally from established social norms in Chinese society. We explore the recent career of the ‘common pot’ in neighbouring Shenzhen, where it has become an important sym...
Projects
Projects (4)
I am one of the PIs of this project which is a European collaboration funded in the framework of the European Commission ERA-Net NEURON initiative. For more information, see http://www.insosci.eu/. I am currently working on a critical assessment of 'dual systems/process' theories and propose an alternative based on the work of G.H. Mead. My thoughts on these issues can be followed on the project blog.
