I would submit that pages 93 to 108 of Institutional Economics is a critical part of understanding John R. Commons overall program to build a different type of economics. This section speaks to his sense of human understanding and cognition. In particular, the argument that Commons doesn't have a clear theory or framework on human cognition is simply wrong. Here is what Commons writes in paragraph two of section III of chapter 2, “But if the mind itself is a unit of activity, then it actually creates its own ideas. An idea is not a copy of reality—it is a useful imagination by which we get our living or get rich. And since getting a living is also resolved into units of activity, then a more complicated classification of ideas is required.” This is such an important point. Commons human cognitive theory is that our minds are crucial in that they construct ideas that determine how to make money in transactions. Then he writes that, “Ideas are the intellectual tools with which we i...
This blog has been setup to explore the ideas and philosophy of the American institutional economist John R. Commons.