The Economics of Identity and Creativity: A Cultural Science Approach

261 Pages·2011·1.131 MB·English

by  Carsten Herrmann-Pillath

Economics
Business
Psychology
THE ECONOMICS OF IDENTITY AND
CREATIVITY
A Cultural Science Approach
Creative Economy and Innovation Culture Series
Carsten Herrmann-Pillath
Th e Economics of Identity and Creativity aims to sythesize naturalistic evolutionary
theory while discussing new developments in economics. Th e author’s approach
reexamines fundamental assumptions about how a capitalist economy works, from
the relation between producers and consumers to the functioning of intellectual
property rights. In the creative economy, the author argues, identities merge with
the fl ow of creative action. To explain these changes, he draws upon a range of
theories from analytical philosophy to biology, and from economics to sociology.
Th e fi rst part of the book examines the role of language in the naturalistic
approach to cultural science. Herrmann-Pillath draws on Darwinian evolutionary
theory to map a concept of knowledge. Part Two off ers a systematic approach to
creativity and identity from the naturalistic point of view developed in Part One.
Here the author builds a theory of creativity from the ideas of conceptual blending
in the cognitive sciences.
Herrmann-Pillath presents a theory of identity based on analytical philosophy,
and looks at the problems in fi xing the boundaries of an individual identity both in
biological evolutionary theory and brain sciences. He takes the concept of identity
through the current economic approaches, examining the distinction between
social and personal identity. Th is fascinating interdisciplinary work provides a
precise argument that the foundations of economics can be found in cultural
science, and it has evolved to become the cultural institution at the core of the
modern economy.
About the Author
Carsten Herrmann-Pillath is academic director at the East-West Centre for Business Stud-
ies and Cultural Science, and professor of business economics at the Frankfurt School of
Finance and Management. He is the author of numerous works, mostly in German, and his
research interests include evolutionary economics, international trade, economic transition,
and economic methodology.
Library of Congress: 2010047969
Printed in the U.S.A.
Cover design by Ellen F. Kane
www.transactionpub.com
ISBN: 978-1-4128-1101-9

First Transaction printing 2011
Copyright © 2010 by Carsten Herrmann-Pillath. Originally published in
2010 by University of Queensland Press.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copy-
right Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or trans-
mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and re-
trieval system, without prior permission in writing from the pub-
lisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Transaction Publishers,
Rutgers—The State University of New Jersey, 35 Berrue Circle,
Piscataway, New Jersey 08854-8042. www.transactionpub.com
This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National
Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2010047969
ISBN: 978-1-4128-1101-9
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten.
The economics of identity and creativity : a cultural science approach
/ Carsten Herrmann-Pillath.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4128-1101-9
1. Economics. 2. Capitalism. 3. Economics--Sociological aspects.
I. Title.

HB72.H467 2011
330--dc22
2010047969
Dedicated to Yann Emil

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ...................................................................1
PART 1
The Creative Economy and the naturalistic turn
in the study of culture and the economy ..........................13
ECONOMICS, LANGUAGE AND THE CREATIVE
ECONOMY ............................................................................16
Evolutionary economics and the blind spot of
economics: creativity ......................................................16
Incomplete conceptual transfers from biology to
economics ......................................................................18
The two senses of naturalism ..........................................19
Language: embedding minds in the world .......................22
Practising naturalism: towards an analysis of the Creative
Economy ........................................................................25
The Creative Economy as a transformation of the creative
economy .........................................................................28
NATURALISING KNOWLEDGE ......................................32
Holism versus atomism in the analysis of
knowledge ......................................................................32
The embeddedness of knowledge: the case of
technology ......................................................................35
Radical uncertainty and Arrow’s impossibility
theorem about the optimal search for
new knowledge ...............................................................37
The principle of bimodality: all knowledge is
physical ..........................................................................40
We do not know what we know ......................................42
Externalism as the philosophical setting of cultural
science ...........................................................................45
Scaffolding rationality ....................................................46
viii The Economics of Identity and Creativity
Evolving agent identities and endogenous agency ...........48
Naturalising knowledge means
Darwinising knowledge ..................................................50
BRAINS, NEUROMEMES AND EVOLUTION
Darwinian principles of cultural science ............................52
Restart: holism versus atomism in cultural science .........52
Principles of generalised Darwinism ...............................55
Wittgenstein naturalised .................................................58
From memes to neuromemes ..........................................61
Imitation and neuromemetic reproduction .......................64
The hypercycle as generalised structural
mechanism of evolution ..................................................67
The ultimate consilience of Darwinism and
cultural analysis .............................................................71
SIGNAL SELECTION, SOCIAL NETWORK MARKETS
AND CULTURAL SCIENCE ..............................................73
The creative industries as a laboratory case for
cultural science ..............................................................73
Social network markets ..................................................76
All consumption is consumption of signs ........................78
The other dimension of Darwinism: signal
selection .........................................................................81
The historical specificity of the creative
industries ........................................................................84
The universality of Darwinism and the
embeddedness of the sciences .........................................86
PART 2
An externalist theory of identity and creativity in
economics ......................................................................90
Economics, Language and the Creative Economy ix
FORMS, IDENTITIES AND THE ONTOLOGICAL
CREATIVITY OF LANGUAGE .........................................92
Creativity and identity: conceptual companions ..............92
A case in point: product innovation in business ..............93
Organisational forms and identities ................................96
Form as intermediate theoretical concepts in evolutionary
analysis ..........................................................................99
The dynamics of emergence: external and internal
selection .......................................................................103
The analytical inseparability of meanings
and rules .......................................................................108
New meanings are new things .......................................112
An evolving world, made from human actions ...............115
THE STUFF OF NOVELTY Blends, metaphors and
the creative brain .................................................................118
The basic operation of the conceptual blend ..................118
Blending and the growth of knowledge .........................121
Performativity as ontological creativity of
language .......................................................................123
The neuroscience foundation of blends and
metaphors .....................................................................126
Blending naturalised: neural Darwinism .......................130
The world is part and parcel of the brain ......................133
Creating things with words ...........................................136
Technological evolution proceeds via sequences of
blends ...........................................................................139
Decentring knowledge evolution ..................................142
THE BIO-LOGIC OF IDENTITY .....................................144
Identity is the foundational ontological concept ............144
Individuum est ineffabile .............................................146
The turn from essentialism to population thinking ........149