Russell Hardin (1940–2017)

This book has an unusual topic: ordinary knowledge, the kind of knowledge which "is almost entirely grounded in hearsay from a supposedly credible or even authoritative source, although commonly (...) we can no longer remember the source or its quality" (p. 1). It's certainly a fresh and important perspective which philosophers and political theorists could take more seriously than they presently do. But this book is not quite the home run I was expecting in the introductory chapter. The author claims to present an economic theory of ordinary knowledge, but I could not glean any real theoretical structure even between the lines. Basically he just discusses a variety of issues surrounding ordinary knowledge. The presentation is for the most part very intelligent, but it's not theoretical.

I liked chapter 3 on ordinary knowledge in democracy, chapter 4 on Hayek's and von Mises' liberalism and chapter 6 on institutional knowledge. I did not like chapter 2, which goes into excessive detail on "intelligent design", a subject which really did not belong among the others in this book. The chapters have originally been published separately, which unfortunately makes this book a bit incohesive. But even so it is certainly worth reading. The author works competently with a broad range of ideas, ranging from philosophy to different areas of social and political theory. Academically inclined readers should certainly enjoy his thorough arguments despite the minor faults I have noted.… (mais)

This book is a bit hard to classify. It touches on political philosophy, moral philosophy, economic theory and rational choice theory. The common thread is the indeterminacy of social choices and how various theories cope with it. An interesting topic, but I found the discussion a bit too abstract for my level of knowledge. The author assumes that his readers have a high degree of familiarity with Bentham, Coase, Hobbes, Rawls etc. People who are not up to date with those authors may have a hard time grasping the finer arguments in this book.… (mais)