Introduction: Opening a Can of Worms from Pandora’s Box
Patrick Schotanus
September 18, 2023 DOI: 10.1515/9783111215051-206 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that human beings cannot be treated as mechanisms in economics and applied psychology, and that practical necessity leads back to dualism, opposing Knight's view that consciousness should be set aside as a metaphysical question. |
Abstract
Introduction: Opening a Can of Worms from Pandora's Box The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.Arthur Schopenhauer So, let me lay out my stall by opening a can of worms from Pandora's Box.To get straight to the point, the key issues were already grasped by Knight, almost a century ago:Now the issue, as is plain, relates to the treatment of "consciousness" in human beings . . .The "existence" of consciousness would be left on one side as a metaphysical question, in the case of human beings as in that of the rest of nature.The pertinent fact for economics (and for applied psychology in general, of course) would be that it is useless and a source of confusion in study, destructive of the scientific point of view which is the only fruitful approach to the data.In opposition to this view I propose . . .that we cannot treat human beings as . . .mechanisms, and that we do not want to do so even if it were possible.We necessarily approach the phenomena of conduct from a different direction, and bring to them a different dominant interest, as compared with the phenomena of nature outside the human realm . . .(Knight, 1925b, p. 248).There is nothing to it but to come back to common sense, and the practical necessities of our situation.That is, we come back to dualism . . .(Knight, 1925b, p. 265).