KLI Colloquia are informal, public talks that are followed by extensive dissussions. Speakers are KLI fellows or visiting researchers who are interested in presenting their work to an interdisciplinary audience and discussing it in a wider research context. We offer three types of talks:
1. Current Research Talks. KLI fellows or visiting researchers present and discuss their most recent research with the KLI fellows and the Vienna scientific community.
2. Future Research Talks. Visiting researchers present and discuss future projects and ideas togehter with the KLI fellows and the Vienna scientific community.
3. Professional Developmental Talks. Experts about research grants and applications at the Austrian and European levels present career opportunities and strategies to late-PhD and post-doctoral researchers.
- The presentation language is English.
- If you are interested in presenting your current or future work at the KLI, please contact the Scientific Director or the Executive Manager.
Event Details
Topic description:
Biologists recognize that organisms adjust choice when constraints change, so-called “phenotypic plasticity.” Economists call it “rationality.” But what is the origin of rationality? Neo-Darwinists conceive rationality as a trait. But this cannot be the case. Let us suppose two lineages of rationality, R1 and R2. Natural selection would supposedly favor R1 over R2 under C1 constraints and vice versa under C2 constraints. However, if agents are using different rationalities, the fitness functions are incommensurable. For them to be commensurable, there must be only a single kind of rationality, R. But how could R=R1 and R=R2, when R1 and R2 are different?
Biographical note:
Elias L. Khalil is Professor of Economics at Monash University, Clayton, Australia. He has held visiting positions at the Max Planck Institute for Research into Economics Systems, Judge Institute at Cambridge University, the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, and the KLI. He has also held teaching positions at Vassar College, New York, and Ohio State University. He is a co-editor of the Journal of Institutional Economics.
