Cet article porte sur les conditions méthodologiques de compréhension des croyances en sciences sociales. Selon une certaine tradition épistémologique, l’attribution de rationalité aux agents est une condition nécessaire à l’explication compréhensive de leurs attitudes et actions. Cet article évalue cette idée en interrogeant le rôle d’une telle attribution dans la manière dont certains historiens et politistes ont tenté de comprendre l’erreur d’appréciation stalinienne concernant l’imminence de l’attaque allemande. Après avoir explicité l’approche poppérienne du principe de rationalité, je définis son équivalent (...) doxastique : l’hypothèse de rationalité épistémique. J’examine ensuite la manière dont ces travaux mobilisent puis réfutent cette hypothèse. (shrink)

An obituary of Philippe Mongin (1950-2020).

It is argued that the design of decisions is a process that in many ways is shaped by social factors such as identities, values, and influences. To be able to understand how these factors impact organizational decisions, the focus must be set on the management level. It is the management that shoulders the chief responsibility for designing collective actions, such as decisions. Our propositions indicate that the following measures must be taken in order to improve the quality of organizational decisions: (...) 1. The identity of the people, involved in organizational decision making, affects the quality of decisions and should be taken into account in the design of decisions. 2. The decision maker or designer of decisions should engage the members of an organization to create a shared vision. 3. Getting the members of an organization to express and share common values should improve the decision making process. 4. Being able to socially influence the members of an organization, or other stakeholders involved, as well as letting them participate in the process, should improve the quality of decisions. (shrink)

We critically survey explicit discussions of the narrativity of economic agents by economists. Narrativity broadly refers to the way humans construct and use stories, notably to define their personal identity. We borrow from debates outside of economics to provide the critical dimension of our survey. Most contributions on the narrativity of economic agents do not discuss one another. To establish communication, we suggest a structure of oppositions that characterize these contributions taken as a whole. These oppositions are notably characterized by (...) three tensions: in terms of methodological attitudes, of underlying theories of personal identity postulating the existence of a unique sense of self or not and of the normative implications of narrativity. The main goal is to clarify the structure of opposite positions within a more or less explicit debate about the identity of individuals in economics. (shrink)

Cet article utilise la notion de convention afin de préciser une condition nécessaire à la performation du monde social. On considère ici que l’influence des théories économiques sur le monde social peut être analysée en termes de traduction de conventions scientifiques en conventions sociales. Une telle perspective nous amène à souligner un élément essentiel d’une telle traduction : pour performer le monde social, une notion théorique doit dans un premier temps prendre une posture empirique. On étudie plus particulièrement l’exemple emblématique (...) de la rationalité économique comme concept central d’un nouveau type de politique publique : l’économie des nudges. Classification J.E.L. : B41, C91, Z1. (shrink)