Evolutionary ontology

Addressing economic change theoretically requires, first, identification of the funda­mental premises on which the theoretical statements are to be based. A mechanistic world view can provide us with a set of premises that would allow a theory of rest and equilibrium to be constructed, but not one that would explain endogenously continu­ous change.

Looking for new foundations, biology was seen to be of primary interest. Recently, philosophers of biology have proposed that Charles Darwin’s explanatory principles attain universal significance, suggesting that they may be of scientific interest not only for biologists but for students of other disciplines as well. This persuasive idea has found advocates among economists, who have been proposing that “universal Darwinism” may inform theory construction in economics in a fundamental way (Hodgson and Knudsen 2010).

At a more general level, philosophers and biologists have considered continuity of change (not one of rest) to be of ontological significance. After he had inspected geologi­cal and paleontological evidence, Gottfried Leibniz proposed a “principle of continuity”; Darwinians such as Thomas Huxley defended their “continuity theory” against creation­ists; and Charles Peirce made the “principle of continuity” a centrepiece of his process philosophy. More recently, Witt (2003) has proposed to premise economic theorising on a continuity thesis, which views evolution as a natural history of increasingly more complex behaviours and production regimes (Witt, 2003). In line with this proposition, a naturalist approach to economics has been advocated.

The two strands of discussion have provided valuable insights into various theoretical topics (Darwinian principles explaining the dynamic of institutions, the continuity thesis shedding light on cross-level dependence and transition analysis), but it is fair to say that these endeavours have not yet provided a systematic exposition of what may represent the ontological foundations for a theory that deals with change in an economic system.

Exploring the field of ontology further, we arrive at a rich legacy handed down from philosophers of science such as Alfred Whitehead, Charles Peirce and Henri Bergson.

The task to be faced in this analysis is not a detailed exegesis of these works but, rather, the extracting from them what may represent the essentials of an evolutionary ontology. Three ontological propositions are submitted. Being ontological, the propositions rep­resent generalisations about reality, and therefore they are subject to falsification. The propositions also represent the premises for the lower, theoretical, level, however, and at this level they are no longer questioned. They are taken to be “worth” (Greek axio) not to be questioned. In the process of theorising, the ontological propositions thus attain the status of axioms. Challenging the axioms means challenging the validity of the evolutionary ontology proposed.

In a nutshell, the three axioms are as follows:

Axiom 1 All existences are physical actualisations of information in time and space. There is bimodality, meaning that their complete representation requires an acknowl­edgement of both physical (matter and energy) and non-physical (information) categories of existence.

Axiom 2 Existences have a propensity to associate; given (thermodynamic) conditions, they emerge into structure.

Axiom 3 Structures unfold as processes. There are repeatable and non-repeatable processes. In a regime of repeatable processes, structural characteristics or functional attributes are retained; in one of non-repeatable processes, they change (evolvability).