tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674709389503889160.post4720323045675325355..comments2024-03-25T14:25:25.102+00:00Comments on Poetry as Socio-proctology: Sen's merisms as senility's mereologywindwheelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18099651877551933295noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674709389503889160.post-14233151763612142472014-07-13T19:40:25.025+01:002014-07-13T19:40:25.025+01:00What great misunderstanding of a mathematical sort...What great misunderstanding of a mathematical sort is Sen guilty of with respect to Arrow's theorem? Surely Sen's treatment of the topic is a masterpiece of lucidity.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674709389503889160.post-15429469805355472972014-07-13T12:43:22.157+01:002014-07-13T12:43:22.157+01:00Many thanks for your valuable comment. I've po...Many thanks for your valuable comment. I've posted about it here- http://socioproctology.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/shibis-dove-samaritans-dilema-why-sen.html<br />Re. your opening question, I'm sure I read something somewhere, not about Sen, but on the topic of merism and mereology- though perhaps that wasn't the language used.<br />Will get back to you here if I can manage to think of what it was.windwheelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18099651877551933295noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1674709389503889160.post-74815535253670100442014-07-13T09:50:38.534+01:002014-07-13T09:50:38.534+01:00Was there a specific article or paper which prompt...Was there a specific article or paper which prompted this burst of spleen? If so, you've failed to link to it.<br />I haven't come across 'merism' in the literature before- who has time to read everything?- but, imagine it arises in 'Law & Econ' with which I'm not that familiar.<br />I suppose a merism for the Market would be 'buyers & sellers'. So long as one always has to quote both one's buy and sell price, like an old fashioned stock jobber, then no 'uncorrelated asymmetry' (Maynard Smith) arises and so the Evolutonary Stable Strategy is mixed Nash rather than a pure conditional.<br />To quote Wikipedia- 'The usual applied example of an uncorrelated asymmetry is territory ownership in the hawk-dove game. Even if the two players ("owner" and "intruder") have the same payoffs (i.e., the game is payoff symmetric), the territory owner will play Hawk, and the intruder Dove, in what is known as the 'Bourgeois strategy''.<br />I think the charitable way to look at Sen's merism 'niti and nyaya'- for Justice Public Discourse- is to separate out the 'Bourgeois strategies' of 'Niti' (where the Institution or 'rule bound' individual has well defined 'territory ownership' and the other party feels they don't) from 'Revolutionary' Nyaya which takes nothing for granted regarding 'territory ownership'. <br />I must admit, it's some years now since I read Sen's book which, in any case, was meant for a popular audience. Still, my question is, why not give the man the benefit of the doubt? Surely we can all accept that 'uncorrelated asymmetries' can be distortionary and that Sen is the leading Public Intellectual calling attention to this? <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com