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Environment as a Resource, not a Constraint

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  2. Economics, Finance, Business & Management
  3. Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch
  4. Vol. 141, Issue 1–2
  5. pp. 85–107

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Remic, B. Environment as a Resource, not a Constraint. Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, 141(1–2), 85-107. https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.141.1-2.85
Remic, Blaž "Environment as a Resource, not a Constraint" Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch 141.1–2, 2021, 85-107. https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.141.1-2.85
Remic, Blaž (2021): Environment as a Resource, not a Constraint, in: Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, vol. 141, iss. 1–2, 85-107, [online] https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.141.1-2.85
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Environment as a Resource, not a Constraint

Remic, Blaž

Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Vol. 141 (2021), Iss. 1–2 : pp. 85–107

2 Citations (CrossRef)

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Article Details

Publisher Name
Duncker & Humblot
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3790/schm.141.1-2.85
Language
English
Pages
23
Keywords

Author Details

Blaž Remic, Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Burgermeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA Rotterdam, Netherlands.

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    Journal of Institutional Economics, Vol. 20 (2024), Iss.

    https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744137424000055 [Citations: 4]

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Abstract

In this article I argue that the study of contextual issues in economics has been limited in its scope because economists have mostly conceived of the environment as a constraint on individual action. I identify and discuss three conventions that pull economists into such conceptualization of the environment. For each of the three I provide ways forward for contextual economics to avoid the pull. I then employ insights from the recent cognitive science on socially extended mind to demonstrate how the project of contextual economics as envisioned in this article can benefit from reconceptualizing the environment not as a constraint on individual action but as a resource for constituting socially extended cognitive processes. Rather than being simply about gathering more and better data, contextual economics can offer a powerful approach for studying social world based on entangled interactions between individual actors and their environments.

Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Blaž Remic: Environment as a Resource, not a Constraint 85
Abstract 85
1. Introduction 85
2. Circumventing the Perceived Danger of Relativism: Environment as a Constraint 87
3. Three Problematic Conventions Underlying the Constraint-based Views, and How to Overcome Them 89
3.1 Convention 1: The Analysis Starts by Separating and Isolating the Variables 90
3.2 Convention 2: Veridical Perception Is the Benchmark 92
3.3 Convention 3: Cognition Is a Matter of the Mental Processes in Individual Minds 85
4. “Context Matters” Reconsidered: Environment as a Resource 85
4.1 Environment Is an Expanding Opportunity Set of Potential Actions 85
4.2 Environment Serves as an External Resource of Embodied Knowledge 85
4.3 Environment Has an Active Role in the Cognitive Processes 85
5. Conclusion 85
References 86

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