Methodological Cognitivism.Vol.1

Part I: Cognitive Rationality and Society.- Part II: Cognitive Economics.- Part III: Mind, Culture, and Epistemological Universals.- References.- Subject Index.

Riccardo Viale is Professor of Research and Innovation Policy at the Scuola Superiore della Pubblica Amministrazione di Roma (SSPA) and Full Professor of Methodology of Social Sciences at the Faculty of Sociology of the University of Milano-Bicocca. He is Founder and President of the Rosselli Foundation of Turin.

Possibly, future historians will describe the social sciences of the early 21st century as having successfully taken a cognitive turn thanks to which they were able to analyze more realistically human behavior as well as the collective effects of individual actions, as the book of Riccardo Viale illustrates. - Raymond Boudon, Institut de France



Riccardo Viale brings important new thinking to the relations among culture, cognition, and strategic choice. His essays help to bridge the divide between psychologism and methodological individualism, drawing on new research in neuroscience, and expand the reach of economic and rational choice analysis to deal with diverse forms of cognition. -  Craig Calhoun, Director, London School of Economics and Political Science, President, Social Science Research Council, New York



These essays by Riccardo Viale draw their arguments from a wide range of sources and disciplines: philosophy, several fields of psychology, cognitive science, various parts of the history of economic thought. All of these different perspectives are coherently focused on the subject of how to understand purposive human behavior, principally in economic contexts but more broadly too. The particular orientation of many of them is towards the question of what it might mean to call purposive behavior "rational", and the possible awkwardness of doing so in the face of what we know empirically.  I know of no other author who has addressed this issue from such a broad background, and successfully. - Richard R. Nelson, Columbia University



This is an impressive book on a wide range of philosophical topics that are highly relevant for social scientists. Even those who are not specialists in the philosophy of the social sciences,  will find the discussion highly useful for their substantive work. - Karl-Dieter Opp, Emeritus, University of Leipzig, Institute of Sociology

From the reviews:"This book reminds us that human and social sciences are branches of the cognitive theory of mind. ... this book has several interesting contents also for agent-based modelers: it provides a clear perspective for cognition analysis in social sciences and a behavioral neuroeconomics synthesis, useful to derive new bases for social simulation research. ... this book is food for thought for anyone interested in social simulation and the modeling of socioeconomic phenomena." (Pietro Terna, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Vol. 1, 2012)