Francesco is a philosopher of science working primarily on foundational issues of economics and social science, using theoretical and empirical methods. He iscurrently Research Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Milan (Italy). He is the author of The Methodology of Experimental Economics (Cambridge 2005) and co-editor (with Daniel Steel) of The Philosophy of Social Science Reader (Routledge 2011). In 2011 he received the International Network of Economic Method Prize and the History of Economic Analysis Award.
Dates of visit: TBD
Project Description: Francesco is currently working on a monograph provisionally entitled "Experimental Social Ontology". Social Ontology is a sub-field of philosophy studying the fundamental constituents of social reality. One feature that distinguishes sharply social from natural reality is that the former, unlike the latter, seems to depend crucially on our beliefs about society. As a consequence social ontologists must study simultaneously social entities and their representations in the minds of individuals, using theoretical and empirical tools borrowed from philosophy, psychology, economics, sociology, and biology. The monograph will address questions such as:
What is an institution? What is a convention? What is a social norm? And what is the relation between these entities and the psychological or biological make-up of individual human beings?