Le bazar de la rationalité. Vers une sociologie des formes concrètes de raisonnement

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The Bazaar of Rationality. Towards a Sociology of Concrete Forms of Reasoning Olivier Godechot Contrary to the majority of economic theories which give ex ante a defined rationality to the actors, this text seeks to account in an inductive way for ordinary reasoning, with its sequences, its computations, its associations and its imperfections. It is all the more interesting to study with such a research program the financial markets that they do not only consist in a high level of calculation, but also in a plurality of winning strategies used by the actors. Encouraged to maximise the profit of the bank, people of the dealing room here studied do not find a « one best way ». They can choose among several winning strategies possible: mathematical arbitrage, economic analysis, chartist analysis, or «feeling ». Those strategies differ from one another so much by the degree of clarification and of constitution in the universe of the dealing room and of the market, than by the type of knowing, more or less academic, which each one mobilise, than by the forms of conjectures, calculations and associations which those strategies imply. This choice - which may be an addition - is partly imposed by the dealing room, by its history, by the function, by the economic situation, or by the product. But as people are here relatively autonomous at work, they can partly avoid those constraints or seek to occupy the positions where they will be able to use the strategy of their heart. One can thus regard the set of winning strategies as a real bazaar of rationality, within which people find their way not only according to their position and to the associated constraints, but also according to their dispositions acquired during their primary socialisation in the family or during secondary socialisation at school or at work.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: