Logic And Social Choice Rle Social Theory

How is a social decision made out of individual members' decisions? This is one of the primary questions in the social sciences. Logic and Social Choice provides an answer to the topic by the application of mathematical logic. Yasusuke Murakami formulates social decision-making in logical terms, and shows that an analysis of social decision is equivalent to a logical calculus in many-valued logic. The logical conditions are then derived for various types of societies, especially for democracy. This foundation enables the author to discuss such topics as the relation between direct democracy and the representative system, a comparison of various rules of election, and the stability of social decision. The main conclusion is that inconsistency or paradox is inherent not only in voting and in democracy itself, but also in any piecemeal social decision-making.

How is a social decision made out of individual members' decisions? This is one of the primary questions in the social sciences. Logic and Social Choice provides an answer to the topic by the application of mathematical logic. Yasusuke Murakami formulates social decision-making in logical terms, and shows that an analysis of social decision is equivalent to a logical calculus in many-valued logic. The logical conditions are then derived for various types of societies, especially for democracy. This foundation enables the author to discuss such topics as the relation between direct democracy and the representative system, a comparison of various rules of election, and the stability of social decision. The main conclusion is that inconsistency or paradox is inherent not only in voting and in democracy itself, but also in any piecemeal social decision-making.

Choice, Rationality and Social Theory is a powerful rebuttal of the remarkably influential theories underlying 'rational choice analysis'. Rational choice analysis maintains that social life is principally to be explained as the outcome of rational choices on the part of individual actors. Adherents of this view include not only philosophers, political scientists and sociologists, but also prominent politicians in Western governments – notably of the United Kingdom and the United States. Rational choice analysis is said to be rigorous, capable of great technical sophistication, and able to generate powerful explanations on the basis of a few, relatively simple theoretical assumptions. Barry Hindess argues that the theory is seriously deficient, first, because there are important actors in the modern world other than human individuals, and second, because it says nothing about those processes of deliberation that play an important part in actors' decisions. The use of highly questionable assumptions about actors and their rationality has the effect of closing off important areas of intellectual inquiry and ignoring the reality of certain forms of thought and the social conditions on which they depend. These points are established through detailed examination of the concepts of the actor and of rationality – providing an overall argument that constitutes a serious challenge to any adherent of rational choice analysis.

Fuzzy social choice theory is useful for modeling the uncertainty and imprecision prevalent in social life yet it has been scarcely applied and studied in the social sciences. Filling this gap, Application of Fuzzy Logic to Social Choice Theory provides a comprehensive study of fuzzy social choice theory.The book explains the concept of a fuzzy max

This is a textbook introducing selected topics in formal social choice theory. Social choice theory studies group choices that are based on information about preferences of members of the group (voting rules being one important special case). This involves economics, which provides the method of modelling individual decision making; political philosophy, which provides criteria about the allocation of decision-influencing power; and game theory, which provides a framework for thinking about the strategies individuals employ in trying to influence the group choice. The goal of this book is to take basic ideas like impossibility theorems, rights exercising and strategy proofness and give the student just enough technical background to be able to understand these ideas in a logically rigorous way. This is done through a set of 250 exercises that constitute the heart of the book and which differentiate this book from all other texts in social choice theory.

A striking feature of the human condition is its dual, contradictory, inherently split character; on the one hand, autonomy and freedom; on the other, constraint and dependence on social structure. This volume addresses this central problem of the linkage between human action and social structure in sociological and social science theory. Contributions cover several different approaches to the agency-structure problematic, and represent the work of a number of leading international sociologists. Their efforts point to a reorientation of social theory, both on philosophical and methodological levels.

Harrie de Swart is a Dutch logician and mathematician with a great and open int- est in applications of logic. After being confronted with Arrow’s Theorem, Harrie became very interested in social choice theory. In 1986 he took the initiative to start up a group of Dutch scientists for the study of social choice theory. This initiative grew out to a research group and a series of colloquia, which were held approximately every month at the University of Tilburg in The Netherlands. The organization of the colloquia was in the hands of Harrie and under his guidance they became more and more internationally known. Many international scholars liked visiting the social choice colloquia in Tilburg and enjoyed giving one or more presentations about their work. They liked Harrie’s kindness and hospitality, and the openness of the group for anything and everything in the eld of social choice. The Social Choice Theory Group started up by Harrie consisted, and still c- sists, of scholars from several disciplines; mostly economics, mathematics, and (mathematical) psychology. It was set up for the study of and discussion about anything that had to do with social choice theory including, and not in the least, the supervision of PhD students in the theory. Members of the group were, among o- ers, Thom Bezembinder (psychologist), Hans Peters (mathematician), Pieter Ruys (economist), Stef Tijs (mathematician and game theorist) and, of course, Harrie de Swart (logician and mathematician).

The concepts of rationality that are used by social scientists in the formation of hypotheses, models and explanations are explored in this collection of original papers by a number of distinguished philosophers and social scientists. The aim of the book is to display the variety of the concepts used, to show the different roles they play in theories of very different kinds over a wide range of disciplines, including economics, sociology, psychology, political science and anthropology, and to assess the explanatory and predictive power that a theory can draw from such concepts.