ABSTRACT
The unity of social sciences becomes apparent when studying social dynamics. In his important article, ‘The Relations of Economic, Political, and Social Systems’, Kenneth Boulding (1962) establishes the unity of social sciences as emerging from the interdependence between various systems shaping social dynamics: the population, exchange, threat, learning, and love systems. The basic idea is interdependent social systems, reflecting Boulding the systems theorist. His emphasis is upon the interdependence of and interaction between systems; in fact he anticipates his own thought on social evolution, elaborated in his later book Ecodynamics: A New Theory of Societal Evolution (Boulding, 1978). There, the focus is upon interdependent processes: ‘The watchword of evolution is interaction, not causation. It is therefore a pluralistic interpretation to the core, even though we recognize that some processes frequently dominate others’ (Boulding, 1978, p. 211). Hence, Boulding the theorist of social evolution stresses interdependence and interaction. The unity of social sciences essentially follows from the interactive nature of social dynamics, between various social systems, but more fundamentally between cognition and institutions. Marmefelt (2009) shows that Kenneth Boulding and Friedrich von Hayek, as evolutionary economists, develop theories of social evolution that put learning at the very core, while philosopher John Searle finds the origin of social institutions in collective intentionality and the assignment of status function. This chapter studies the importance of cognition and institutions in social dynamics.
