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This intellectual biography of G.L.S. Shackle, economic theorist, philosopher, explores his radical ideas, which deserve attention today. Shackle challenged the aims, methods and assumptions of mainstream economics. He remains the sole poet and mystic of economics. He sought to replace probabilistic, equilibrium-focused economics with an approach that focuses on imagined possibilities and potential for sudden 'kaledic' change. His richly psychological thinking complements core ideas in behavioural economics and his philosophy of uncertainty has lessons for planners and entrepreneurs. Shackle's radically subjectivist theory of crucial choice under conditions of deep uncertainty contributed to modern corporate scenario planning. He stressed macroeconomic instability and the possibility of complete surprise. Shackle devised a 'kaleidic' economics in which tiny changes in events or in expectations lead to cascading change. In an era buffeted by the 'unknown unknowns', Shackle offers wise advice and supports promising developments in contemporary economics. His core ideas complement and in some areas anticipated the 'bounded rationality' perspective of Herbert Simon and the psychological economics of Daniel Kahneman. He drew insightfully from the great economists he knew and admired, such as Friedrich von Hayek and John Maynard Keynes.

1. Introduction -- 2. Human Adaptability and Economic Surprise -- 3. Learning and Decision-Making in Economics and Psychology: A Methodological Perspective -- 4. On Psyching up Economics -- 5. Neoclassical Economics and the Psychology of Risk and Uncertainty -- 6. Prospects for Mathematical Psychological Economics -- 7. Subjectivism, Psychology, and the Modern Austrians -- 8. Subjectivism, Psychology, and the Modern Austrians: A Comment -- 9. Intervening Variables in Economics: An Explanation of Wage Behavior -- 10. The Psychological Economics of Conspicuous Consumption -- 11. Individualist Economics Without Psychology -- 12. Toward a Behavioral Analysis of Public Economics -- 13. Some Methods in Psychological Economics -- 14. Economics and Psychology: A Resurrection Story -- 15. On Being a Psychological Economist and Winning the Games Economists Play.

AbstractThis article sets out a unified behavioural research programme that integrates compatible elements of old, new and evolutionary behavioural approaches to economics as an alternative to the dominant unified approach to economics based on rational choice theory and a Walrasian view of market coordination. However, the proposed programme can also be viewed as a general framework for interdisciplinary research on consumer behaviour. It employs the view of scientific research programmes proposed by Lakatos, setting out groups of 'hard‐core' propositions and their associated 'do' and 'do not' rules for the conduct of researchers. The unifying theme is that evolution in the economy (and in human systems more generally) entails the creation, adoption and abandonment of rules for dealing effectively with open‐ended choice problems that are bedevilled by infinite regress problems and cognitive challenges that people seek to address via personal repertoires of hierarchically related rules. To anticipate behaviour, researchers need to develop knowledge of these rules (including heuristics and routines), their functionality and the processes by which they get changed or prove difficult to change even where they cause problems.