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Bringing together the ideas of many philosophers, this book aims to give a coherent synthesis of ideas about change and aims to see how one can take a process view of various features of humanity, such as knowledge, relations between people, language and morality, and how, vice versa, that might contribute to process philosophy. Beginning with evolution and moving on to consider knowledge in its dynamic aspect of learning, the book takes a process view of the individual and society. Generalised Darwinism is discussed not only in terms of biology but also in economics, organisation, language and science in terms of interactors and replicators. The key processes of variety generation, selection and transmission are fundamentally different from those in biology. Therefore, a theory of knowledge and its change is presented that in some ways is similar to evolution but also different in important ways. The discussion explains and applies the notions of entropy and organisational focus. Recognising that absolute, objective truth is problematic, it discusses the notion of warranted assertion. The notions of sense and reference are discussed in an explanation of meaning, and the notions of order and variety in terms of langue and parole, and the role of parole in poetry. The change of meaning is further developed in terms of the hermeneutic circle to deal with order and change of meaning. Ethics and morality are explored by how the individual constructs their identity and develops in their tension between authenticity and conformity in society. Aristotle's multiple causality of action is employed to discuss power and sources of dependence and ways to deal with them. Networks as a source of identity and the decentralisation of governance to communities are discussed along with the notion of restorative justice.

'This book provides a scathing antidote to the standard propositions made by economists about how wonderful market organization is. At the same time the criticism is balanced and recognizes well the advantages of market organization for certain kinds of goods and services. Bart Nooteboom is one of the broadest, and sharpest, social scientists writing today, and this book is vintage Nooteboom.'--Richard R. Nelson, Columbia University, US. In this thought-provoking book, Bart Nooteboom offers a radical critique of the principal intellectual and moral assumptions underlying economic science, unravelling the notion of markets: how they work and fail, and how they may be redirected to better serve us. Initially, the inadequacy of economic science in the wake of recent financial and economic crises is outlined. Few economists predicted the crises and subsequent economic thought has been nebulous, failing to apprize guidance, understanding and prevention for the future. Established practices in finance and business continue regardless, and confusion has bred among policy makers, the public, and even economists on what markets actually are. Bart Nooteboom employs an Aristotelian virtue ethic, with a view to multiple dimensions of 'the good life', upturning the utilitarian ethic that dominates economic science and modern politics. The critique makes a corrective-turn, transforming economic thought into an integrative, ethical and interdisciplinary behavioural science of markets. Nooteboom's interdisciplinary approach makes this book an appealing read to economists, sociologists and political scientists with an interest in market processes. People concerned about how markets are developing and policy makers will welcome this topical work to gain fresh insights into collaborative and ethical market policy. This timely book will vitalize debate about markets, what they do and how they may work better

This book seeks to set humanism on a new footing. No longer Enlightenment intuitions of an autonomous, disconnected, and rational self but a philosophy oriented towards the relationship between self and other. With this, it seeks to provide an escape from present egotism and narcissism in society. It discusses altruism as well as its limitations.

After a discussion of the literature on the development of societies and of the multiple causality of societies, this paper discusses 12 threats to democracy: autocracy, cultural decline, polarisation, elite paradox, populism, confusion, capitalism, dilemma of benevolence and justice, institutional crowding, sort-termism and depletion, AI and robots.

In the literature on firms and organizations, in economics, sociology, and business studies, there has been an increasing awareness that firms need others, outside the firm, in order to function, and particularly in order to innovate. This has led to the proliferation of studies on subjects such as outsourcing, inter-firm alliances, and networks of firms. Still, though, most of these studies focus on dyads of firms (i.e., strategic interaction of firms). Even in network studies, networks were seen mostly as aggregates of dyads. In contrast, in network analysis in sociology there has been, for some time, attention to roles and effects of third parties and of triads. In particular, the work of Ronald Burt (e.g. Burt, 1992) noted the importance, especially in the context of the acquisition of new information, of being a third party in 'bridging structural holes' between unconnected nodes or networks, and the opportunities for advantage as a tertius gaudens (laughing third) in playing agents off against each other. While in network analysis this attention to triads is relatively new, it has, in fact, a long history, going back, in particular, to the work of the sociologist Georg Simmel. A recent publication that acknowledges this is Krackhardt (1999).