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HESsians, Here is the current Kress Notice.  --Paul 
 
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KRESS SEMINAR IN HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT 
Paul Wendt, coordinator 
 
                                        14 Nov 1996 
Kress seminar participants, 
 
Our next seminar is Thursday, 21 Nov, 7:40-10 pm, in Littauer M16 on the 
Harvard University campus.  We feature a paper with group discussion. 
 
    Yngve Ramstad (Economics, U of Rhode Island) 
        The Social Psychological Foundations of John R. Commons's 
        Institutional Economics: The Significance of George Herbert Mead 
 
Sociologist Alexa Albert (URI) is co-author. 
 
YNGVE RAMSTAD was the co-ordinator of this seminar for four years and has 
presented several papers here, in inimitable voice and style.  Most of his 
research features the life's work of John R. Commons or the history of 
"Institutionalism writ large". This observer hopes that a book on Commons 
is forthcoming for the millenium.  I have not read this paper and I rely 
on YR for the following description. 
    "We argue that (1) Commons insisted that psychology is fundamental to 
understanding transactions; (2) social psychology, not individual 
psychology, is of greatest relevance; (3) the substructure of Commons's 
negotiational psychology is clearly Deweyan in substance; (4) Mead's 
social psychological framework provides a superior foundation to that 
provided by Dewey (Commons, however, apparently never knew of Mead's 
"social behaviorism"); and (5) institutionalists writ large should 
consider the idea of treating Mead's work as foundational for 
institutionalism writ large." 
 
This is a long paper, available by your arrangement with the author. 
 
Dinner 
    Anyone interested in dinner and conversation before the seminar is 
    invited to gather at the Singha House Thai restaurant (1105 Mass. Ave) 
    at 6:00.  The food is great, matched only by the company.  The Singha 
    House is prepared to handle late additions to a party (to about 6:30 
    for dinner or 7:00 for appetizer or drink, given our time constraint). 
 
I hope to see you Thursday, 
 
----Paul 
                             [imagine my signature here, P/\/\/\/\t] 
 
 
P.S. 
 
Next Kress session, 12 Dec 96 
----------------------------- 
    David Levy (George Mason U) 
        Sharing the Lashes of Carlyle's Whip 
 
with two discussants to be arranged.  (No, the discussants need not share 
the lashes with David.)  The paper concerns Thomas Carlyle and the 
classical economists on race, slavery, and universal values; and humanist 
criticism of economics in our time as well as theirs. 
 
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