Uncertainty, Justification, and Enterprise: Modernizing Frank Knight's Forgotten Construct

Abstract

This paper comprised Part One of a book in progress.This book aims to help modernize and extend Knight's forgotten construct of uncertainty. Part One includes a preface, a very detailed Introduction, and six chapters which examine the formidable obstacles to the modernization as well as some forgotten and disused pathways around the obstacles. The formidable obstacles comprise four kinds of well-entrenched mainstream theories and the methodologies demanded by the accepted economics paradigm. The forgotten and disused pathways include ideas from Keynes's 1921 Treatise on probability; Herbert Simon's bounded reasonableness – which included limits to what we can know (i.e., uncertainty); and, Daniel Ellsberg's ambiguity – a simple observable source of Knightian Uncertainty.

Keywords: entrepreneurship, economic methodology, business history, innovation

JEL Classification: B0, M0, O0