eld of evolutionary and neoclassical economics as a consequence of the changes in concepts of human nature

e economics depends on the concept of human nature very strongly. e concepts of human nature can be understood as a set of assumptions made about the individual (on di erent levels: behaviour, motives, meaning) and his interactions with other people, with groups and diverse institutions. It corresponds with the image of world people have. e models of human nature build foundations of economics and impact on the eld of the economics. erefore if those images of men change, the way of thinking about economics and their elements adjust to those changes as well. e goal of the pape r is to present the impact of these alterations of image of man on the economics. is impact will be illustrated on the example of the evolutionary economics, which is contrasted with the orthodox concept of human nature persisting in the neoclassical economics – homo economicus. e method applied to this research is, among others, a content analysis of the most important texts developed within neoclassical and evolutionary economics. To reach this goal the de nition of the concept of human nature will be introduced, accompanied by the main dimensions and levels of this concept. en the variations of the concept of human nature at those levels and dimension will be compared between neoclassical and evolutionary economics. Di erences in understanding of the eld between those two schools will be explained as resulting from the diverse concepts of human nature. e analysis proved that the main di erences in those economic schools might be explained by the changed assumptions about the human nature and the image of the world.


INTRODUCTION
e economics is meanwhile in the stage of development 1 , characterised by the emergency of many different economic schools and the vivid interest between economists in the future of economics.Researchers are especially concerned with the question, whether the mainstream economics has to change, and which paradigm is going to be dominant.Moreover they are concerned about the reasons of those changes and their consequences for economics.However there are only few researches about the relevance of the concept of human nature for the discipline 2 and rarely economists deal with the question of levels in the concept of human nature 3 , and even less with their impact on the foundation of economics.
e alterations in the concept of human nature 4 a ect primarily the changes in understanding of the economics within particular economic schools, which in uence as well the orthodox economics.erefore in order to anticipate the changes in the core of economics, it is necessary to estimate the possible impact of the concept of human nature within diverse economic schools.Although the paper doesn't answer the question, whether evolutionary economics will replace homo economicus or not, it's worth saying that some authors (Reinert, 2003: 161, Glapiński, 2012: 278) see the future of economics in its evolutionary stream.Accepting evolutionary economics as a mainstream economics would necessarily mean the destruction of the already existing fundaments of economics.e most important part of those fundaments is constituted by the assumptions about the human nature (homo economicus).ey should then eventually be replaced by another concept of human nature.Such a change would cause alterations as well in understanding of the eld of economics.In this paper, economics doesn't refer only to the mainstream economics, but include as well heterodox economics.
e history of economic thought proved that the heterodox economics has had an impact on the mainstream economy as well, usually by slipping in to the mainstream building of economics by leaving there some elements, which mainstream economics adopted 5 .
ere are some good reasons for choosing here the evolutionary economics as example.For instance: its growing popularity among economists in last decades, it's wide developed research program including micro-and macroeconomics and its very interdisciplinary character, which allows for more profoundly understanding of economic phenomena 6 .
e main purpose of the paper is to present how and why changes in the concept of human being have an impact on our understanding of the eld of economics.is will be illustrated on the example of neoclassic and evolutionary economics.e central thesis of the paper is that the understanding of economics depends on the main assumptions about human being.
e method adapted to reconsider this thesis -is a content analysis of the most important texts emerged within those schools, and interpretations delivered by particular economic associations which contribute or even build up a speci c school of economics.Whereas the model of man in mainstream economics is formulated in a very explicative way (Horodecka, 2014a) and takes form of very clear assumptions, in other schools the concept of human nature is rarely formulated in form of such formal assumptions, is less explicative and often implicit.erefore it's necessary to conduct a content analysis of some crucial works in evolutionary economics 7 .e paper is eventually constructed in a following way -rstly concept of human nature is de ned and basic dimensions and levels of it are distinguished.Secondly the image of man in neoclassical and evolutionary economic thought is compared at levels and dimensions distinguished in the rst step.In the third step the changes of understanding of economics resulting from those alterations are analysed.In last sectiona conclusion, the di erences between those two schools in regards of their eld are explained by di erences in their concept of human nature.

CONCEPT OF HUMAN NATURE  DEFINITION, LEVELS AND DIMENSION
e concept of human nature is a very complex term and its meaning depends often on the discipline in which it is de ned.However the following general de nition reveals essence of this concept.Concept of human nature encompasses assumption which people make about individuals and groups, in order to reduce the complexity of the world (see for instance Oerter, 1999;Fahrenberg, 2007;Haller, 2012)  8 .
Generally we can di erentiate in the concept of human nature three levels: the upper level is the worldview (see : Horodecka, 2014d), then it comes the social world and nally the individual world.e upper level gives us an impression about the nature of the world and basic connections between the humanitynature and eventually supra-nature (believes in God, or other beings, or transcendent values).e second -social world -tell us about the basic character of the relation within the humanity, within social groups and between them.Do they base on altruism or egoism, on hierarchy or equality, traditions or openness to new?What are the basic social values?ese are questions, which the concept of human nature provides on this level.e third level is the individual level, which gives us an insight into three di erent dimensions of human being as individual, which can be metaphorically described as body, soul and mind (basing on anthropological discourse: see for instance : Pleger, 2013;Fahrenberg, 2012;Fahrenberg, Cheetham, 2007;Schilling, 2000Schilling, , ies, 2004)).e body-level gives insight into the most objective level of human beinghis/her behaviour.At this level we can objectively describe and characterize human behaviour.However in order to understand why human being is behaving in a particular way, we have to approach the higher level -the soul, which tells us about various human motives and values.For accessing this level we have to use inter-subjective methods.Doing so, we can get knowledge about motives responsible for the actual behaviour.However we still don't know about the hierarchy of the motives and values.In order to learn about this hierarchy, we need to access the higher level -that of the mind.At this level, we reason about the meaning of life, and therefore we build a hierarchy of values and norms, which helps to resolve potential con icts of values and norms from the level below.

NEOCLASSICAL AND EVOLUTIONARY CONCEPT OF HUMAN NATURE
In the following paragraph the concepts of human nature of neoclassical and evolutionary economics will be compared regarding levels and dimensions discussed above.

a) Worldview
e concepts of human nature compared at the most general level (i.e. the worldview) are diverse in neoclassical and in evolutionary economics.ose di erences result from the di erent view on the nature of the world.Whereas in neoclassical economics the world is perceived as stable 9 , in evolutionary economics it is characterised by the principle of the change.is has an impact on looking on a human nature -as stable part of this xed world or as a changing, adjusting human being 10 .e basic metaphors used for the world reveal as well a further di erence in understanding of human being.Whereas neoclassic economics uses mechanistic one delivered from the Newtonian/Cartesian image of world, the evolutionary bases on the biological metaphor having it sources in the Darwinist/ neo-darwinist image of world, which is adapted to social processes.According to the rst view there are no intersections between material and non-material world, whereas in the second the connections can be well seen especially in the role of non-material information and knowledge, which is carried by material objects.e further di erence lies in the assumption about independent objects prevailing in the neoclassical economics, which can be contrasted with the assumed holon-nature of the world consisting of interdependent net of objects in the evolutionary economics.Last but not least in neoclassical economics the relation between the humanity and nature is denied or not considered, which has a consequence in the assumption of unlimited possibilities of the economic growth.In the evolutionary economics the nature puts constraints on the humanity, so that there is no place for an unlimited growth.Economic growth has to be always considered within the ecological system (similar assumption we have in the ecological economics).

b) Social world
ere are many vivid di erences in the view of social world as well.Many of these are the logical consequence of the worldview and paradigmatic di erences.In the neoclassical economics the social world consists of self-interested and self-su cient independent competitive beings, which form their preferences independently (Kliemt, 2004, Schramm, 1996, Kapeller, 2008, Manstetten, 2000).erefore the relations base on egoism and competition about limited resources.
In the evolutionary economics the society is forming the individual by in uencing his/her preferences.It is moreover assumed that the indiviudals act in social relations both altruistically and egoistically.
e interest of the group is relevant for the survival of the society and of the individual.e arguments for reasons of such behaviour are provided by the evolutionary psychology (Buss, 2009, Wright, 2010) -a group whose members helped each/other, had far more chances of surviving Dawkins (Dawkins, Skoneczny, 1996) provides another argument: the individual help people, who share their genes, because the real motive is not to survive as an individual but to make the gen survive.
erefore social relations base both on the cooperation and competition.

c) Individual world
e neoclassical and evolutionary economics di er extremely in their general assumptions about the human being.Neoclassical economics bases its analyses on the standardised homogeneous, representative being (Aruka, Mimkes, 2006: 146)  11 , which is called homo oeconomicus or an economic man: the rational, self-su cient and egoistic optimizer -calculating the best result for him/herself, pre-formed by the nature in that way.e nature-nurture problem is here solved in the credit for the nature.Furthermore it's assumed 9 10 that human being is stable, context free and doesn't change in time and space.e dualistic vision of human being makes economics dealing only with one part of individuals -the materialistic part, which resembles an atom 12 .
Just the opposite is assumed in evolutionary economics, where at the very beginning we deal with a complex, reality-close man, satis er, who doesn't look for optimizing his/her needs, but to be in balance with the environment, sub-rational, not-self su cient, both egoistic and altruistic, adapting to the environment, trough learning and thus changing.Moreover it can be treated as a 'holon' having many di erent dimensions.e nature-nurture problem is solved in evolutionary economics by respecting both genetic in uence (nature), and adapting through learning (nurture).ere is no place for individualism, because the individual is always perceived in a context, embedded in culture, time, society, world.Besides: the focus is here not put on the individual but on the 'gen' -information in it, which takes form of knowledge and is passed to other organisms.In this sense human being is less xed object but more a process, which changes with time/place and depend on the environment.It means that the human being is very heterogeneous (Aruka, Mimkes, 2006).

THE IMPACT OF CONCEPT OF HUMAN NATURE ON THE FIELD OF ECONOMICS
e understanding of economics depends on the concept of human nature, what can be seen in the classical de nition of economics (Robbins, 1932), which reveals the basic assumptions about human nature discussed before.is de nition is still used in most of contemporary textbooks about the economics.e evolutionary economics may be de ned and understood in threefold sense: 1) explaining economy as evolving system (what means that evolutionary economics is evolving itself ), 2) as economics of evolving economy and 3) as the theory of evolving economics (Nishibe, 2006)  13 .Glapiński, 2012: 284 de nes the evolutionary economics as a set of economic concepts, which look for ways of the theoretical and empirical interpretation of all economic processes (above all of development and crisis) using the analogy of the process of the biological evolution.
Concepts of human nature a ect moreover other parts of economics most of all its goal, eld, methodology, methods and basic theories.However the aim of the paper is to focus on its impact on the eld of the economics.
e table below (Table 1) provides an overview of the di erent elds of neoclassical and evolutionary economics, which are then discussed as a result of di erent assumptions about the human nature.
Table 1 Field of economics in neoclassical and evolutionary economics Generally speaking a very reduced and stable view on human being results in a very narrow understanding of the eld of economics and no or little cooperation with other disciplines (treated more as tools -like mathematics for instance).On the contrary a very complex idea of human nature in the evolutionary economics results in the wider eld of economics and in more intensive dialog with other disciplines.Evolutionary economics by assuming changes of human being and its environment has to cooperate with disciplines analysing those changes, occurring in culture, habits and institutions.ose arguments will be now explained in detail in the following paragraph.
e reduced individualized, rational, and material concept of human nature in neoclassical economics thought, including only people's action on the market narrows the eld of economics, encompassing only decisions, which are basing on the rationality principle.e neoclassical economics grounding on homogeny concept of human nature is analysing only common idealized features of human behaviour, not regarding impact of culture and time.e dualistic Newtonian and Cartesian view on world and human being results in narrowing the eld of economics only to material objects. is causes for neoclassical economics difculties in integrating knowledge, information and learning processes in the reality-close way.As a result neither the process, nor character of knowledge, nor the process of learning as a way of acquiring and building knowledge aren't considered as a eld of economics.Problems in integrating are caused as well by the materialistic assumptions of the world and man leading to the fact that information is treated as free and available resource.e education is reduced to an investment for better income.e stability of world makes it almost unnecessary to learn -only the aspect of passing knowledge to children counts, but the economy needed a category of long time to deal with this aspect.e reason for so long disinterest in education is that economics was concentrated only on exchange on the market.As soon as the children can't act on market by themselves 14 , they have to be represented by their parents.However parents according to utilitarist way of thinking don't have a motivation to do so.It's as well an investment as soon as education and knowledge means more resources and higher income.Although the neoclassic economic school tries to explain the process of distributing knowledge using concepts of the spill-over e ect or by buying technologies (catchup e ect in the growth theory) of development countries doesn't provide a satisfactory explanation.e materialistic and reduced image of man in the neoclassic lead to such an unrealistic assumption that info is free and access to information is unlimited, what made it unnecessary to deal with the knowledge.Even the endogenizing of the theory of technical progress and seeing in innovation, knowledge and important source of technical progress haven't changed the character of knowledge in the neoclassical thought.It is assumed that knowledge may be produced, sold and bought.is doesn't pay enough credit to the process of passing knowledge.is process involves not only buying a ready product but as well developing knowledge by investing not only in a 'productive science' (bringing prompt income or a chance for it), but as well in this part of knowledge, which seems not to pay-o at rst sight.It is referred here for instance to the philosophical, humanistic, arts, cultural and religious studies and basic research.Moreover the processes of learning and passing knowledge base not on the relation selling-buying, but include trust.e 'buyer' of the knowledge is not only 'customer' who buys a product, he/she is somebody who has to learn which can't be replaced by 'buying' and 'having', but involves more complex processes of transformation of the 'buyer'.
On the contrary evolutionary economics assuming a priori the heterogeneity of human actors and their dependence on culture and history has a much wider eld of economics.It encompasses not only what is happening/traded on the market, but all institutions (like institutional economics does), culture, and time.
e close observation focuses on such objects like goods and services, technology, institutions, basing on knowledge and economic behaviour.Evolutionary economics is focussing here on the detailed analysis of micro-processes in their social context providing much more insight in the economic process.ose microanalyses especially those of rms (Eparvier, 2005: 228) are fundamental for macro-level (Nelson, Winter, 1982: 232).e fact that a human being is not reduced only to material basement and that the world encompasses both material and non-material objects widens the eld to the analyses including especially social, cultural, institutional and knowledge-related aspects.e wider eld of evolutionary economics means as well that it has an intensive interaction with other disciplines.Evolutionary economics perceives itself as open to other disciplines, not only for social areas but as well for economics, sociology, social psychology, linguistics and philosophy, and natural sciences as well: physics, biology, geo-sciences, cosmic science and engineering (Nishibe, 2006: 8), and of course evolutionary theories, which in meantime have its impact on various disciplines.Evolutionary economics thus seeks to form and association with a great diversity of disciplines beyond the boarders inside and outside of the economics -new trans-disciplinary social science, which integrates humanities and science 15 .
e speci c image of man in an evolutionary economics perceived here as a carrier of ideas and human organization 16 made knowledge to a central eld of the economics.e procesual character of knowledge got crucial for understanding of all transformations happening not only on the market, but beyond the market as well.Because of all that the knowledge can only be acquired by learning, put the process of learning to the research eld as well especially in terms of adaptation (Söllner, 2001).e good knowledge is something, which enables society, entrepreneurship/human being to survive through adaptation (Söllner, 2001).In the centre of analysis there are humans in all their diversity and institutions as carriers of knowledge.
Although the market belongs to the centre of the eld of research, both schools, there are big di erences in the way of understanding it.For mainstream economics the market is a very abstract place where monetary transactions are taking place.e market is here nothing more as a natural analogue computer (Nishibe, 2006), on which transactions take place at equilibrium prices.Market is moreover understood as a tool for calculation.Additionally it's assumed that buying/selling is the only way of acquiring objects (goods/services and resources) and in extended approaches -the knowledge of rms.For evolutionary economics market is treated as institution with its history, evolving rules, changing with the evolution process of adaptation.
e market (ontological descriptor) is a complex and dynamic and social institution (Nishibe, 2006: 8).Individual transactions take place in a broad time perspective on non -equilibrium prices that satisfy both buyers and sellers, what is a consequence of the assumption that human nature are satis er not optimizers.Moreover markets exist here like loose networks.is is a consequence of assuming that human being is a social, heterogeneous person, looking for complex meaning.Market is as well treated as a socio-political eld where the mutually colliding aims and interests of di erent individual's are reconciled peacefully in the form of economic transactions.e market is likewise an autopoietic system or a spontaneous order, selfgenerating and self-organizing.In di erence to the neoclassical assumption there are di erent methods of acquiring important goods as knowledge for instance -through learning.
e di erence lies as well in the approach to decisions.Whereas neoclassic economics takes under consideration only decisions motivated by utility/pro t -maximization 17 , the evolutionary economics considers as well decisions took by means of public procedures (Eparvier, 2005: 222), by political instances.is is a consequence of the assumption that humans are shaped by other people, institutions, time and place.Whereas the neoclassic economic focuses primarily on balancing processes on the market 18 , evolutionary 15 16 17 economics due to the assumed heterogeneity takes as well a closer look especially on imbalance processes which transform the economics from inside with consequences for outside.
On the macro-level both schools are dealing with changes occurring in time.Whereas neoclassic economics is focusing here on the economic growth -as a consequence of materialistic view of world, human being and assumptions of economic system, evolutionary economics is concerned more with development, focusing more on qualitative changes.
Both schools count to the eld of economics the crises.However they have completely di erent approaches to them as result of di erent concepts of human nature.Whereas for neoclassical economics economic crises are something, which occurs due to the intervention in the perfect market and are treated as an negative exemption of the rule of balance, for evolutionary economics they are something natural and positive 19 .e positive character is that they similar to ideas are creating something new and give the opportunity to the further development.Without crises the development weren't possible (Glapiński, 2012: 297).e adaptation mechanisms due to crises have much deeper character in the evolutionary economics.
Both economic schools count to their eld of research the economic system but take di erent assumption about them.For the neoclassic the economics system is synonymous to the market and independent from other systems, whereas for evolutionary economics it is only a part of other systems (social and ecological system).Moreover evolutionary economics assumes that the economic system is similar to the market an autopoietic one, which generates its own way of answers to the impulses from outside by generating some rules and institutions.is system creates itself every time in a new way by the permanent exchanges with outside.e characteristic autopoietic systems were characterized thorough fully by Luhman who perceived social system as communicative autopoietic systems (Luhmann, 1990).
Although both economic schools are considering as a eld of its research many common processes and phenomena, they di er in the approach to those.Whereas the neoclassic economics due to the assumption about the homogeneity, ahistorical and acultural character of human being focuses on repeatable, abstract essence of those 20 , evolutionary economics looks always on them considering them in their speci city. is a ects as well the way of collaboration with other disciplines in order to explore the eld.Whereas the neoclassical economics perceives itself as the best approach to explain economic phenomena and therefore sees no need to deal and learn from other approaches, the evolutionary economics, which integrates the historical and biological perspective for analysing real economic processes looks for exchange with other disciplines.

CONCLUSION
e various assumptions about human nature, which are characteristic for neoclassical and evolutionary economics result in di erent perception of such foundations of economics as its goal and eld.
e table below (Table 2) presents the most important di erences of the concept of human nature among those both schools and their impact on understanding of the eld of those schools.
Table 2 e in uence of concepts of human nature in neoclassic and evolutionary economics on the eld of economics Source: author's compilation.
e neoclassical economics assumes the individual as a homogenous, independent, and stable being (like an atom) with needs reduced to preferences, and egoistic, competitive motives using reason only as an calculating instrument for realizing those motives (maximalization of utility).Such a concept of human nature in uences the eld of economics.e eld in consequence is limited and reduced to optimizing behaviour (=rational) between limited resources and unlimited needs taking place on a market understood in an abstract way.Moreover only the rational and egoistic behaviour is taken into account.e analysis is reduced to the market, which is perceived in a very abstract way, which is brought into balance by the equilibrium price.e economic system is taken as a closed system, as a synonym to the market and consists only of material phenomena.is results in problems with including of information, knowledge, and education to the economic analysis.On the macro level the eld of neoclassical economics is reduced to the analysis of the economic growth.Although crises belong to the eld of economics, it is assumed that they are caused by intervention and they are treated as something negative.
Completely di erently is in the case of the evolutionary economics, which assumes that a human is more like a holon, heterogeneous, changing in time and place, interdependent, and embedded in the social an natural world.Moreover he/she has various needs (both altruistic and egoistic, cooperative and competitive) and his rationality is bounded.Such an assumption about the human nature has an impact on understanding of the eld of economics especially translates in the wider eld of research.is eld encompasses on the macro level: development processes, crises, which are taken as natural and positive phenomena.e economic system is understood as an embedded and open system.On the micro-level the eld of economics encompasses the knowledge, and ways of its acquiring, transferring and multiplying by actors and institutions.Last but not least the market is taken as a social institution and an autopoietic system.e general conclusion coming from the paper is that the economics should take a closer look on the concepts of human nature, as soon as they have an impact on the foundations of the economics as for instance the eld.