Invited Speaker: Shaun Gallagher, (University of Memphis), Hegel and 4E Economics

Shaun Gallagher (University of Memphis) will be giving a talk on Thursday 20th November 2025, 3:00 to 4:30pm, in Philosophy Seminar Room D520 in the Newman (Arts) Building.

Shaun Gallagher, PhD, Hon DPhil., is the Lillian and Morrie Moss Professor of Excellence in Philosophy at the University of Memphis, and Professorial Fellow at the School of Liberal Arts, University of Wollongong (AU). His areas of research include phenomenology, philosophy of mind, embodied cognition, social cognition, and concepts of self. His recent publications include The Self and its Disorders (Oxford 2024); Embodied and Enactive Approaches to Cognition (Cambridge 2023); Action and Interaction (Oxford 2020).

Prof. Shaun Gallagher argues that Hegel has something to contribute to debates about economic reasoning, and can provide a theoretical bridge between institutional economics and economic reasoning, thereby helping to unify the approach of Embodied or 4E economics.

Embodied or 4E economics (Dekker 2022; Frolov 2024; Petracca & Gallagher 2020) is a recent development that has focused on two areas of economic theory: economic reasoning (the “rationality wars” as discussed by Gigerenzer 2023) and institutional economics. A number of publications in this area make important references to Hegel (Basso & Herrmann-Pillath 2024; Gallagher & Crisafi 2009; Gallagher, Mastrogiorgio & Petracca 2020). Primarily this use of Hegel has focused on institutional economics. This paper argues that Hegel also has something to contribute to debates about economic reasoning, and can provide a theoretical bridge between institutional economics and economic reasoning, thereby helping to unify the approach of 4E economics.