Happiness and Joe Higgins
Brian Barry, 20 October 1983
Jon Elster needs, as they say, no introduction to regular readers of the London Review, who will be familiar not only with his name but also with the cast of his mind and the breadth of his interests. What makes him distinctive is a combination of philosophical acuity and detailed attention to contemporary work in history, the social sciences and cognitive psychology. He sets out his own credo in the ‘General Introduction’ to Explaining Technical Change: