actor

Economic systems consist of >networks of actors. Actors are entities who decide about >actions and who act, based on a relevant set of >knowledge. In bimodal analysis, this knowledge corresponds to the >capacity of actors. Actors use their capacity to fulfil their >needs through action.

The knowledge of actors is referential or non-referential on the one hand, and intrasomatic or extrasomatic on the other. In other words, decisions are never exclusively based on knowledge that is internal and fully conscious to the actor. Hence, actors do not act rationally, but based on >reason. The complete set of knowledge enabling the actor to act is called an >element. In >VSR-analysis elements are the replicators and actors are the interactors in network evolution.
There are fundamental actors and derivative actors. Fundamental actors are human individuals, derivative actors are >organizations of different kinds (economic, political etc.). Every supra-individual entity is regarded as an actor if it has the emergent property of autonomous decision-making.

Evidently, this view of the actor results into a major departure from standard economic theory which takes methodological individualism as a basic assumption. This difference is a necessary implication of the EE concept of knowledge. In most general terms, every fundamental actor is related to an element that makes her action possible, and which can be analyzed into the constituent units (with examples):

• Intrasomatic referential knowledge: codified communicable knowledge
• Intrasomatic non-referential knowledge: habits, biological drive
• Extrasomatic referential knowledge: artefacts, books
• Extrasomatic non-referential knowledge: social customs, network relations

Understanding the structure of knowledge and elements is an important aspect of the EE analysis of networks. For example, in the relation between labour markets and firms constraints for possible institutional combinations can emerge from the specific structures of knowledge related to actors.Basic ReferencesThe concept of actor has been influenced by sociological uses of the term. A classic is Talcott Parsons:Parson's concept of actor

Semantic Field:
reason
actor   capacity
action   group   organization