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Multiple Criteria Decision Making

Michalis Doumpos
José Rui Figueira
Salvatore Greco
Constantin Zopounidis Editors

New Perspectives
in Multiple Criteria
Decision Making
Innovative Applications
and Case Studies
Multiple Criteria Decision Making

Series Editor
Constantin Zopounidis, School of Production Engineering and Management,
Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece
This book series focuses on the publication of monographs and edited volumes of
wide interest for researchers and practitioners interested in the theory of
multicriteria analysis and its applications in management and engineering. The
book series publishes novel works related to the foundations and the methodolog-
ical aspects of multicriteria analysis, its applications in different areas in
management and engineering, as well as its connections with other quantitative
and analytic disciplines. In recent years, multicriteria analysis has been widely used
for decision making purposes by institutions and enterprises. Research is also very
active in the field, with numerous publications in a wide range of publication outlets
and different domains such as operations management, environmental and energy
planning, finance and economics, marketing, engineering, and healthcare.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13834

Michalis Doumpos José Rui Figueira
• •

Salvatore Greco Constantin Zopounidis

•

Editors

New Perspectives in Multiple

Criteria Decision Making
Innovative Applications and Case Studies

123
Editors
Michalis Doumpos José Rui Figueira
School of Production Engineering CEG-IST, Instituto Superior Técnico
and Management Universidade de Lisboa
Technical University of Crete Lisbon, Portugal
Chania, Greece
Constantin Zopounidis
Salvatore Greco School of Production Engineering
Department of Economics and Business and Management
University of Catania Technical University of Crete
Catania, Italy Chania, Greece
Faculty of Business and Law Audencia Business School
University of Portsmouth Institute of Finance
Portsmouth, UK Nantes, France

ISSN 2366-0023 ISSN 2366-0031 (electronic)

Multiple Criteria Decision Making
ISBN 978-3-030-11481-7 ISBN 978-3-030-11482-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11482-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018967753

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

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Preface

An Outline of the Status and Perspective of Multicriteria Decision

Analysis

For more than four decades Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) has
consistently been one of the most active areas in Operations Research and
Management Science (OR/MS). Since the pioneering work by John von Neumann
and Oskar Morgenstern on utility theory, the development of decision analysis by
Howard Raiffa and Ron Howard, the contributions of Abraham Charnes and
William Cooper on goal programming, and those of Tjalling Koopmans and Arthur
Geoffrion on the foundations of efficiency measurement and multi-objective opti-
mization, Kenneth Arrow’s contributions to social choice theory, and Bernard
Roy’s foundations of outranking relations, the field of MCDA made significant
progress in terms of methodological development and applications.
MCDA deals with decision-making/aiding problems involving the consideration
of multiple (conflicting) criteria, attributes, points of view, goals, and objectives.
Such problems naturally arise in all areas of business activity, the public sector, as
well as in choices made by individuals. In contrast to the traditional framework of
single-objective problems, where the best option can be described by a single
measure, when dealing with multiple criteria the problem becomes ill-defined
because a single best solution does not exist. Therefore, various behavioral, mod-
eling, and algorithmic issues arise, which cannot be addressed unless a systematic
methodology is adopted. This procedure is not only prescriptive providing answers
to a given decision problem, but also constructive, in the sense that the actors
involved in the decision process progressively gain a better understanding of the
problem and their preferences, that ultimately leads to nontrivial solutions to
complex instances.
The field of MCDA provides an arsenal of methodologies and tools to handle the
above issues, including soft approaches for problem structuring and decision
modeling, techniques and models for aggregating criteria, optimization approaches,
and algorithms for problems involving multiple objectives, and decision support

v
vi Preface

system (DSS) implementations. Throughout its history, MCDA has followed a

dynamic path of development. New types of decision models have been introduced,
allowing the aggregation of different types of information (qualitative, quantitative,
fuzzy, etc.), new multi-objective optimization tools have been explored for inter-
active decision support and combinatorial problems (e.g., metaheuristics), and
advanced DSSs have been developed using improved data management/
visualization and web-based technologies. Moreover, the field has progressed in
terms of behavioral issues, on aspects related to preference modeling and elicitation,
the treatment of uncertainties, imprecision, and ill-determination, while also
strengthening its connections with emerging data analytic technologies.
At the same time, the range of applications has been constantly widening and
new areas of interest arise. Except for standard business applications (finance,
logistics, marketing, human resources, etc.), many new areas now benefit from
MCDA, including environmental management, energy planning, sustainable
development, and various areas of the public sector and policy making.
For MCDA to maintain its success path there are several areas for future
development. For instance, the extension of existing decision models to allow the
modeling of more complex preference structures could provide additional flexibility
to decision analysts and decision makers with more general and less restrictive tools
for handling difficult decision aiding instances. More complex models require
axiomatization, deep understanding of their analytical properties, and tools to make
them comprehensible/accessible by decision makers. Procedures for preference
modeling and elicitation using information derived from data in a robust framework
could facilitate the construction of decision model and reduce the cognitive effort
involved. Behavioral aspects of preference modeling are also worth the investiga-
tion, together with exploring algorithmic advances in areas such as metaheuristics,
soft computing, data analytics/visualization, and computer science (e.g., web-based
technologies, tools for knowledge representation and modeling, etc.).
Addressing some of these ideas and areas requires an interdisciplinary approach,
combining elements from various areas in OR/MS, mathematical economics, and
computer science, among others. Adopting such an interdisciplinary approach could
not only lead to advances on the theory of MCDA but also promote the field in
other areas.

Aims and Scope

The aim of this book is not to constitute a reference for providing an overview of
standard and well-known MCDA approaches. Several other books and edited
volumes have already covered this area rather comprehensively. Instead, this edited
volume seeks to focus on emerging areas of research in MCDA and the perspectives
in the theory and applications of the field, thus providing researchers working in
this area with a collection of high-quality chapters indicating how the MCDA is
currently forming and how it can be shaped in the future. It is worth noting that this
Preface vii

covers both theoretical aspects and applied research. While the importance of the
perspectives in the theory of MCDA is mostly obvious, we should emphasize that
the trends and perspectives in terms of applications are also important to identify
new areas that have the potential for applied MCDA research, understands the
context of these domains and design new MCDA approaches that can be suc-
cessfully applied in practice. With these remarks in mind, below we provide an
outline of the organization and the contents of this edited volume.

Organization

The book includes 16 contributions organized in four parts covering a wide range of
MCDA methodologies, recent advances, and applications.
The first part of the book includes four chapters devoted to some fundamental
methodologies and MCDA concepts. In the first chapter (New Trends in Preference,
Utility, and Choice: From a Mono-approach to a Multi-approach) A. Giarlotta
provides a comprehensive overview of some new trends in preference modeling,
utility representation, and choice rationalization. The chapter starts with the tradi-
tional “mono-approach” traditionally used in mathematical economics for
describing an agent’s preference structure. The recent trend towards using a
“multi-approach” that relies on multiple tools is introduced and some characteristic
approaches are presented. New advances in this alternative paradigm are also
analyzed in relation to MCDA.
The second chapter (Analytic Hierarchy Process and Its Extensions) by
A. Ishizaka covers the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and its extensions. AHP
has traditionally been one of the most widely used methods in MCDA. The chapter
first introduces the main ideas and methodological steps of AHP and then presents
new advances and extensions in areas such as the analytic network process, group
decision-making, variants for sorting problems, and visualization tools.
In the third chapter (Beyond Multicriteria Ranking Problems: The Case of
PROMETHEE), Y. de Smet summarizes the recent developments in PROMETHEE
methods, which follow the principles of outranking relations theory. PROMETHEE
method have been originally introduced for multicriteria choice and ranking
problems. Recently other types of problems, such as sorting and clustering, have
also been addressed through variants of the PROMETHEE methods. The chapter
describes some of these variants and discusses the relations between ranking,
sorting, and clustering problems.
The final chapter (Preference Disaggregation for Multicriteria Decision Aiding:
An Overview and Perspectives) of the first part is devoted to preference disag-
gregation analysis. M. Doumpos and C. Zopounidis describe the principles of this
methodological stream of MCDA and its uses for constructing different types of
decision models. The perspectives in this area are also discussed, in the context of
robustness analysis, the use of alternative types of decision models, the
viii Preface

optimization tools used to infer preference information from decision instances, as

well as the potential of extending this area to large data.
In the first chapter (Normed Utility Functions: Some Recent Advances) of the
second part, R. Mesiar, A. Kolesárová, A. Stupňanová, and R. R. Yager summarize
some new results and trends in aggregation theory and introduce some new ideas
that can be useful for providing multicriteria decision aiding. More specifically, the
authors present two recently developed aggregation approaches, namely the
k-additive and k-maxitive aggregation functions. Moreover, construction techniques
are also presented.
The next chapter (Interpretation of Multicriteria Decision Making Models with
Interacting Criteria) by M. Grabisch and C. Labreuche focuses on MCDA models
that allow the modeling of interactions between criteria, such as the
generalized-additive independence (GAI) model. The chapter further describes
ways to develop an interpretation of general utility-based models through the
introduction of importance indices for the decision criteria. The issue of con-
structing a monotone decomposition of the GAI model is also discussed.
In the last chapter (New Directions in Ordinal Evaluation: Sugeno Integrals and
Beyond) of the second part of the book, M. Couceiro, D. Dubois, H. Fargier,
M. Grabisch, H. Prade, and A. Rico present new directions on the use of Sugeno
integrals for multicriteria evaluation problems in an ordinal setting. The chapter
surveys the axiomatic characterizations of Sugeno integrals and their expression in
possibilistic logic. Moreover, new developments in this area are presented such as
the use of local utility functions, the notion of bipolar qualitative evaluation, as well
as the use of Sugeno integrals and if-then rules for qualitative data analysis.
The first chapter (Advances and New Orientations in Goal Programming) of the
third part is devoted to goal programming (GP). D. Jones and C. Romero provide an
overview of the literature on different variants of GP models and proposed a
conceptual distance-metric framework that unifies/describes the existing GP mod-
els. The chapter also analyzes the connections to bounded rationality and social
choice functions and discusses future developments to expand the use and flexi-
bility of GP models.
The next chapter (Robust Goal Programming with Interactive Fuzzy Coefficients),
by M. Inuiguchi, is also devoted to GP, but in a fuzzy context where the goals and
coefficients in the objective are fuzzy. To treat the fuzziness in such elements of an
GP model, the approach of oblique fuzzy vectors is introduced. This approach
extends existing methodologies for fuzzy GP by allowing the modeling of the
interactions between fuzzy coefficients. Solution procedures are also discussed.
In the third chapter (Multiobjective Bilevel Programming: Concepts and
Perspectives of Development) of the second part, M. J. Alves, C. Henggeler
Antunes, and J. P. Costa cover the area of multi-objective bilevel programming.
Multi-objective problems that have a hierarchical structure have attracted significant
research interest. The chapter provides a novel view of the main concepts in this
area, including the optimistic/pessimistic leader’s perspectives, as well as algo-
rithmic issues. The chapter also discusses traditional and emerging application
Preface ix

fields as well as pitfalls in existing approaches, which may lead to new advances
and improvements.
The fourth part of the book includes six chapters devoted to applications of
MCDA in various emerging areas. In the first chapter (Multi-criteria Evaluation in
Public Economics and Policy) of this part, G. Munda presents the contributions of
MCDA techniques in public economics and policy. The chapter starts with an
outline of cost–benefit analysis (CBA), which is the standard tool used in welfare
economics. CBA is then systematically compared against the MCDA paradigm
using ten comparison criteria, thus leading to the identification of the benefits and
possibilities that MCDA tools provide in this important area.
In the next chapter (Perspectives on Multi-criteria Decision Analysis and Life-
Cycle Assessment), L. C. Dias, F. Freire, and J. Geldermann discusses the com-
bination of MCDA and life-cycle assessment (LCA) for environmental manage-
ment. First the LCA framework is discussed and then the main characteristics of the
MCDA perspective to environmental decision-making are outlined. Finally, an
overview of the trends and perspective on the combination of the two approaches is
given.
The chapter (The Monitoring of Social Innovation Projects: An Integrated
Approach) of M. F. Norese, F. Barbiero, L. Corazza, and L. Sacco, presents a case
study regarding the application of a MCDA approach based on the ELECTRE
outranking methods for monitoring of social innovation projects by the
Municipality of Turin in Italy. Except for a MCDA approach, the proposed analysis
further combines other tools, such as cognitive mapping and actor network analysis
to analyze the behavior of funded innovated start-up companies and to evaluate
their business projects as part of an inclusive and sustainable economy.
The next chapter (Multiobjective Optimization in the Energy Sector: Selected
Problems and Challenges), by C. Henggeler Antunes, illustrates the applications of
multi-objective optimization approaches in the energy sector, focusing on electricity
smart grids. The chapter covers issues such as unit commitment and dispatch
problems, resilient systems, the usage of demand-side resources, problems asso-
ciated with electric vehicles, as well as issues related to energy markets.
The area of energy systems is also the subject of the next chapter (Optimization
and Multicriteria Evaluation of District Heat Production and Storage), by
R. Lahdelma, G. Kayo, E. Abdollahi, and P. Salminen. The authors present a case
study about the use of MCDA techniques for the evaluation of renewable energy
technologies for district heating in Finland. The proposed methodology combines
stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA) with a production planning
optimization model taking into consideration various technical and economic
criteria.
The book closes with the chapter (Comparison of Routing Methods in
Telecommunication Networks—An Overview and a New Proposal Using a
Multi-criteria Approach Dealing with Imprecise Information) by J. Clímaco,
J. Craveirinha, and L. Martins, on the evaluation and comparison of routing models
in telecommunication networks. The author proposes a MCDA approach based on
x Preface

the VIP (Variable Interdependent Parameter) software, with an additive aggregation

of criteria coping with imprecise information. The formulation of the MCDA model
is illustrated through an application to a problem involving the choice of a
point-to-point routing method in a transport telecom network.

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks must be expressed to all the authors who have devoted considerable
time and effort to prepare excellent comprehensive works of high scientific quality
and value. Without their help it would be impossible to prepare this book in line
with the high standards that we have set from the very beginning of this project.
José Rui Figueira also acknowledges the support from the FCT grant
SFRH/BSAB/139892/2018 the under the POCH Program.

Chania, Greece Michalis Doumpos

Lisbon, Portugal José Rui Figueira
Catania, Italy/Portsmouth, UK Salvatore Greco
Chania, Greece/Nantes, France Constantin Zopounidis
November 2018
Contents

Part I Basic Notions and Methods

New Trends in Preference, Utility, and Choice:
From a Mono-approach to a Multi-approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Alfio Giarlotta
Analytic Hierarchy Process and Its Extensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Alessio Ishizaka
Beyond Multicriteria Ranking Problems: The Case
of PROMETHEE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Yves De Smet
Preference Disaggregation for Multicriteria Decision Aiding:
An Overview and Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Michalis Doumpos and Constantin Zopounidis

Part II New Aggregation Approaches

Normed Utility Functions: Some Recent Advances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Radko Mesiar, Anna Kolesárová, Andrea Stupňanová
and Ronald R. Yager
Interpretation of Multicriteria Decision Making Models
with Interacting Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Michel Grabisch and Christophe Labreuche
New Directions in Ordinal Evaluation: Sugeno Integrals
and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Miguel Couceiro, Didier Dubois, Hélène Fargier, Michel Grabisch,
Henri Prade and Agnès Rico

xi
xii Contents

Part III Goal Programming and Multi-objective Optimization

Advances and New Orientations in Goal Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Dylan Jones and Carlos Romero
Robust Goal Programming with Interactive Fuzzy Coefficients . . . . . . . 247
Masahiro Inuiguchi
Multiobjective Bilevel Programming: Concepts
and Perspectives of Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Maria João Alves, Carlos Henggeler Antunes and João Paulo Costa

Part IV Applications
Multi-criteria Evaluation in Public Economics and Policy . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Giuseppe Munda
Perspectives on Multi-criteria Decision Analysis and Life-Cycle
Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Luis C. Dias, Fausto Freire and Jutta Geldermann
The Monitoring of Social Innovation Projects:
An Integrated Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
M. F. Norese, F. Barbiero, L. Corazza and L. Sacco
Multiobjective Optimization in the Energy Sector: Selected
Problems and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Carlos Henggeler Antunes
Optimization and Multicriteria Evaluation of District Heat
Production and Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Risto Lahdelma, Genku Kayo, Elnaz Abdollahi and Pekka Salminen
Comparison of Routing Methods in Telecommunication
Networks—An Overview and a New Proposal Using
a Multi-criteria Approach Dealing with Imprecise Information . . . . . . 397
João Clímaco, José Craveirinha and Lúcia Martins
Contributors

Elnaz Abdollahi Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aalto University School

of Engineering, Aalto, Finland
Maria João Alves CeBER and Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra,
Coimbra, Portugal;
INESC Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Carlos Henggeler Antunes INESC Coimbra, Department of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
F. Barbiero Municipality of Turin, Turin, Italy
João Clímaco Institute for Systems Engineering and Computers at Coimbra,
INESC-Coimbra, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
L. Corazza Department of Management, University of Torino, Turin, Italy
João Paulo Costa CeBER and Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra,
Coimbra, Portugal;
INESC Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Miguel Couceiro Université de Lorraine, CNRS, Inria, LORIA, Nancy, France
José Craveirinha Institute for Systems Engineering and Computers at Coimbra,
INESC-Coimbra, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Yves De Smet SMG research unit, Computer and Decision Engineering
Department, Université libre de Bruxelles, Ecole polytechnique de Bruxelles, City
of Brussels, Belgium
Luis C. Dias Faculty of Economics, CeBER and INESC Coimbra, University of
Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Michalis Doumpos Technical University of Crete, School of Production
Engineering and Management, University Campus, Chania, Greece
Didier Dubois IRIT, CNRS, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France

xiii
xiv Contributors

Hélène Fargier IRIT, CNRS, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France

Fausto Freire ADAI-LAETA, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University
of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Jutta Geldermann Faculty of Engineering, University of Duisburg-Essen,
Duisburg, Germany
Alfio Giarlotta Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania,
Catania, Italy
Michel Grabisch Université Paris I—Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris School of
Economics, Paris, France
Masahiro Inuiguchi Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University,
Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan
Alessio Ishizaka Portsmouth Business School, Centre for Operational Research
and Logistics, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
Dylan Jones Department of Mathematics, Centre of Operational Research and
Logistics (CORL), University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
Genku Kayo Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aalto University School of
Engineering, Aalto, Finland;
School of Architecture and the Built Environment, KTH Royal Institute of
Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Anna Kolesárová Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, Institute of
Information Engineering, Automation and Mathematics, Slovak University of
Technology in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia
Christophe Labreuche Thales Research and Technology, Palaiseau, France
Risto Lahdelma Department of Mechanical Engineering, Aalto University School
of Engineering, Aalto, Finland;
Department of Mathematics and Systems Analysis, Aalto University School of
Science, Aalto, Finland
Lúcia Martins Institute for Systems Engineering and Computers at Coimbra,
INESC-Coimbra, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal;
Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and
Computers, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Radko Mesiar Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovak University of Technology in
Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia;
Institute for Research and Applications of Fuzzy Modelling, University of Ostrava,
Ostrava, Czech Republic
Giuseppe Munda European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Unit JRC.
I.1—Modelling, Indicators and Impact Evaluation, Competence Centre on
Modelling, Ispra, Va, Italy
Contributors xv

M. F. Norese Department of Management and Production Engineering,

Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
Henri Prade IRIT, CNRS, Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse, France
Agnès Rico ERIC, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France
Carlos Romero Group of Economics for a Sustainable Environment (ECSEN),
Technical University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
L. Sacco Unioncoop, Turin, Italy
Pekka Salminen School of Business and Economics, University of Jyväskylä,
Jyväskylä, Finland
Andrea Stupňanová Faculty of Civil Engineering, Slovak University of
Technology in Bratislava, Bratislava, Slovakia
Ronald R. Yager Machine Intelligence Institute, Iona College, New Rochelle,
NY, USA
Constantin Zopounidis Technical University of Crete, School of Production
Engineering and Management, University Campus, Chania, Greece;
Audencia Business School, Institute of Finance, Nantes, France
 Part I
Basic Notions and Methods
New Trends in Preference, Utility,
and Choice: From a Mono-approach
to a Multi-approach

Alfio Giarlotta

Abstract We give an overview of some new trends in preference modeling, util-

ity representation, and choice rationalization. Several recent contributions on these
topics point in the same direction: the use of multiple tools—may they be binary
relations, utility functions, or rationales explaining a choice behavior—in place of a
single one, in order to more faithfully model economic phenomena. In this stream
of research, the two traditional tenets of economic rationality, completeness and
transitivity, are partially (and naturally) given up. Here we describe some recent
approaches of this kind, namely: (1) utility representations having multiple orderings
as a codomain, (2) multi-utility and modal utility representations, (3) a finer classi-
fications of preference structures and forms of choice rationalizability by means of
generalized Ferrers properties, (4) a descriptive characterization of all semiorders in
terms of shifted types of lexicographic products, (5) bi-preference structures, and,
in particular, necessary and possible preferences, (6) simultaneous and sequential
multi-rationalizations of choices, and (7) multiple, iterated, and hierarchical resolu-
tions of choice spaces. As multiple criteria decision analysis provides broader models
to better fit reality, so does a multi-approach to preference, utility, and choice. The
overall goal of this survey is to suggest the naturalness of this general setting, as well
as its advantages over the classical mono-approach.

Keywords Preference modeling · Utility representation · Choice rationalization ·

Completeness · Transitivity · Lexicographic order · Semiorder · Z-product ·
(m, n)-Ferrers property · Bi-preference · Necessary and Possible preference ·
Robust ordinal regression · Multi-utility representation · Modal utility
representation · Multi-rationalization · Choice resolution

A. Giarlotta (B)
Department of Economics and Business, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
e-mail: giarlott@unict.it

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 3

M. Doumpos et al. (eds.), New Perspectives in Multiple Criteria
Decision Making, Multiple Criteria Decision Making,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11482-4_1
4 A. Giarlotta

1 Introduction

In the field of mathematical economics, the modelization of an agent’s preference

structure is traditionally done by means of a mono-approach, which uses a single
binary relation satisfying the two basic tenets of economic rationality: (1) com-
pleteness, and (2) transitivity. (See, e.g., Chap. 1 of the classical microeconomics
textbooks Mas-Colell et al. (1995) and Kreps (2013)). Under topological conditions
of separability, these two properties guarantee the existence of a utility representation
of preferences by a continuous real-valued function (Aleskerov et al. 2007; Bridges
and Mehta 1995; Debreu 1954). Similarly, the traditional approach of revealed pref-
erence theory (Arrow 1959; Samuelson 1938) often employs complete and transitive
binary relations to justify an agent’s choice behavior. In some cases, the satisfaction
of the two properties of completeness and transitivity has even guided the design
of new economic theories: a striking instance of kind is given by the classical book
“Games and Economic Behavior” of von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944).
By partially giving up these two properties, here we depart from traditional
approaches, and examine: (a) alternative types of utility representations, (b) more
refined kinds of preference structures, and (c) new forms of bounded rationality for
choices. In fact, the general question that motivates this survey is the following:
(Q0) Can we design sound theories of preference modeling, utility representation,
and choice rationalization, which give up, partially or totally, the basic tenets of
economic rationality?
This paper illustrates some possible answers to question (Q0).
Specifically, first we deal with preference representations in a lexicographically
ordered codomain (Chipman 1971; Fishburn 1974), thus extending the classical
real-valued representation. This approach provides a description of preferences that
fail to have a real-valued representation (Beardon et al. 2002a, b). Successively, we
describe some novel types of preference structures, which are formed by nested
and intertwined pairs of binary relations (Giarlotta and Watson 2018b). In this bi-
preference approach, the two properties of transitivity and completeness are coher-
ently spread over the two components. This feature makes these structures well
suited to applications in operations research and economics. In particular, special
types of bi-preferences, called necessary and possible (Giarlotta and Greco 2013),
have already been successfully employed as a modeling tool in multiple criteria
analysis (Greco et al. 2008). Under suitable conditions, bi-preferences can be rep-
resented by a doubly indexed family of utility functions: this is the so-called modal
utility representation (Giarlotta and Greco 2013), which adapts to bi-preferences the
recently introduced multi-utility representation of a preorder (Evren and Ok 2011;
Ok 2002).
In parallel to a multi-approach to preference and utility, we also develop a theory
of choice multi-rationalization. Samuelson’s theory of revealed preferences (Arrow
1959; Houthakker 1950; Samuelson 1938) postulates that choices are observed, and
preferences can be derived from them. The class of rationalizable choices is espe-
cially significative in this respect, since it codifies all types of choice behavior that
New Trends in Preference, Utility, and Choice … 5

can be explained by means of the maximization of a single binary relation. How-

ever, the theory of revealed preferences yields a sharp rational/irrational dichotomy,
since any non-rationalizable choice behavior is bluntly classified as “irrational”. With
the goal of smoothening this dichotomy, several new theories of bounded rational-
ity (Simon 1955, 1982) have naturally emerged over the last few years (Cherepanov
et al. 2013; Kalai et al. 2002; Manzini and Mariotti 2007; Masatlioglu and Naka-
jima 2013; Rubinstein and Salant 2006). Here we describe a general setting for
the multi-rationalizability of a choice (Cantone et al. 2018c), which may employ
more than one binary preference to explain the behavior of an economic agent, thus
broadening the classical notion of mono-rationalizability. We also sketch the main
features of a recently introduced methodology in choice theory, called “resolution”.
This methodology, which is an adaptation of an analogous technique in general
topology (Fedorcuk 1968; Watson 1992), studies the inner structure of a complex
choice process (Cantone et al. 2018a) on the basis of a notion of delegations of tasks.
This yields a decomposition (and explanation) of a complex selection process into
independent and simpler decisional units, typically distributed in a hierarchical way.
Multiple criteria decision analysis (Greco 2005; Greco et al. 2010a) provides
powerful analytical tools to handle complex real life problems, offering more flex-
ible modelizations than mono-criterion techniques. Similarly, mutatis mutandis, a
multi-approach to the theories of preference, utility representation, and choice ratio-
nalization yields a more realistic representation of economic phenomena rather than
the classical mono-approach. The purpose of this work is to give an overview of
a multi-approach to these theories, also suggesting its naturalness, feasibility, and
potential.

Organization of the Paper

The remainder of this survey is organized into three main sections, a conclusive
section, and an appendix.
Section 2 (The Mono-approach). We start in Sect. 2.1 with a historical discus-
sion about the two properties of transitivity and completeness. Successively, we
provide an overview of basic notions and classical results in preference modeling
(Sect. 2.2), utility representations (Sect. 2.3), and choice rationalization (Sect.
2.4). These theories use a single tool for the description of an agent’s behav-
ior/attitude. In summarizing their main achievements, we shall also detect some
shortcomings, and indicate possible ways of coping with the arising issues.
Section 3 (The Transition). Here we sketch a few recent approaches to the the-
ories described in Sects. 2.2–2.4. These techniques, which suggest the use of
multiple tools to represent economic behavior, address some shortcomings of
classical theories and pave the way for more general approaches to these topics.
Specifically, we describe: utility representations using lexicographic orderings
as a codomain (Sect. 3.1), universal characterizations of semiorders based on
shifted lexicographic products (Sect. 3.2), Ferrers properties describing a dis-
crete evolution of transitivity (Sect. 3.3), choice correspondences rationalizable
6 A. Giarlotta

by well-structured revealed preferences (Sect. 3.4), and a process detecting the

inner structure of a choice in terms of delegations of tasks (Sect. 3.5). The goal
of this section is to provide the reader with a natural justification and a smooth
transition toward a multi-approach.
Section 4 (The Multi-approach). Here we finally describe some very recent
developments in the theories described in Sects. 2.2–2.4, which employ multiple
tools rather than a single one. Specifically, in Sect. 4.1 we introduce bi-preference
structures, and describe their advantages over mono-preferences. In Sect. 4.2, we
deal with particular types of bi-preferences, called necessary and possible, which
have been already used in multiple criteria decision analysis. In Sect. 4.3, we
recall the notion of a multi-utility representation, and show how bi-preferences
are representable by a suitably indexed type of multi-utility representation, called
modal. Within the theory of choice rationalization, we provide in Sect. 4.4 an
overview of the recent bounded rationality approaches, which use multiple binary
rationales to explain a choice behavior. Finally, in Sect. 4.5 we describe a natural
extension of the notion of choice resolution to a multiple and iterated setting.
Section 5 concludes this contribution.
The Appendix contains two figures, which graphically describe some results.
Neither original results nor proofs appear in this survey.

2 The Mono-approach

To keep the presentation as much self-contained as possible, this section recalls the
classical setting of the theories of preference modeling, utility representation, and
choice rationalization.

2.1 The Two Classical Tenets of Rationality

A preference structure on a set X of alternatives is usually modeled by a binary

relation R on X . Traditionally, R is assumed to “behave well”, in the sense that it
satisfies suitable ordering properties. The two classical properties that are assumed
to hold for R are:
(Completeness) for any distinct x, y ∈ X , either x Ry or y Rx (or both)1 ;
(Transitivity) for any x, y, z ∈ X , if x Ry and y Rz, then x Rz.
The reasons for which R is often supposed to be both complete and transitive are
several, some being related to their economic significance, some others to their
mathematical tractability. However, both properties have been questioned by eminent
scholars over time.

1 Notice that, since x and y are distinct, this formulation of completeness does not imply reflexivity.
New Trends in Preference, Utility, and Choice … 7

In their monumental work Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (von Neu-
mann and Morgenstern 1944), von Neumann and Morgenstern already acknowl-
edged, albeit rather elusively, that preferences may naturally be incomplete (pp.
19–20):
We have conceded that one may doubt whether a person can always decide which of two
alternatives … he prefers. If the general comparability assumption is not made, a mathe-
matical theory … is still possible. It leads to what may be described as a many dimensional
vector concept of utility. This is a more complicated and less satisfactory set-up, but we do
not propose to treat it systematically at this time.

In fact, von Neumann and Morgenstern limited their analysis to complete (and tran-
sitive) preferences, due to the mathematical amenability of this simplified setting,
and never published details about the mentioned “many dimensional vector concept
of utility”.
In his seminal paper on incomplete preferences, Aumann (1962) suggested (p.
449) an interpretation of von Neumann and Morgenstern’s statement:
What they probably had in mind was some kind of mapping from the space of lotteries to
a canonical partially ordered euclidian space, rather than the real-valued mappings we use
here; but it is not clear to me how this approach can be worked out.

Aumann’s criticism of the completeness property was quite direct (p. 446):
Of all the axioms of utility theory, the completeness axiom is perhaps the most questionable.
Like others of the axioms, it is inaccurate as a description of real life; but unlike them, we
find it hard to accept even from the normative viewpoint.

Since Aumann’s work, many other authors started abandoning the axiom of com-
pleteness as a basic feature of rational behavior. On the topic, Bewley (1986) and
Ok (2002) attentively elaborate on the links between the notion of rationality and the
incompleteness of preferences.
In their systematic analysis of the multi-utility representation of preferences,
Evren and Ok (2011) mention several behavioral phenomena which naturally yield
incompleteness, e.g., status-quo bias (Apesteguía and Ballester 2009; Masatlioglu
and Ok 2005), intransitive choice (Manzini and Mariotti 2007), choice defer-
ral (Kopylov 2009), and indecisiveness in revealed preferences (Eliaz and Ok 2006).
Similarly, incompleteness has been a main focus in various decision models used in
operations research and management science (Danan 2010; Greco et al. 2008; Masin
and Bukchin 2008), financial economics (Rigotti and Shannon 2005), political eco-
nomics (Levy 2004; Roemer 1999), and game theory (Bade 2005). Further, several
recent studies on (in)decisions under risk and uncertainty use incomplete preorders
to model preferences (Dubra et al. 2004; Ghirardato et al. 2003, 2004; Gilboa et al.
2010; Maccheroni 2004; Nau 2006; Ok et al. 2012). Last but not least, following the
seminal work of Bernard Roy (1985, 1990a, b), there is a large number of multiple
criteria decision methodologies which explicitly take into account incompleteness of
preferences as a natural feature of the decision maker’s attitude (Greco et al. 2010a).
The axiom of transitivity was possibly harder to abandon, even if probably ques-
tioned before completeness. In his well-known paper, Tversky (1969) was still advo-
cating the importance of transitivity in the modelization of preferences, since its
8 A. Giarlotta

violation could cause unpleasant phenomena of “money pump” (Davidson et al.

1955).2 This attitude was however contrasted by other authors, who had already
been designing economic models in which transitivity was partially or totally aban-
doned. The probabilistic choice model proposed by Luce (1959) can be regarded as
a pioneering example of intransitive preferences in economic theory. The obstinate
insistence of some economists to employ transitive models even brought Sen (1971)
to declare that revealed preference theory is “obsessed with transitivity”. In their
recent paper, Bleichrodt and Wakker (2015) argue that the year 1982 was a sort of
“breaking point” in the economic literature, since transitivity was given up in three
seminal papers related to regret theory: the axiomatic approach of Fishburn (1982),
a decision analysis oriented paper by Bell (1982), and the fundamental contribution
of Loomes and Sudgen (1982). From an experimental point of view, there are many
papers in mathematical psychology explaining intransitivity of preferences by ran-
dom models, insofar as the subject’s preferences vary over time from one type of
ordering to another: see, e.g., Regenwetter et al. (2010, 2011) for some models of
this kind, and Davis-Stober et al. (2018) for a recent method to test these models.
In the same stream of research that opposes the blunt assumption of fully tran-
sitive preferences, we ought to mention the extraordinary amount of literature on
semiorders, interval orders, and similar preference structures, which describe forms
of rational behavior characterized by weaker forms of transitivity. Anticipated by
the intuitions of Fechner (1860), Poincaré (1908), Georgescu-Roegen (1936), Arm-
strong (1939), and Halphen (1955), research on intransitive preference structures had
its definitive consecration by the seminal papers of Luce (1956) and Fishburn (1970),
who formally introduced the notions of semiorder and interval order, respectively.
Their approaches are based on the idea of weakening the axiom of transitivity, rather
than abandoning it all together. Indeed, Luce’s famous coffee/sugar example suggests
that the transitivity of the associated indifference should be somehow weakened and
regulated, whereas the transitivity of the strict preference may be retained as a natural
assumption of rational behavior.
The recently introduced weak (m, n)-Ferrers properties go exactly in the direc-
tion of considering binary structures with a transitive strict preference but a possi-
bly intransitive indifference (Giarlotta and Watson 2014a). Originally designed to
provide a combinatorial extension of the Ferrers condition and semitransitivity—
which coincide, respectively, with weak (2, 2)-Ferrers and weak (3, 1)-Ferrers—
these properties display a finite taxonomy of enhanced forms of the transitivity of
the strict preference. In fact, roughly speaking, weak (m, n)-Ferrers properties clas-
sify transitive strict preferences by means of the types of forbidden mixed cycles of
preference/indifference (see Sect. 4.2 in Cantone et al. (2016)). It follows that such an
approach may be relevant for economic applications insofar as weak (m, n)-Ferrers
properties prompt a possible recognition of money-pump effects due to the presence
of mixed cycles of a certain length and type.

2 See Sect. 3.3 of this survey for a discussion on this point in relation to the so-called (m, n)-Ferrers

properties.
New Trends in Preference, Utility, and Choice … 9

Strict (m, n)-Ferrers properties (Giarlotta and Watson 2014a, 2018a; Öztürk
2008) go even further in weakening the assumption of transitivity, since they do
not even postulate the transitivity of the strict preference. These properties yield an
infinite taxonomy of intransitive preference structures, which are connected to other
types of money-pump phenomena.
In this paper, we shall also mention some new approaches to preference modeling
in which both basic tenets of economic rationality are only partially retained, being
“spread over” two binary relations (see Sects. 4.1 and 4.2 on bi-preferences and
NaP-preferences, respectively).

2.2 Preference Modeling

Here we summarize the basic terminology in preference theory. Two good sources
of information on this topic—as well as on utility representations, which is the topic
of the next section—are the textbooks by Bridges and Mehta (1995) and Aleskerov
et al. (2007).
Henceforth, X is a nonempty (possibly infinite) set of alternatives (courses of
action, etc.), and (X ) = {(x, x) : x ∈ X } is the diagonal of X .

Definition 2.1 A reflexive binary relation on X is referred to as a weak preference on

X , and is henceforth denoted by ; the pair (X, ) is generically called an ordered
set. The following relations are derived from a weak preference  on X : its strict
preference  (the asymmetric part of ), its indifference ∼ (the symmetric part of
), and its incomparability ⊥ (the symmetric part of the complement of ). These
relations are formally defined as follows for each x, y ∈ X :

def
xy ⇐⇒ (x  y) ∧ ¬(y  x)
def
x∼y ⇐⇒ (x  y) ∧ (y  x)
def
x⊥y ⇐⇒ ¬(x  y) ∧ ¬(y  x).

Given an ordered set (X, ), the set of maximal elements of A ⊆ X is defined by

max(A, ) := {x ∈ A : (y ∈ A) y  x}.

The composition of two weak preferences 1 and 2 on X is the binary relation

1 ◦ 2 on X defined as follows for all x, y ∈ X :

def
x(1 ◦ 2 ) y ⇐⇒ (∃z ∈ X ) x 1 z 2 y.

Notice that a weak preference  is (i) complete if and only if its incomparability ⊥
is empty, and (ii) transitive if and only the inclusion  ◦  ⊆  holds. Whenever 
is complete, the set of maximal elements of A ⊆ X can be also written as max(A, )
10 A. Giarlotta

:= {x ∈ A : (∀y ∈ A) x  y}. Finally, observe that, even when X is finite, the set
max(A, ) may be empty, due to the possible presence of strict cycles (see Defini-
tion 2.2).

Definition 2.2 A weak preference  on X is called (x, y, z, w are arbitrary elements

of X ):
• complete (or total or connected) if x  y or y  x always holds (x = y);
• antisymmetric if x  y and y  x implies x = y (equivalently, ∼ is the diagonal
of X );
• acyclic if there are no x1 , x2 , . . . , xn ∈ X , with n ≥ 3, such that x1  x2  · · · 
xn  x1 ;
• quasi-transitive if  is transitive, i.e., (x  y and y  z) implies x  z 3 ;
• Ferrers if (x  y and z  w) implies (x  w or z  y);
• semitransitive if (x  y and y  z) implies (x  w or w  z);
• an interval order if it is Ferrers;
• a semiorder if it is Ferrers and semitransitive;
• a (partial) preorder if it is transitive;
• a partial order if it is an antisymmetric preorder;
• a total preorder if it is a complete preorder;
• a linear order if it is an antisymmetric total preorder.
Accordingly, the pair (X, ) is called, e.g., a semiordered set, a preordered set, a
partially ordered set (also called a poset), a linearly ordered set (also called a linear
ordering or a chain), etc.

Notice that (i) any total preorder is trivially a semiorder, (ii) any semiorder is
trivially an interval order, (iii) an interval order is both complete and quasi-transitive,
and (iv) any quasi-transitive weak preference is acyclic. Moreover, the indifference
derived from a preorder is an equivalence relation, but the same does not hold for the
indifference associated to a semiorder (hence, a fortiori, for that of an interval order).
Observe also that if X is finite, then an acyclic relation on X always has maximal
elements for each nonempty subset of X .
Next, we recall some notions due to Fishburn (1970), which play an important
role in the theory of preferences, especially for defining notions of (semi)continuity
as well as for preferences that are interval orders and semiorders (but also for bi-
preference structures, see Sects. 4.1 and 4.2): the “traces” of a weak preference.

Definition 2.3 Let  be a weak preference on X . For each x ∈ X , let

(weak lower section of x) x ↓, := {w ∈ X : x  w},
(weak upper section of x) x ↑, := {w ∈ X : w  x},
(strict lower section of x) x ↓, := {w ∈ X : x  w},
(strict upper section of x) x ↑, := {w ∈ X : w  x}.

3 Incase  is complete, then the following statements are equivalent: (i)  is quasi-transitive; (ii)
for each x, y, z ∈ X , x  y  z implies x  z; (iii) for each x, y, z ∈ X , x  y  z implies x  z.
New Trends in Preference, Utility, and Choice … 11

Define three binary relations4 on X as follows for each x, y ∈ X :

def
(left trace of ) x ∗ y ⇐⇒ y ↓, ⊆ x ↓, ,
def
(right trace of ) x ∗∗ y ⇐⇒ x ↑, ⊆ y ↑, ,
def
(global trace of ) x 0 y ⇐⇒ x ∗ y ∧ x ∗∗ y.

The next lemma collects some enlightening results about traces: see, e.g., Fishburn
(1985), Monjardet (1978), Pirlot and Vincke (1997).

Lemma 2.4 Let  be a weak preference on X .

• ∗ , ∗∗ , 0 are preorders contained in .
• ∗ ◦  ⊆  and  ◦ ∗∗ ⊆ .
• 0 ◦  ⊆  and  ◦ 0 ⊆ .
•  is an interval order ⇐⇒ ∗ is a total preorder ⇐⇒ ∗∗ is a total pre-
order.
•  is a semiorder ⇐⇒ 0 is a total preorder.
•  is a preorder ⇐⇒  = 0 .
•  is a total preorder ⇐⇒  = 0 is complete.

Many classical results on preferences are related to the possibility of (continu-

ously) representing them by a utility function, a topic that is analyzed in the next
section. There are also other issues arising from the traditional mono-approach to
preference modeling, mostly due to the limited expressive power of a single binary
relation. In this respect, a general question is:
(Q1) Can we use binary relations to represent preferences in a more flexible and
realistic way?
We shall address question (Q1) in Sects. 4.1 and 4.2, where we suggest how a bi-
preference approach may enhance the modeling power of a binary representation of
agents’ preference structures by taking into account two different kinds of “attitudes”.

2.3 Utility Representations

In this section we deal with the classical setting of real-valued utility representations
of binary preferences. Two are the basic issues, the first purely order-theoretic and
the second topological:

4 We follow the approach described in Bouyssou and Pirlot (2004), defining all traces in terms of
weak sections, instead of defining strict traces first and then deriving weak traces. The difference
is immaterial whenever dealing with complete and quasi-transitive preferences, in particular for
interval orders and semiorders. Notice also that the notion of global trace has been recently revised
from a different perspective, and renamed transitive core (Nishimura 2018).
12 A. Giarlotta

(Q2) Can we can represent a total preference relation by a real-valued utility

function?
(Q3) Can we make this utility function continuous?
To start, we give the basic elements to properly formulate and then address question
(Q2).5

Definition 2.5 A binary relation  on X is representable in R if there is a function

u : X → R such that, for all x, y ∈ X , we have

xy ⇐⇒ u(x) ≥ u(y).

In this case, the function u is a utility representation of (X, ) in R. (We also say
that (X, ) is order-embeddable or embeddable in R.) The chain (R, ≥) is the base
of the representation.

An obvious necessary condition for the representability of a weak preference 

in R is that  must be a total preorder, i.e., it satisfies the two classical properties
of transitivity and completeness. This condition is also sufficient for the cases in
which the ground set X is finite or countably infinite (see, e.g., Chap. 1 of Bridges
and Mehta (1995)). In the general case, however, we need an additional property of
“separability” to ensure representability.
The first characterization of representability in R is most likely the following (Can-
tor 1895; Milgram 1939):

Theorem 2.6 (Cantor 1895; Milgram 1939) A linear ordering (X, ) is order-
embeddable in R if and only if it includes a countable subset that is weakly order-
dense in X .6

Similar characterizations were given by Birkhoff (1948). Nevertheless, due to

an imperfect communication in the scientific community, until the early 1950s
economists considered all preference relations as representable in R. In other words,
the concepts of “preference” and“utility” were (wrongly) considered equivalent. For
a salient instance of this kind, let us cite Hicks (1956, p. 19):
If a set of items is strongly ordered, it is such that each item has a place of its own in the
order; it could, in principle, be given a number.

If the above statement were to hold, then every total preorder would be representable
in R, and the concepts of preference and utility would coincide, which is false.

5 The literature also examines weaker forms of representability of a single binary relation, e.g., the
existence of (continuous, semicontinuous) Richter-Peleg utility functions (Alcantud et al. 2016;
Peleg 1970; Richter 1966). We shall deal with this topic in Sect. 4.3, where we also discuss some
shortcomings of this notion, and introduce multi-utility representations.
6 A set Y ⊆ X is weakly order-dense in X if, for each x , x ∈ X such that x  x , there is y ∈ Y
1 2 1 2
with the property that x1  y  x2 . Such a set is often called Debreu order-dense, and the existence
of a countable Debreu order-dense is referred to as Debreu-separability (Bridges and Mehta 1995).
New Trends in Preference, Utility, and Choice … 13

In his celebrated paper on the Open Gap Lemma, Debreu (1954) finally exhibited
an example of a natural preference that is non-representable in R: the lexicographic
plane R2lex = (R2 , lex ). Several characterizations of representability followed, for
instance (Fleischer 1961):
Theorem 2.7 (Fleischer 1961) A chain (X, ) is representable in R if and only if it
has at most countably many jumps and the topological space (X, τ ) is separable.7
For an extensive overview of the topic, the reader is referred to Bridges and Mehta
(1995), Mehta (1998).
In 2002, Beardon et al. (2002a, b) systematically analyzed the structure of total
and transitive preferences that fail to be representable in R, and obtain a striking
subordering classification of them. Their characterization (Beardon et al. 2002a) can
be suggestively rephrased as follows:
Theorem 2.8 (Beardon et al. 2002a) A chain is non-representable in R if and only
if it is (i) long or (ii) large or (iii) wild.8
(Here by “long” we mean that it contains a copy of the first uncountable ordinal9
ω1 or its reverse ordering ω1 ∗ ; by “large” we mean that it contains a copy of a non-
representable subordering of the lexicographic plane R2lex ; and by “wild” we mean
that it contains a copy of an Aronszajn line, which is defined as an uncountable
chain such that neither ω1 nor ω1 ∗ nor an uncountable subordering of R embeds into
it.) Some more recent results in this direction, which use lexicographic orders as
modeling tools, are mentioned in Sect. 3.1.
Next, we deal with question (Q3), that is, the existence of a continuous real-valued
representation. To describe the topological setting, we recall the notions of (i) the
continuity of a preorder, and (ii) the order topology induced by a preorder. (For
all undefined topological notions, the reader may consult the classical textbook by
Munkres (2000).)
Definition 2.9 Given a topological space (X, τ ), a preorder  on X is continuous10
if  is a closed subset of the topological product X × X .

7A jump in an ordered space (X, ) is a pair (a, b) ∈ X 2 such that a  b and there is no point
c ∈ X such that a  c  b. The topology τ is the order topology induced by . The topological
space (X, τ ) is separable if it contains a countable set D that intersects each nonempty open set.
See Munkres (2000) for topological notions.
8 This is not the terminology originally used by the authors.
9 An ordinal is a well-ordered set (X, <) such that each x ∈ X is equal to its initial segment

{y ∈ X : y < x}. The finite ordinals are the natural numbers. The first infinite ordinal is the set
ω0 of all natural numbers, endowed with the usual order. The first uncountable ordinal is the set
ω1 of all countable ordinals, endowed with the natural order. The famous continuum hypothesis,
formulated by George Cantor in 1878, says that the cardinality of R is equal to ω1 (as a cardinal).
In 1963, Paul Cohen proved that the continuum hypothesis is independent from the axioms of ZFC
(Zermelo-Fraenkel axiomatic set theory, plus the Axiom of Choice), in sense that there are models in
which it is true, and models in which it is false (because |R| > ω1 holds). See the classical textbook
by Kunen (1980) for ZFC axiomatic set theory.
10 Here we use the notion of continuity employed in some standard textbooks in microeconomic

theory, such as Mas-Colell et al. (1995, p. 46). Other authors sometimes employ a weaker notion
14 A. Giarlotta

It can be shown that a complete preorder  on (X, τ ) is continuous if and only

if (i) all weak upper sections x ↑, and lower sections x ↓, are closed subsets of
(X, τ ) if and only if (ii) all strict upper sections x ↑, and lower sections x ↓, are
open subsets of (X, τ ). Conditions (i) and (ii) are sometimes called, respectively,
closed semicontinuity and open semicontinuity, whereas their joint satisfaction is
called bi-semicontinuity: see Sect. 4.1. Notice that bi-semicontinuity does not imply
continuity for incomplete preorders.11

Definition 2.10 Given a preordered set (X, ), the order topology τ on X induced
by  is the topology having as a subbasis the family of all strict upper and lower
sections (equivalently, the topology having as a basis the family of all open intervals).

An immediate consequence of Definitions 2.9 and 2.10 is that for any totally
preordered set (X, ), the order topology τ is the coarsest topology on X such that
 is continuous.
There are many results dealing with continuous real-valued utility representations
of a total preorder. The most classical theorems in this field are due to Eilenberg (1941)
and Debreu (1954, 1964):

Theorem 2.11 (Eilenberg 1941) In a connected separable topological space, any

continuous total preorder is continuously representable in R.

Theorem 2.12 (Debreu 1954, 1964) In a second countable topological space, any
continuous total preorder is continuously representable in R.

A miscellany of representation results followed (in the 1970s): let us recall, among
others, the approaches due to Jaffray (1975a), Neuefeind (1972), Peleg (1970),
Richter (1980), and Sondermann (1980). A common denominator of many approaches
to the topic is the Open Gap Lemma, which was (incorrectly) proved by Debreu (1954),
and then corrected by the same author ten years later (Debreu 1964). For our purpose,
the most relevant consequence of this result is the following:

Corollary 2.13 If a total preorder on a topological space is representable in R, then

it is continuously representable in R.

The above result brings back the problem of the continuous representability of a
total preorder to that of its mere representability, on which Theorem 2.8 by Beardon
et al. (2002a) certainly sheds some light. However, Theorem 2.8 mostly provides

of continuity: see, e.g., Sect. 1.6 of Bridges and Mehta (1995). However, from the point of view of
applications, the distinction between the various notions of continuity is often immaterial. See also
Evren and Ok (2011, p. 555), and Gerasímou (2013, pp. 2–3).
11 Herden and Pallack (2002) provide a very simple counterexample to the equivalence between

continuity and bi-semicontinuity for incomplete preferences: in fact, they show that the relation
of equality is a bi-semicontinuous non-continuous preorder in any topological space that is T1 but
not Hausdorff. On the topic, see also Gerasímou (2013), who characterizes continuity in terms of
closed semicontinuity and a property of “local expansion” of transitivity (Theorem 1 in Gerasímou
(2013)).
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Title: Pragmatism and idealism

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Original publication: London: Adam and Charles Black, 1913

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PRAGMATISM AND IDEALISM
 AGENTS
America The Macmillan Company
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AustralasiaThe Oxford University Press
205 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
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 P R A G M AT I S M
AND

IDEALISM
BY

WILLIAM CALDWELL, M.A., D.Sc.[Edinr.]

SIR WILLIAM MACDONALD PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY,
McGILL UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1913
 PREFACE
What is attempted in this book is an examination of the Pragmatist
philosophy in its relations to older and newer tendencies in the
thought and practice of mankind.
While a good deal has been written within the last ten years
upon Pragmatism, the issue that it represents is still an open one—to
judge at least from recent books and reviews, and from recent official
discussions. And there seems to be a favourable opportunity for a
general account of the whole subject and for an estimate of its
significance.
In the opening chapter and elsewhere, both in the text and in the
footnotes, I have put together some things about the development
and the affiliations of Pragmatism, and of pragmatist tendencies, that
may not be altogether new to the professional student. Such a
presentation, or general conspectus, I have found to be a necessity
in the way of a basis both for discussion and for rational
comprehension. Taken along with the original pronouncements of
James and his confrères it affords an indication of the philosophy to
which the pragmatists would fain attain, and of the modification of
rationalistic philosophy they would fain effect.
The chapter upon Pragmatism as Americanism is put forth in the
most tentative spirit possible, and I have thought more than once of
withholding it. Something in this connexion, however, is, in my
opinion, needed to cause us to regard the pragmatist philosophy as
resting upon a very real tendency of the civilized world of to-day—a
tendency that is affecting us all whether we like it or not.
The chapter upon Pragmatism and Anglo-Hegelian Rationalism
is also offered with some degree of reservation and misgiving, for,
like many of my contemporaries, I owe nearly everything in the way
of my introduction to philosophy to the great Neo-Kantian and Neo-
Hegelian movement. In its place, I had some months ago a more
general chapter upon Pragmatism and Rationalism, containing the
results of material that I had been elaborating upon the development
of English Neo-Hegelianism. At the last moment I substituted what is
here offered upon the significant high-water output of Hegelianism
represented in Dr. Bosanquet’s Edinburgh Gifford Lectures.
In regard to the note upon the Pragmatist elements in the
philosophy of Bergson I ought, perhaps, to say that I kept away from
Bergson’s last two books until I had written out what had been
growing up in my own mind about the activism of Pragmatism and its
relations to Idealism. I have found confirmation for much of my own
thought in the teaching of this remarkable and significant thinker, and
I regret the partial representation of it that is here submitted.
Having crossed the ocean for the printing of my book, I have in
some cases lost or misplaced references that I intended to use or to
verify. For this I crave the indulgence of readers and critics.
I am indebted to the following gentlemen for much kind help and
criticism in the revision of my manuscript and proof-sheets for the
press: my brother, the Rev. Victor Caldwell, M.A., of Patna, Ayrshire;
Professor John Laird of Queen’s University, Belfast; Professor
James Seth of the University of Edinburgh; Professor P. T. Lafleur of
M’Gill University. I also owe much in this same connexion to recent
conversations with Professors A. Lalande and D. Parodi of Paris,
upon Pragmatism and contemporary philosophy generally.
London, September 1913.
 CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. Introductory 1
Note on the Meaning of “Pragmatism” 21
II. Pragmatism and the Pragmatist Movement 23
III. Some Fundamental Characteristics 58
IV. Pragmatism and Human Activity 93
Appendix to Chapter IV.—Philosophy and the
Activity-Experience 109
V. Critical 116
VI. Pragmatism as Humanism 141
VII. Pragmatism as Americanism 168
VIII. Pragmatism and Anglo-Hegelian Rationalism 196
IX. Pragmatism and Idealism in the Philosophy
of Bergson 234
Concluding Remarks 262

INDEX 267
PRAGMATISM AND IDEALISM
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

Pragmatism has by this time received so much attention in the

reflective literature of the day that any writer upon the subject may
now fairly presume upon a general acquaintance with its main
principles and contentions. Indeed, it is probable that most thinking
people may be credited with the ability to have formed some sort of
judgment of their own about a philosophy whose main contention is
that true ideas are working ideas, and that truth itself, like a creed or
a belief, is simply a working valuation of reality. There are still,
however, some things to be said, at least in English, upon the place
and the meaning of Pragmatism in the philosophical reconstruction
that is generally felt to be so necessary to-day.
As far as the external signs of any such vital relation between
Pragmatism and our recent academic philosophy are concerned, the
reader may be aware, to begin with, that there have been many
1
important concessions made to pragmatists by such representative
rationalists as Mr. Bradley and Professor Taylor, not to speak of
2
others, and Pragmatism has certainly had a very powerful effect
upon the professional philosophy of both England and Germany,
judging at least from the extent to which many of the more prominent
representatives of philosophy in these countries have apparently
3
been compelled to accord to it at least an official recognition.
Pragmatism, again, in consequence of the different receptions
that it has met with at the hands of its friends and its foes, has
undergone various phases of exposition and of modification,
although it has not yet, nor is it on the whole likely to have, a
philosophical output comparable to that of Idealism. It has become
more and more conscious of its own affiliations and relations to
older, and to broader doctrines, declaring itself, in the hands of
Professor James and his friends, to be but a new name for older
ways of thinking. And it has succeeded, in a measure, in clearing
itself from liability to the superficial interpretation that it met with a
few years ago, when it was scoffed at for teaching that you may
believe “what you like,” for speaking, for example, as if the
“theoretical” consequences of truth were not to be considered as well
as the “practical.” Although still resting in the main upon an
outspoken declaration of war against Rationalism, it is no longer
blind to the place and the value of thought or the “concept,” in the
matter of the interpretation of our experience.
Pragmatism, as the theory is generally understood, rests in the
main upon the work of three men, Professors James and Dewey of
America, and Dr. Schiller of Oxford. The fact, along doubtless with
other things, that these men have ere now been spoken of as
occupying a right, a left, and a centre in the new movement, is
presumably an indication that it has already received its highest
theoretical expression—presumably in the California pamphlet of
Professor James, or in the famous Popular Science Monthly article
of Peirce, canonized as the patron saint of the movement by James.
Whether this be so or not, it has been in the main the work of
James to set forth the meaning of Pragmatism as a philosophy of
everyday life, as the theory of the attitude of man as man to the
world in which he finds himself. Dr. Schiller, again, it is claimed, has
done much to set forth Pragmatism to the world as an essentially
humanistic philosophy, recognizing and providing for the rights of
faith and of feeling in determining our beliefs and our theories about
things. This philosophy has “much in common with what in other
quarters is called Personalism.” It cannot, however, be differentiated
so sharply as Dr. Schiller apparently would have us believe from the
many manifestations of this philosophy that abound in modern times,
from Fichte, and from Lotze, down to men who are still living—
Eucken and others. The ingenious Professor Dewey, moreover, is
the champion of the scientific, or the empirical, or the “instrumental”
method in philosophy, and has worked hard and successfully at the
reform which he thinks must take place in logical and philosophical
conceptions when interpreted as simply tools or devices for the
economy of our thought.
When, in pragmatist fashion, we seek to judge of Pragmatism by
this last-mentioned matter of its results, by the things it has enabled
its advocates to accomplish, we find that we may, to begin with,
speak in the following terms of the work of Professor James. He has
certainly indicated how the pragmatist method may be applied to the
solution of some of the ordinary difficulties of reflective thought;
about, for example, the nature of matter or the nature of the soul, or
about the old opposition between the “one” and the “many,” about
such concepts as “thing,” “kinds,” “time,” “space,” the “fancied,” the
“real,” and so on. In all such cases an answer, he holds, is obtained
by putting, say, the initial difficulty in the following form: “What
practical difference can it make now that the world should be run by
matter or by spirit?”
A fair illustration of his meaning here would be his own
characteristic attitude, so far as the philosophy of religion is
concerned, to the so-called “theistic” proofs that have been part of
the stock in trade of rational theology. A “necessary being” and a
4
“whole of truth” and the “Absolute” are not, he would hold, what the
average man understands by God; they have hardly any perceptible
effect upon life and conduct—the all-important matter in the thought
of God as he conceives it. Only those notions, he would have it,
which can be interpreted by the thought of the “difference” they make
to our practical conduct are real notions at all—“Providence,” say, or
“God” as the guarantor of the reality and the permanence of the
moral order, and so on. The “soul,” again, he would hold, “is good for
just so much and no more.” And a similar thing, too, would be true
5
about Berkeley’s “matter,” or about the “matter” of the materialists.
This latter, for instance, cannot possibly do all it is claimed to be able
to do in the way of an explanation of the order of the world and the
phenomena of life.
Then again, James has written a great many pages upon the so-
called deeper view of human nature (as inclusive of will and
“emotion” in addition to mere thought) taken by Pragmatism in
comparison with that entertained by Rationalism. We shall have
occasion to return to this point.
He has made it clear, too, that it was an unfair interpretation of
Pragmatism to take it as a plea for believing what you like, as was
said above. Our experience, he puts it, must be consistent, the “parts
with the parts,” and the “parts with the whole.” Beliefs must not clash
with other beliefs, the mind being wedged tightly between the
coercion of the sensible order and that of the ideal order. By
“consequences,” too, he contends we may mean intellectual or
theoretical consequences as well as practical consequences.
He has also, along with his brother-pragmatists, raised the
question of the nature of Truth, attaining to such important results as
the following: (1) there is no such thing as pure truth, or ready-made
6
truth; (2) the “copy-theory” of truth is unintelligible. We shall later be
obliged to examine the more controversial positions that (3) truth is
not an end in itself, but a means towards vital satisfaction; (4) truth is
7
the “expedient” in the way of thinking, as the right is the expedient
in the way of acting, and so on.
Further, Professor James finds that Pragmatism leaves us with
the main body of our common-sense beliefs [Peirce holds practically
the same thing], such as the belief in “freedom”—as a “promise and
a relief,” he adds; and the belief in the religious outlook upon life, in
so far as it “works.” This is the attitude and the tenor of the well-
known books on The Will to Believe and The Varieties of Religious
8
Experience. “Our acts, our turning-places, where we seem to
ourselves to make ourselves and grow, are the parts of the world to
which we are closest, the parts of which our knowledge is the most
intimate and complete. Why should we not take them at their face-
value?” And yet, as against this attitude, Professor James elsewhere
finds himself unable to believe “that our human experience is the
highest form of experience extant in the universe.” It is the
emergence of many such incoherences in his writings that gives to
his pragmatist philosophy of religion a subjective and temperamental
character, and makes it seem to be lacking in any objective basis. “If
radically tough, the hurly-burly of the sensible facts of nature will be
enough for you, and you will need no religion at all. If radically
tender, you will take up with the more monistic form of religion: the
pluralistic form—that is, reliance on possibilities that are not
9
necessities—will not seem to offer you security enough.” He
“inclines,” on the whole, to “Meliorism,” treating satisfaction as
neither necessary nor impossible; the pragmatist lives in “the world
of possibilities.”
These words show clearly how difficult it is to pin down Professor
James to any single intelligible philosophy of belief, if belief be
interpreted as in any sense a “commerce” of the soul with objective
realities, as something more than a merely generous faith in the
gradual perfection or betterment of human society.
“Religious experience,” as he puts it in his Pluralistic Universe,
“peculiarly so called, needs, in my opinion, to be carefully considered
and interpreted by every one who aspires to reason out a more
complete philosophy.” In this same book, it is declared, however, on
the one hand, that “we have outgrown the old theistic orthodoxy, the
God of our popular Christianity being simply one member of a
pluralistic system”; and yet, on the other hand, and with equal
emphasis, that “we finite minds may simultaneously be conscious
10
with one another in a supernatural intelligence.”
The book on The Meaning of Truth seems to return, in the main,
to the American doctrine of the strenuous life as the only
courageous, and therefore true, attitude to beliefs, as the life that
contains, in the plenitude of its energizing, the answer to all
questions. “Pluralism affords us,” it openly confesses, “no moral
holidays, and it is unable to let loose quietistic raptures, and this is a
serious deficiency in the pluralistic philosophy which we have
professed.” Professor James here again attacks Absolutism in the
old familiar manner, as somehow unequal to the complexity of
things, or the pulsating process of the world, casting himself upon
the philosophy of experience, and upon the evident reality of the
“many” and of the endless variety of the relations of things, in
opposition to the abstract simplicity of the “one,” and the limited
range of a merely logical, or mathematical, manner of conceiving of
reality. “The essential service of Humanism, as I conceive the
situation, is to have seen that, though one part of experience may
lean upon another part to make it what it is in any one of several
aspects in which it may be considered, experience as a whole is self-
sustaining and leans on nothing.... “It gets rid of the standing
problems of Monism and of other metaphysical systems and
11
paradoxes.”
Professor James exhibits, however, at the same time a very
imperfect conception of philosophy, holding that it gives us, in
general, “no new range of practical power,” ignoring, as it were, the
difference between philosophy and poetry and religion and mere
personal enthusiasm. And he leaves the whole question of the first
principles of both knowledge and conduct practically unsettled.
12
These things are to him but conceptual tools, and “working” points
of departure for our efforts, and there seems in his books to be no
way of reducing them to any kind of system. And he makes, lastly, a
most unsuccessful attempt at a theory of reality. Reality is to him
sometimes simply a moving equilibrium of experience, the “flux” we
have already referred to; sometimes the fleeting generations of men
who have thought out for us all our philosophies and sciences and
cults and varied experiences, and sometimes the “common-sense
world in which we find things partly joined and partly disjoined.” It is
sometimes, too, other things even than these. In a chapter of the
13
book upon Pragmatism it is stated in italics that “reality is, in
general, what truths have to take account of,” and that it has three
parts: (1) “the flux of our sensations,” and (2) the “relations that
obtain between our sensations, or between their copies in our
minds,” and (3) “the previous truths of which every new inquiry takes
14
account.” Then again, in A Pluralistic Universe, it is declared that
“there may ultimately never be an All-form at all, that the substance
of reality may never get totally collected ... and that a distributive
form of reality, the Each-form, is logically as acceptable and
empirical and probable as the All-form.” This is the theory of the
15
outspoken “radical empiricism” which is the contention of the
volume upon The Meaning of Truth, the main effort of which seems
to be to show again that the world is still in the process of making. It
has the additional drawback of bringing Pragmatism down not only to
the level of radical empiricism, but to that of common-sense realism
or dualism [the belief in the two independent realities of matter and
16
mind], and to that of the “copy-theory” of truth, from which both
Pragmatism and Radical Empiricism are especially supposed to
deliver us. “I will say here again, for the sake of emphasis, that the
existence of the object ... is the only reason, in innumerable cases,
why the idea does work successfully.... Both Dewey and I hold firmly
17
... to objects independent of our own judgments.” Much of all this
is, no doubt, like surrendering philosophy altogether.
In the case of Dr. Schiller, we may notice first his frequent and
successful exhibition of the extent to which human activity enters into
the constitution not only of “truth,” but of “reality,” of what we mean
by reality. This is interwoven in his books with his whole philosophy
of truth as something merely human, as “dependent upon human
purposes,” as a “valuation” expressive of the satisfactory, or the
unsatisfactory, nature of the contents of “primary reality.” It is
interwoven, too, with his doctrine that reality is essentially a ὕλη,
something that is still in the making, something that human beings
can somehow re-make and make perfect. Then this position about
truth and reality is used by him, as by James, as a ground of attack
against Absolutism, with its notion of a “pre-existing ideal” of
knowledge and reality, as already existing in a super-sensible world,
that descends magically into the passively recipient soul of man.
There is no such thing, he claims, as absolute truth, and the
conception of an “absolute reality” is both futile and pernicious.
18
Absolutism, too, has an affinity to Solipsism, the difficulties of
which it can escape only by self-elimination.
19
Then Absolutism is, Schiller continues, “essentially irreligious,”
although it was fostered at first in England for essentially religious
20
purposes. It has developed there now at last, he reminds us, a
21
powerful left wing which, as formerly in Germany, has opened a
quarrel with theology. In Absolutism, the two phases of Deity—God
as moral principle, and God as an intellectual principle—“fall apart,”
and absolutist metaphysic has really no connexion with genuine
religion. Humanism can “renew Hegelianism” by treating the making
of truth as also the making of reality. Freedom is real, and may
22
possibly “pervade the universe.” All truth implies belief, and it is
obviously one of the merits of Pragmatism to bring truth and reason
together. Beliefs and ideas and wishes are really essential and
integral features in real knowing, and if knowing, as above, really
transforms our experience, they must be treated as “real forces,”
23
which cannot be ignored by philosophy.
Against all this would-be positive, or constructive, philosophy we
must, however, record the fact that the pragmatism of Dr. Schiller
breaks down altogether in the matter of the recognition of a
distinction between the “discovering” of reality and the “making” of
reality. And despite the ingenuity of his essay in the first edition of
24
Humanism upon “Activity and Substance,” there is not in his
writings, any more than in those of James, any coherent or adequate
theory of reality. And this is the case whether we think of the “primary
reality” upon which we human beings are said to “react,” in our
knowledge and in our action, or of the supreme reality of God’s
existence, of which such an interesting speculative account is given
in the essay referred to. Nor is there in Dr. Schiller, any more than in
James, any adequate conception, either of philosophy as a whole, or
of the theory of knowledge, or of the relation of Pragmatism as a
“method” (it is modestly claimed to be only such, but the position is
25
not adhered to) to philosophy as such. “For the pragmatic theory of
knowledge initial principles are literally ἀρχαί, mere starting-points
variously, arbitrarily, casually selected, from which we hope to try to
advance to something better. Little we care what their credentials
may be.... And as far as the future is concerned, systems of
philosophy will abound as before, and will be as various as ever, but
they will probably be more brilliant in colouring and more attractive in
their form, for they will certainly have to be put forward and
acknowledged as works of art that bear the impress of a unique and
26
individual soul.”
The main result of pragmatist considerations in the case of
Professor Dewey is perhaps that reconsideration of the problems of
logic and knowledge in the light of the facts of genetic and functional
psychology which has now become fairly general on the part of
English and American students of philosophy. It is through his
influence generally that pragmatists seem always to be talking about
the way in which we “arrive at” our beliefs, about ideas as
“instruments” for the interpretation and arrangement of our
experience, about the “passage” from cognitive expectation to
“fulfilment,” about ideas as “plans of action” and mental habits, about
the growth and the utility of the truth, about the “instrumental”
character of all our thinking, about beliefs as more fundamental than
knowledge, and so on.
Professor Dewey has also written many more or less popular,
but none the less highly valuable, short studies upon the application
of an instrumentalist conception of philosophy to education and to
social questions. One of his last pieces of service in this connection
is a volume in which he associates Pragmatism with the general
revolution effected in the entire range of the mental and moral
sciences by Darwinism, with the present tendency in philosophy to
turn away from ultimate questions to specific problems, and with the
27
reform which, in his opinion, is necessary in our educational ideals
generally.
These three leading exponents of Pragmatism may be regarded
as meeting the objections to philosophy urged respectively by the
“man of affairs,” by the “mystical, religious” man, and by the “man of
28
science.” By this it is meant that the man of affairs will find in
James an exposition of philosophy as the study of different ways of
looking at the world; the mystical, religious man will find in Schiller a
treatment of philosophy as the justification of an essentially spiritual
philosophy of life; and that the scientific man will find in the writings
of Dewey and his associates a treatment of philosophy as nothing
else than an extension into the higher regions of thought of the same