Very interesting post. I wonder whether Elster may be right in the sense that proverbs arise as encapsulation of gross effects captured with a few evocative words. But then, as you point out, people use proverbs often without considering that limitation.
Maybe the confusion between gross effects and net effects also contributes to how proverbs arise. A gross effect goes unopposed in a given situation, someone coins a phrase evaluation encapsulating it (perhaps remembering other scenarios where this particular effect dominated, but forgetting scenarios where other effects dominated, due to availability heuristic and confirmation bias). It catches on, for basically the same reasons (and gets refined into an especially pithy form). So most people who coined it or spread it intended it to describe a net effect, but the explanation for why it seemed plausible to each of them, despite there being other scenarios that it doesn't describe, is: 1. It is a true gross effect, 2. Sometimes a gross effect dominates, 3. Availability heuristic
Very interesting post. I wonder whether Elster may be right in the sense that proverbs arise as encapsulation of gross effects captured with a few evocative words. But then, as you point out, people use proverbs often without considering that limitation.
Maybe the confusion between gross effects and net effects also contributes to how proverbs arise. A gross effect goes unopposed in a given situation, someone coins a phrase evaluation encapsulating it (perhaps remembering other scenarios where this particular effect dominated, but forgetting scenarios where other effects dominated, due to availability heuristic and confirmation bias). It catches on, for basically the same reasons (and gets refined into an especially pithy form). So most people who coined it or spread it intended it to describe a net effect, but the explanation for why it seemed plausible to each of them, despite there being other scenarios that it doesn't describe, is: 1. It is a true gross effect, 2. Sometimes a gross effect dominates, 3. Availability heuristic