Teach 'Corner‑Seeing' as Skill

Updated: 2026.03.29 3H ago 1 sources
A deliberate curricular and training focus on identifying and practicing the cognitive moves that let people ‘‘see around corners’’ — the hidden perspectives or framing switches that turn a problem from intractable to obvious. This would mean case studies (like the late discovery of marginalism), exercises in reframing, and institutional supports (funding, intellectual independence, peer networks) to incubate those insights. — If adopted, it would change how universities and policy institutions cultivate innovation, shifting some investment from technical training to cognitive discovery practices with long social returns.

Sources

Scott Sumner on *The Marginal Revolution*
Tyler Cowen 2026.03.29 100% relevant
Tyler Cowen’s formulation (quoted by Scott Sumner) that economics required people who could ‘‘see around corners,’’ plus the book’s historical example of Jevons and marginal analysis.
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