tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post5758529806537408722..comments2024-03-28T17:08:15.784-07:00Comments on Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern Left: Quine and the Analytic–Synthetic DistinctionLord Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-37651073560411770102013-08-24T17:15:09.230-07:002013-08-24T17:15:09.230-07:00I do of course agree with this, because philosophy...I do of course agree with this, because philosophy aside you and I agree on every substantive issue (which, by the way, is what's really important).<br /><br />But I still think that the Enlightenment project contains within it the seeds of spreading this crap. Enlightenment hates induction/empirics. Why? Because it cannot theorise it. It cannot get a handle on it. Hamann is right when he equates Enlightenment and the mathematical mindset. They're two sides of the same coin.<br /><br />Frankly I think that empirics/induction is anti-Enlightenment. Which is why I think that Keynesian economics is, properly conceived, anti-Enlightenment.<br /><br />As for Mises, he's like the exception that proves the rule; the crank clown who shows what the goal of the circus really is.Philip Pilkingtonhttp://fixingtheeconomists.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-1386482681366368162013-08-24T12:28:45.488-07:002013-08-24T12:28:45.488-07:00Well, the logical positivists did stress that anal...Well, the logical positivists did stress that analytic propositions are ultimately just non-informative tautologies (as did early Wittgenstein), and that the necessary truth of an analytic proposition is only ever a *verbal* (or de dicto) necessity from the conventions of language, not a metaphysical one.<br /><br />I think the problem you're really identifying when you refer to the "Enlightenment project" is Rationalist apriorism: the belief that starting from allegedly self-evident or <i>a priori</i> axioms and using deduction (and spurning empirical investigation), you arrive at profound new, informative knowledge of the world, and those deductive truths aren't amenable to empirical refutations. <br /><br />E.g., Misesian praxeology is the ultimate and crowning stupidity of this sort of Rationalist apriorist project. <br /><br />In reality, you need highly empirical study or the world in order to get new informative knowledge of it, and your theories must always be tested against reality. <br /><br />Would you agree with this?Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-14936169812935551602013-08-24T12:16:37.712-07:002013-08-24T12:16:37.712-07:00A good deal of the wonder of the analytic/syntheti...A good deal of the wonder of the analytic/synthetic distinction melts away when your realise that so-called analytic statements are really just tautologies.<br /><br />Then when you realise that tautologies are ultimately just statements that assert their self-contained authority you begin to see that the Enlightenment project, which aims at multiplying tautologies (analytic judgments) in human discourse, is really just a self-reinforcing ideology with little relation to the real world.<br /><br />It's a sort of deductive poison that tries to turn human discourse into a bland, homogenous puddle of goo. It fails of course, no matter what guise it takes -- from neoclassical theory to econometrics -- because human discourse doesn't function like that.Philip Pilkingtonhttp://fixingtheeconomists.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com