--- John Medaille <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  
  
>>  For example, that human desires tend to be  
>> unlimited  
  
> That's actually culturally specific.  
  
How do you know?  
  
> Or if it   
> isn't, there is no way to demonstrate it or its   
> opposite.  
  
One can observe people world-wide seeking to obtain  
more goods.  I know of no general culture where this  
is not the case.  At most, there may be a few  
religious communities with unmarried persons who claim  
to have reduced their wants to zero other than for  
ongoing oxygen and nutrition.  This is not an absolute  
proof, but sufficiently probable for it to be a  
practical axiom.  If one is too fussy, then science  
becomes impossible.  
  
> There is a weaker axiom available,   
> which is likely more general: people tend to want   
> what completes or perfects them, but what   
> completes or perfects them is something infinite   
> and perfect and simply not available in a finite   
> world.  
  
How do you know that what people in general want is  
infinite and perfect?  
Can one peer into their subconscious?  
One could argue that many people want to live forever  
in some afterlife, but this is not necessarily  
universal, and may be culturally taught.  
Moreover, even if most folks want this, that desire is  
irrelevant for economics.  
The economic premise of unlimited desires applies to  
goods actually or potentially available.  
If I want the moon, it has no economic effect.  
  
>> [Locke's] contradictions can be handled by  
rejecting his invalid conclusions and accepting the  
valid ones.<  
   
> But that gives the game away.   
  
The game does not consist of appealing to Locke as an  
authority.  
Science is based on logic and evidence.  Science has  
experts but no human authories. The personae of  
history of thought are only to be invoked for science  
to learn from them, to provide credit so that we too  
will earn credit, and perhaps to obtain texts which  
express a concept with excellent phrasing.  
  
Therefore, the rejection of the invalid propositions  
of Locke or other author is part of the game of  
science, particularly the history of thought.    
  
I invoke Locke only to point out that some idea is not  
original with me, but was discovered and phrased by  
Locke.  
  
> For now you are not   
> reading Locke purely in himself, but in the light   
> of some principle that can discriminate the "good   
> Locke" from the "bad Locke."   
  
Which is exactly what the science of history of  
thought should do.  
  
> Let's say this   
> principle is supplied by Jones.   
  
Logic is not supplied by any person.  
It has an independent existence, and can only be  
discovered and applied by persons.  
  
A critic can point out that reason is also based on  
evidence, which is indeed subject to interpretations.   
  
But we can apply logic to the interpretations also.   
Ultimately, logic will tell us that either an  
observation has an extremely high probability of being  
true, or else that we are uncertain whether it is in  
accord with reality.  
  
> we admit that we are enmeshed in our own culture,   
> a product of our own times, with our own social   
> baggage and biases,  
  
Is this an admission that objective science is  
impossible, and even deeper, that an  objective  
application of logic is impossible?  
  
However, you do point to an excellent critque of  
science, that much of, say economics, is indeed not  
grounded in pure logic and evidence, but is indeed  
culturally biased, based on unexamined cultural  
premises, including the culture of economists.    
The refusal of economists to examine their bias, even  
after it is pointed out, indicates a corruption of the  
scientific spirit.  
  
> But even in transcending it (relatively), we are   
> still connected to it. Trying to disconnect will   
> merely leave us in a world of self-satisfied  
> illusions.  
  
I don't undertstand why we MUST be connected to  
cultural or personal bias.  
In my observation, most economists prefer to remain in  
their bias because the rewards of working within the  
culture are almost always greater than those of  
challenging the culture.    
  
In my judgment, we can transcend culture by asking the  
Socratic questions:  
What do you mean?  
How do you know?  
Keep asking, and the responder will eventually admit  
that his premise is cultural or that he does not know.  
  
> The attempt to read an   
> author apart from the context of his time and   
> tradition is ahistorical and likely inaccurate.   
  
But then is THAT proposition of yours not itself also  
ahistorical and inacurate?  
  
Fred Foldvary