--- 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
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