Subject: | |
From: | |
Date: | Wed Dec 27 20:50:52 2006 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
Doug Mackenzie wrote:
>
> > But he doesn't deal with it; he merely asserts
> > that his method can, but he doesn't attempt to
> > account for the fact that individual attitudes
> > are already socially formed before anyone acts.
>
>That is, socially formed by the interaction of
>individuals in past time periods.
...which acts are, in turn. socially formed by
the interaction of individuals in even more
remote time periods, which are themselves
socially formed by... and so forth. Therefore,
the attempt to account for actions by
methodological individualism suffers from
infinite regression, going back, no doubt, to
some primordial "individual" act, one likely
having something to do with apples.
Mises does pay lip service to "society," but his
explanation is no different from other
reductionists who don't. Isn't it better to ask
why reductionism is the first place, rather than
merely give that reductionism a thin veneer of
novel and quasi-philosophical terms?
John C. Medaille
|
|
|