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From:
[log in to unmask] (Alan G Isaac)
Date:
Wed Jun 11 08:15:46 2008
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Samuel Bostaph wrote:
> We choose because we have free will and human actions are  
> non-deterministic. [Apologies to you Marxists out there 
> who have  swallowed the historical materialism argument. 
> I think you are wrong,  but that is another argument.] 


A claim that humans make economic choices because they have 
free will is not a challenge to Marxism any more than to 
neoclassical economics.  Rather it is a challenge to the 
physicalist interpretation of the world, which is to say 
modern science.  It is also a pointless claim for 
economists: economic science acquires nothing from the claim 
(except the useless possibility of truly inexplicable actions).

As far as I am aware, nobody has yet said in a sensible way 
just what "free will" means.  Perhaps Kant got the closest, 
and he was forced to maintain a kind of compatibilism.  
Which is just to say, there is nothing in it for science.

Cheers,
Alan Isaac





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