On 06/08/2011 05:07 PM, Alan G Isaac wrote:
> Despite Roy's fears of how the discussion will evolve,
> I do wonder what Mises was talking about.
>  http://mises.org/humanaction/chap3sec2.asp
> Was he just getting away with murder by calling "Marxian"
> anything vaguely to the "left" that he felt smacked of
> polylogism?  Or is there textual evidence that Marx
> seriously argued for polylogism?

I am always suspicious of those who claim that "reason" is on their 
side, rather than the more modest claim, "my argument is reasonable." It 
is as if "Reason" were some anthropomorphic deity pronouncing from on 
high, rather than a tool of human dialog. And all human knowledge is 
dialogic and dialectical.

As for one's background and position influencing one's views, of course 
it does, at least in the humane sciences. There is not some sure and 
certain collection of "facts" which we examine to contruct theories, but 
only a welter of details, and from this plenitude of minutiae we select 
certain details as "facts" because we judge them useful in constructing 
our theories. But by definition, this selection process is 
pre-theoretical and depends on our cultural baggage, attitudes, 
prejudices, biases, etc. This is simply the way humans work.

We cannot avoid being human, but we can always become better humans and 
thereby become better scientists. We do this not by a pretense of 
"objectivity" and an absolute claim to reason, but by a constant process 
of self-examination and dialog, exposing our own biases to the light. 
Those who claim to be without bias can only be hiding biases, and, worst 
of all, hiding them from themselves.

John