From: starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr)
Subject: Re: The Enduring Rand (was: Re: Theory?)
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 09:11:33 GMT

In article <Bxv9Ls.784@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
}In article <1992Nov15.104940.10073@genie.slhs.udel.edu> starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Tim Starr) writes:
}>In article <BxJx6s.G5A@apollo.hp.com> nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:
}>As I've said, I'm a pragmatist.   I look for 
}>}  what seems to work.  The epistemology that I've chosen has an excellent
}>}  track record ever since the Enlightenment and is the basis of all modern
}>}  science.
}>
}>Pragmatism didn't even exist until the late 19th century.  Logical positivism
}>didn't exist until even later.
}
}  The basic methodology existed -- it just didn't get formalized into
}  and "ism" until later.

There's plenty of reason to believe that the founders of positivism such as
Saint-Simon and Comte were mostly ignorant of the practice of natural science,
and that their attempt to capture it failed.  See Hayek's "The Counter-
Revolution of Science" on this.

}>}  The bottom line is that logical empiricism works better than anything
}>}  else.
}>
}>Not outside the natural sciences, it doesn't, because we can't do controlled
}>experiments elsewhere.
}
}  This doesn't mean it doesn't work -- it just means that you are
}  unable/unwilling to use its methods.   The bottom line is that it's
}  the only approach that works.

If it's impossible to apply the methods of the natural sciences, as Hayek
and many others have argued, then this indeed mean that they don't work.
How could they possibly work where they can't be applied?

Furthermore, the praxaeological method works fine for the purpose of
explaining such things as why diamonds have a higher price than water.

So, once again, your claims have been falsified, unless you challenge my
rebuttals.  Thus far, you appear to fit the positivist stereotype: you don't
know what you're talking about in any depth whatsoever.

}>  In the social sciences, for example, all we have to go on are case studies
}>  and theories based upon axioms.
}
}  Excatly.  And look how well the social "sciences" work!
}
}  
}>What I don't like about it is that it's incoherent, thus unsuccessful in
}>fields like economics.
}
}  It's never been *tried* in economics, for exactly the reasons you
}  state!   It's too hard to set up the appropriate experiments.  And 
}  the results are obvious: economics as a science is a joke!

Again you reveal your ignorance.  Milton Friedman is probably the most famous
person to attempt economics with a positivist method.  Many, if not most,
present economists are positivists.  They use historical case studies in
place of controlled experiments, assume a determinist rational utility-
maximizer theory of man ("homo oeconomicus"), make falsifiable and testable
claims, and are largely responsible for the sad state of economic illiteracy
we're in.

However, the growth of the Austrian or market-process school is accelerating.
It does quite well without your vaunted positivism.

}  It does not follow from this that because people have thus far
}  been unable/unwilling to apply these methods to certain areas 
}  that this methodology is wrong or flawed, or even inapplicable.
}  That would be like saying that because science has not yet found
}  a cure for AIDS that witch doctors or sacrifices to various
}  deities are a better bet than science for future investigations.

You're assuming that it's potentially possibly for there to be controlled
experiments in the social sciences, which it isn't.  Only then could you
hold this analogy.  We can do controlled experiments in the attempt to test
the hypothesis that AIDS is caused by HIV, for example (we've never found a
cure for ANY virus, by the way).  We don't, but we could.

However, witch doctors and sacrifices to deities would work about as well as
the AIDS treatments which have been promulgated by the National Institute of
Health, so on your pragmatist grounds you must grant them equal truth.

Throughout your claims you rely on implicit assumptions inconsistent with
them.  Logic isn't falsifiable, so you should reject it in order to not be
a hypocrite, for example.


Tim Starr - Renaissance Now! - Think Universally, Act Selfishly
starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu

"True greatness consists in the use of a powerful understanding to enlighten
oneself and others." - Voltaire
Newsgroups: talk.politics.theory,talk.philosophy.misc,rec.arts.books