THREE POINTS PROVE A LINE – IN PHILOSOPHY TOO In propertarian methodology I have

THREE POINTS PROVE A LINE – IN PHILOSOPHY TOO

In propertarian methodology I have explicitly argued in favor of an expanded version of the golden mean: that is that definitions of states or objects or properties are not testable unless they are described in the context of a spectrum (or axis), either end of which the concept fails to meet the criteria of the axis.

This habit, like equilibrial thinking, is not terribly natural. Humans tend to gravitate to the simplest mode of comparison: ideal types, just as they tend to gravitate to finite states instead of equilibrial thinking.

So, whenever I define something I try to construct the axis.

In the propertarian method, what little I’ve written about it, in the few examples, I suggest the simple method of collecting as many related terms as possible, and arranging them into axis by playing what thing is like the other and not games so to speak.

This allows us to construct the equivalent of supply demand curves for human concepts and behaviors.

I find that most philosophical error comes from either:

(a) failure to state human concepts as human actions (as if they are geometric, or platonic, rather than praxeological).

or

(b) definitions (like ‘knowledge’) that are specious by construction, because they describe a fixed state rather than a spectrum.

or

(c) Failure to account for equilibrial processes

or

(d) Failure to account for opportunity costs.

This (geometrization) is a curable habit in human cognition, by training us to be less solipsistic and increasingly sympathetic and then autistic in our understanding of the world.

Now, this might be a little deep for the mind to grasp, but the reason we make these mistakes can be accounted for by a particular spectrum as well:

The Increasing Abstraction Of Point Of View:

1) Self (solipsism) – Awareness

2) Other (the insight of introspection) – Comparison

3) Categories (the insight of numbers) – Numbers

3) Relationship (the insight of geometry) – Measurement

4) Independence from the self (the insight of calculus) – Motion

5) Equilibria (the insight of economics and physics) – Systems

6) Opportunity (differences in multiple ‘worlds’) – Possibilities

Each of these increasingly complex ideas places a higher burden on us by requiring that we make comparisons against less perceptible and intuitive objects of consideration.

A loose spectrum is more precise than the most precise definition, whose spectrum must be assumed.

This is the value of the “golden mean” in virtue, but it is a generic test of any concept: if you don’t state the properties of the spectrum, you must assume them.

In most of western philosophy, like all philosophy, despite being rational, the assumptions are unstated. The virtues are stated but without axis. The logics are stated but without axis.

But one needs axis. We are terrible at conceiving more than one flight of an arrow. But We are terrible at it. But no question of consequence consists of a single arc.

And no definition consists of a single state.

Because no such arcs or states are sufficiently testable, and therefore are loaded with metaphysical assumptions.