ETHICAL REALISM: OPERATIONALISM, INSTRUMENTALISM, INTUITIONISM, EMPIRICISM *Or,

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/operationalism/PROPERTARIAN ETHICAL REALISM: OPERATIONALISM, INSTRUMENTALISM, INTUITIONISM, EMPIRICISM

*Or, how to cure yourself of continental and cosmopolitan obscurantism*

We can only know enough to act, with the information at our disposal. We can only attest to the truth of statements that we can demonstrate operationally. By articulating a set of statements operationally, as actions in sequence, in time, we expose each statement to subjective tests of truth and rationality. As such, unless we have knowledge of construction, stated in operational language, for all concepts upon which we rely, we cannot honestly make truth claims. That this constraint is already held in the ethics of science, but not in ethics or politics, is the reason why false economic, political, legal, moral, and ethical arguments proliferate. There is no reason extant why we cannot constraint political speech to the same standards of truth as witness in court, or scientific testimony – other than to directly license deception. Our long semi-supernatural history with mathematics has provided false legitimacy to logic and argument for centuries. Operationalism ends this fallacy, and enables us to constrain politics just as we have constrained science, to a requirement for honest statements. It was not possible to levy this constraint until we understood that the unit of commensurability in all moral actions is that of property and fully informed, voluntary exchange. However, with that knowledge nothing prevents us from making universally moral and ethical statements, nor requiring individuals to speak in operational language in order to prevent deception and theft by obscurantist means.

EMPIRICISM (VS RATIONALISM)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rationalism-empiricism/

OPERATIONALISM

Only if we can describe a sequence of actions can we claim to know what it is that we say, and as such make truth claims about our statements.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/operationalism/

KNOWLEDGE OF USE VS KNOWLEDGE OF CONSTRUCTION

Operationalism requires that we demonstrate knowledge of construction (causality) while knowledge of use merely demonstrates correlation

http://www.propertarianism.com/2014/02/15/knowledge-knowlege-of-construction-vs-knowledge-of-use/

CRITICAL RATIONALISM

We may make many true statements in the construction of our theories, but whether or not we have made the most parsimonious statements with the greatest explanatory power that is ultimately possible (“The Absolute Truth”) is not available to us. There are no quantifiable measurable denominators to knowledge. The exploration of theories is not tautological, and therefore not logically closed.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/cr-ratio/

MATHEMATICAL INTUITIONISM

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuitionism/

LOGICAL INTUITIONISM

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-intuitionistic/

ETHICAL INTUITIONISM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_intuitionism

NATURALISM

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/

REALISM

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism/

SCIENTIFIC REALISM

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/

THE LIMITS OF REASON

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17841838-the-outer-limits-of-reason

OBSCURANTISM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obscurantism

THE PRETENSE OF KNOWLEDGE

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/1974/hayek-lecture.html