Curt Doolittle

Category: Epistemology and Method

  • (Peter Boettke : Thinking about your unassuming but thought-provoking quip on th

    (Peter Boettke : Thinking about your unassuming but thought-provoking quip on the importance of the P in PhD. Because I wrestle with this problem of the ‘need to reform philosophy’ that Locke set out to achieve in his era – and we must do again in ours. And, since what’s missing from philosophy is any notion of cost, I might go as far as saying that it’s absence of the insights of economics – even such things as the commensurability provided by money and prices – that have doomed the philosophical profession to empty verbalisms.

    I OFTEN feel like mathematicians and economists could do with a better understanding of philosophy. But I ALWAYS feel like philosophers could do with a better understanding of economics. I can’t think of any of the insights I have produced that would have been possible without econ, and particularly micro econ, and most importantly Austrian econ. And while I have been critical of the abuse of Mises by Rothbard, I am increasingly concerned that no one seems to be taking mises half-solution to the great logical problem of our age, any further.

    There is a terrible need for philosophy, and terrible need for its reformation. But I am pretty sure that the reason that terrible need exists, is the lack of accounting of costs, opportunities and incentives provided by economic philosophers. Philosophy is missing “demonstrated commensurability” across differences in perceptions, experiences, memories, judgements, knowledge, labor and advocacy, by different demands of different people, with different needs.)

    (Sorry if this is out of line in some way but I have very few people to think out loud to on these matters.)

    – Cheers

    (edited. like everything I seem to write on an iphone needs to be. ) 🙂

    Source date (UTC): 2016-09-22 10:05:00 UTC

  • “When I restrict myself to active voice by using E-Prime, so the argument goes,

    –“When I restrict myself to active voice by using E-Prime, so the argument goes, then I must bring out of hiding the agents involved in whatever situations I set out to discuss. This constraint supposedly prevents me from unawarely using psychological tricks such as concealed denial, self-reproach, blame-casting, unaware projecting, etc. In that sense, I can use E-Prime to help keep me honest with myself.”–

    Source date (UTC): 2016-09-22 09:41:00 UTC

  • LOGICS: (worth repeating) 1 – Mathematics : commensurability provided by operati

    LOGICS:

    (worth repeating)

    1 – Mathematics : commensurability provided by operational, positional, names, and mathematical operations.

    2 – Physical sciences and engineering : commensurability provided by physical determinism (laws of nature).

    3 – Economics : commensurability provided by operationally produced prices

    4 – Politics : commensurability provided by voluntary exchanges, articulated as fully accounted transactions.

    3 – Testimony : commensurability provided by all possible human actions stated objectively as operations.

    I need to work on this further to make it clear but you get the idea.

    A logic is means of testing for possibility.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-09-22 05:33:00 UTC

  • WHERE TO BEGIN? —“Just show us how to begin, how we start removing error, bias

    WHERE TO BEGIN?

    —“Just show us how to begin, how we start removing error, bias, and deception and we will begin. Give us the nuts and bolts.”—

    We begin with e-prime. I suppose I could teach that first. Although I don’t know how I have time to teach such a thing right now. It’s all available on the web anyway….

    I don’t think categorical, logical, and empirical consistency are very difficult if we start with E-prime – they are all well understood and must only be stated in consistent language.

    Propertarianism provides moral consistency and full accounting. I don’t think scope consistency (limits) is very hard either.

    The hard part is provided by the problem of operational language exposes our ignorance.

    It is very hard to learn to speak without the use of the verb to be. But this is the first step. After that, Propertarian ethics. And the rest is just practice.

    Compared to mathematics?

    Language ( logic ) requires we supply limits and consistency that is provided by the assumptions of consistency in mathematics.

    In other words, logic of action is a shallower model, and mathematics a deeper model, but logic is more complicated than mathematics because of the inconstancy of external categories ( referents ) must be rendered commensurable by the grammar of human operations.

    If we understand this we will see that we solved mathematics first because it is much more simple.

    I should perhaps point out that this is the purpose of operationalism: the use of human action to produce consistent logical categories.

    Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to express this important insight.

    ( I hope I don’t forget about this comment because it is an important insight into the grammar of truth. )

    So, let us take this as a sequence for informative purposes:

    LOGICS:

    1 – Mathematics : commensurability provided by operational, positional, names, and mathematical operations.

    2 – Physical sciences and engineering : commensurability provided by physical determinism (laws of nature).

    3 – Economics : commensurability provided by operationally produced prices

    4 – Politics : commensurability provided by voluntary exchanges, articulated as fully accounted transactions.

    3 – Testimony : commensurability provided by all possible human actions stated objectively as operations.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-09-22 05:29:00 UTC

  • Complete sentences solve a lot of problems. 2 + 2 = 4 Assuming I start by observ

    Complete sentences solve a lot of problems.

    2 + 2 = 4

    Assuming I start by observing two of something identical, and I add two more of that same thing to my observation, I will observe a total of four of the same thing; where the names 2(two) and 4(four) refer to positional names of quantities specified by the system of positional naming.

    Numbers consist of operationally constructed positional names, corresponding to some quantity of some consistent category.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-09-22 03:38:00 UTC

  • I don’t really know myself what macro problems I intuit need solving. But here i

    I don’t really know myself what macro problems I intuit need solving. But here is some clarity on categorical consistency.

    As you probably know, I see the problem of ignorance error bias and deception as one of laundering information by exposing unknowns, and prohibiting the obscurantism of ignorance by loading, framing, substitution, suggestion, switching existential point of view, and switching argumentative method.

    While any of these techniques may be used to convey meaning they cannot be used for argument and deduction with the same veracity as consistency in argumentative method under the existential point of view, moral, categorical, logical, empirical, and scope consistency.

    Yet the montage most people argue with consists of precisely these conflations.

    Why? Because we removed grammar, logic, and rhetoric and we failed to add economics – incentives and cost – to the educational system.

    Not just because teachers would have trouble teaching. But because students would stop buying the pseudoscientific messages.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-09-22 03:08:00 UTC

  • All non-tautological statements are theoretical (incomplete). Deduction, like Ap

    All non-tautological statements are theoretical (incomplete). Deduction, like Apriorism, is a special case.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-09-20 08:16:07 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/778145701435932673

    Reply addressees: @SanguineEmpiric

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/778107633286975489

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    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/778107633286975489

  • I don’t think she’s solved induction, but she’s (like me) reframed it as a matte

    I don’t think she’s solved induction, but she’s (like me) reframed it as a matter of degree.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-09-20 07:05:03 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/778127819201191937

    Reply addressees: @SanguineEmpiric

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/778107633286975489

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    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/778107633286975489

  • Sympathetic testing of other’s incentives, particularly by a jury is objective.

    Sympathetic testing of other’s incentives, particularly by a jury is objective. That’s praxeology.

    Source date (UTC): 2016-09-20 04:56:58 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/778095585438081024

    Reply addressees: @ne0colonial

    Replying to: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/778078448388546560

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    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/778078448388546560

  • WE HAD EPISTEMOLOGY BACKWARD Instances of Deduction(informationally sufficient)

    WE HAD EPISTEMOLOGY BACKWARD

    Instances of Deduction(informationally sufficient) like instances of Apriorism(survives non-contradiction) occur only as a special case of hypothesizing. And hypotheses occur as a special case of overlapping ‘search results’ (free association). Once we identify a possible search result we criticize it by trying first to justify it (find a potential route to it), and then try to refine that route (test it). This act of refining sometimes results in questionable, sometimes in reasonable, sometimes rational, sometimes in logical, and sometimes in mathematical justifications (potential routes).

    There is but one universal method and it consists of:

    Free association > Pattern

    Wayfinding mental criticism > Hypothesis,

    Experimental criticism > Theory,

    Practical criticism > Law

    Perfect Parsimony > Name

    Source date (UTC): 2016-09-20 04:34:00 UTC