Theme: Operationalism

AGAIN – IT”S NOT THAT I DON’T UNDERSTAND… ABANDON RATIONALISM AND LEAVE CHILDHOOD BEHIND.

—“If I understand Curt’s argument orrectly, operationalism has a long history in Austrian economics. Hayek called it scientism, Mises called it panphysicalism and posivism, and Menger called a version of it “The Historical Point of View in Economic Research.”—

Not quite. if mises had correctly understood the difference between logic and science, he would have understood that he was attempting in economics what had been done in physics and mathematics, and that his praxeology was a failed attempt to state operationalism in the context of economics. Instead he mistakenly denied that economics must be practiced empirically and tested operationally to know if in fact, economic theories were internally consistent, because they consisted entirely of rational actions. However instead he misunderstood the properties of axiomatic systems, and declared economics axiomatic, rather than theoretic. He probably made this mistake because he failed to grasp the problem of arbitrary precision in the construction of general rules. I know his work very well, and Mises was not sophisticated in these matters.

If you want to read, you can, in the SEP, on Operationalism, Operationism, Intuitionism, Reverse Russian Mathematics, and the problems of decidability as well as that of the debate between the various factions that resulted in the current state of theory in mathematics.

—“No Austrian to my knowledge has argued that operationalism and economic reasoning are equivalent or that one is superior to the other. Instead, the argument made by the Austrians is Methodological Dualism.”—

Well I know that, but it just means that they’re wrong, and have been proven wrong by subsequent events. The difference between the social sciences and the physical sciences is only in that the decidability of all social (economic) propositions is ascertainable by subjective experience. In other words, given proximately equal knowledge, we can empathize with any economic statement, and determine whether what a rational actor would do. This is required for humans to understand intent, and understanding intent is required for cooperation. Lastly human incentives except at the margins are marginally indifferent. So for these reasons all propositions are decidable by man. Tn other words, we know the first cause, at some level of precision, of all human action. Whereas in the physical science we are unable to rely on mere sense perception or sympathy for the purpose of decidability. All human knowledge regardless of context is theoretical, because all human knowledge is that is non-tautological must be hypothetical. Since all axiomatic statements are by and of necessity tautological, then they are useful for the purpose of modeling within some specified precision, where such precision is determined by the utility of the action (context.)

—“It seems to me that he is confused about Austrian economics.”—

As you can see, quite not. There are a few men living that can debate me on this subject and I know them, and they know me. ( And they aren’t fans. )

—“Curt seems to rely totally on the post-Misesian ethics of Murray Rothbard and other anarcho-capitalist as a source for his understanding of Austrian economics.”—

Not sure where you are getting that idea from. If you were to restate that as that I am trying to expose and refute the rothbardians, and that mises’ errors were compounded by Rothbard for his ideological purposes, and that if we were to restate mises as I have as merely a visionary but failed operationalist, then I would agree with all that.

—“He neglects the tension between the anarcho-capitalists and other writers who label themselves Austrian economists. He particularly neglects the pre-Rothbardians, Hayek and Mises.”—

I actually state (as does even wikipedia) that the Misesian program is not ‘austrian’, but cosmopolitan, and it is the cosmopolitan program that has been discredited, and that the original Austrian program has been fully incorporated into current economics, save for the still open dispute over the business cycle; and that just as rothbard (somewhat dishonestly) appropriated the term libertarian, the rothbardians have appropriated the term “Austrian” through successful propagandizing. So successfully that the classical liberals (namely the team at GMU), as well as the the think tanks other than the rothbardian advertising machine (mises.or) have had to distance themselves from the term. (A fact which the GMU crowd laments now and then.)

—“I deny that the rationalist program demonstrated success in philosophy,” I don’t think that anyone ever claimed that Austrian critiques had much success in philosophy. On the contrary, in his introduction the Human Action, Mises denies that the new economics, [which, in my opinion had, up that time, been best expressed by the Austrian economist], had influenced philosophers.”—

Probably my fault but I cannot see the the connection between my statement and your response. Sorry. I didn’t claim that Austrian critiques had success in philosophy, I claimed that rationalism (in Kantian, broader german, and cosmopolitan, and therefore Misesian form) has proven to be a vehicle for dishonesty, and error. I don’t argue that Mises was dishonest, I argue he was wrong, because the problem was a very hard one. It’s rothbard I’m not sure about.

—“the capacity of humans to perceive, remember, compare, and judge is extremely limited”— >”This general statement does not apply to the geniuses. “—

You are kidding right? Up here in the rarified air we all rely on numbers, the narrative, pencil and paper, the need for cartesian representation…. I really don’t know where you’re getting that from… Furthermore it’s disprovable by Mises rather absurd errors alone, or by Poincare’s failure to eliminate the frame of reference, even though he had correctly understood the consequence of the Lorenz transformations. I mean… where do I start? We can measure it. It’s simple. …

—“But that is not the important point. I wrote “You deny that distinctly human minds have a logical structure. The logical structure is simple and universal.”—

You would need to (a) define ‘minds have’ in some existential terminology. (b) define ‘logical structure’ in some form other than metaphorical, ‘logical structure’ is an existential statement (c) that if the structure is simple and universal why haven’t stated what it is, in simple universal terms. I am fairly current cognitive sciences and experimental and evolutionary psychology. So I will understand it if you state it.

—“We define a human mind as distinct from that of its nearest non-human mind in terms of means and ends.”—

I think you mean that we observe that humans plan, and that, humans are capable of planning, and that planning requires we are capable of means (inputs and operations) and ends (outputs). (The statement ‘we define…’ is an axiomatic one, but the statement that follows is empirical.)

—“The human mind, we reason aprioristically, has ends,”—

I think you mean that given our observations, we deduce, induce or guess, that human beings demonstrate that the act to pursue ends, and therefore the human brain is capable of conceiving of ends.

—“it perceives what it regards as realistic means of attaining them, and it expects that if it applies those means, its utility will be greater than if it does not. “—

Yes, I think that is correct.

—“This mental operation is carried out by the natural scientist and by ordinary people in their everyday lives.”—

“—

The act of planning is demonstrated by all people we know of, and we cannot observe individuals who we consider to demonstrate expected human behavior who cannot.

Yes, but this tells us nothing about the limits to that process, nor the numerable cognitive biases that we have documented, nor the reasons that we require recorded observations, instrumentation and operational language in order to ensure that what we imagine is that which others can replicate.

—“To deny the logical structure is tantamount to denying that human beings are distinct in that it can reason about how to achieve what they regard as their ends.”—

But then I never did deny this straw man, right? I denied that rationalism dependent upon reason independent of the scientific method constituted in empiricism, instrumentalism, operationalism and testimonial truth, have been demonstrated to provide greater success in all walks of life and in all fields, than rationalism, and that rationalism had been used moreover to conduct the vast majority of ethical, moral, pseudoscientific, political, economic, platonic and mystical deceptions.

—“Curt may reject this argument,”—-

You haven’t made an argument. You’ve merely stated the straw many that people are capable of SOME reason, but not impugned the argument that people are ONLY capable of SOME reason and measurably, very little of it, and that we can measure it consistently. And that the vast majority of errors, and lies have been conducted using the rationalist method.

—” but you should not advance the hypothesis that it is dishonest or that one who makes it is a liar. “—

But you have just done an elaborate job of demonstrating that I am correct, by misrepresenting my position, arguing against a straw man, pretending that you are reliant upon axiomatic (closed) argument. And you have avoided the central argument that I have put forward by doing it.

SO HOW DO I KNOW? How am I to assume that you can conduct this elaborate a set of mistakes, without attributing mistakes of this number and severity to lying? WHereas, if you stated the same argument as a sequece of human actions, or even vaguely analytically so that each staetment was testable, then I could at least know you were TRYING to speak truthfulfly.

Now, because I can deduce that you’ve been fooled by the use of overloading by the advocates of the rationalist fallacy, and I can tell that you are not fully cognizant of what you’re saying, I know that just as a child has been taught that which he believes to be right, but lacks the ability to refute, that you’re just propagating someone else’s lie, rather than lying yourself. (I knew that all along really, because you can only be fooled by the rothbardian misesian fallacies if you morally intuit that they are correct even if you cannot criticize them sufficiently to falsify them.) In other words, you have learned an elaborate means of justifying your cognitive biases.

SO IF YOU TALK LIKE A LIAR, AND YOU”RE TELLING A LIE, HOW DO I KNOW YOUR INTENTIONS? Whereas if you talk as an honest man in the language of science, which is mischaracterized as ‘the scientific method’ since that method has nothing necessarily to do with the practice of physical science, and everything to do with ensuring that one is making honest testimony regardless of subject matter.

So yes I was taunting you so that you would create an emotional association with this argument and ponder it.