[A]xiomatic vs Theoretic 1 – axiomatic (independent of action and observation) versus theoretic (action and observation) a) Axiomatic systems allow us to make statements independent of any correspondence with reality. b) Theoretical systems require us to make statements dependent upon correspondence with reality. c) It is universally possible to create axiomatic systems by copying theoretical statements. d) But it is not universally possible to create theoretical statements by copying axiomatic statements. 2 – Testing against our perception in an empirical test. Not a logical one. If economic statements are reduced to human actions which we can observe, then we are not in fact making a logical test, but an empirical one. 3 – What separates economics from the other sciences, (where science means observation) is that we can sense and perceive changes in state without the use of instrumentation. That does not mean that because we do not require instrumentation, we are not making observations. Introspection is still observation. Our statements are not logical, they are empirical because they are based upon that form of observation we call introspection. 4 – Praxeology, if it’s a science, cannot depend on axiomatic statements since sciences are not axiomatically based, but theoretically based. But if we claim it is axiomatic then it does not require observation and if it does not require observation than must include a prohibition on introspection as a means of testing, and that all such tests are truth or false independent of our sense perception. 5 – metaphysics states that reality is deterministic or knowledge of the universe is impossible. This stipulation required prior theory or axiom. Reason is impossible without it. We must assume regularity of the universe, even if we tend to construct history in retrospect for our ease of use. BACKWARDS [M]ises got it backwards. Economics is an observational science which we have the power of introspection to test. We can, from those observations both introspective and external, We can test the rationality of any statement (it’s truth content) but we cannot deduce much of anything from it. Because complex properties of action are emergent and impossible to forecast. Kant was an intellectual criminal, and the continental and cosmopolitan schools have done nothing to help us eliminate obscurantism and pseudoscience favored by the left. In fact, All the triumvirate have seemed to want to do is create yet another pseudoscience. I can’t save Hoppe unless I can fix this problem. Otherwise our movement is done when he is. Either we reform this nonsense, or libertarianism dies as a continental and cosmopolitan pseudosciences like the rest of the 20th century pseudosciences, or we convert libertarian language from the pseudoscientific to the scientific. Science won. Cognitive science, experimental psychology, and empirical economics have provided all the insights. Meanwhile we’ve spent thirty to forty years now masturbating with a pseudoscience only an autistic moron could possibly fall for. Time for libertarians to grow up. If you can’t answer my objections above, with statements of human action you’re just a sucker for pseudoscience. Because that’s what Praxeology is. It doesn’t have to be. But that’s what it is. LIBERTARIANS OUGHT TO STUDY MORE THAN “SCRIPTURE”. Because while knowledgable about economics, libertarians tend to be absolutely ignorant of anything outside the approved canon. I gain more understanding of the autistic nature of libertarians every day. Even though I’m one of them. I see that the lack of empathic comprehension applies to all disciplines. Time to grow up kiddies.
Theme: Truth
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If Mises Is A Kantian Should We Convict Him Of Conspiracy Too?
[I]nnovations are good. Better innovations are better. And, yes, Mises made an innovation, but the expository and explanatory power of the deductive and axiomatic method is LESS than the expository and explanatory power of the ratio-empirical method – not more. Congratulating Mises on improving Kant, who was probably the single greatest contributor to philosophical obscurantism and the destruction of reason in human history, is hardly a compliment. Its an accusation of conspiracy. (See Rand on Kant. Kantian pseudoscience is part of the reason the libertarian project from the continent has failed.) Hoppe’s argument is stated within the context of economic action. He is arguing that economics is purely deductive rather than like all other ‘sciences’ a mixture of: (a) the limits of our biological ability to perceive in real time, (b) a theory describing a general rule, (c) the use of logic to test the internal consistence of the theory, (d) and instrumental tests that replicate and falsify the theory But he misunderstands (or intentionally mischaracterizes) the development of theories. There is no point in retesting them if they’ve been sufficiently tested and criteria for falsification defined. We can develop economic laws just like we can develop physical laws. But we cannot develop economic axioms because axioms are not required to be correspondent with reality, while theories are – and human action exists in reality. [P]hilosophy itself, when expressed operationally, as action (realism), rather than as analogy (platonism etc), or as experience (phenomenalism etc), results in a statement of the ratio-empirical method. The philosophy of action is science, not rationalism, precisely because only science requires demonstration of action. Reason does not. Reason is a continental attempt to conflate authority, morality and reason as a reaction to ratio-empircal science, and commercial morality which would upset the hierarchy as it has in the anglo countries. It’s nonsense though. Economics, and human action, are empirical sciences that may, for the purposes of convenience be reduced to laws that are expressible in axiomatic terms. But axiomatic systems are not dependent upon external correspondence, and as such economics cannot under any circumstances be reduced to a logic. It is a science. It is the most challenging science because it lacks causal relations but it is a science born of observation, reducible to theories, we can use as laws, but these laws are not equivalent to axioms because axioms are not bounded by reality. Period.
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If Mises Is A Kantian Should We Convict Him Of Conspiracy Too?
[I]nnovations are good. Better innovations are better. And, yes, Mises made an innovation, but the expository and explanatory power of the deductive and axiomatic method is LESS than the expository and explanatory power of the ratio-empirical method – not more. Congratulating Mises on improving Kant, who was probably the single greatest contributor to philosophical obscurantism and the destruction of reason in human history, is hardly a compliment. Its an accusation of conspiracy. (See Rand on Kant. Kantian pseudoscience is part of the reason the libertarian project from the continent has failed.) Hoppe’s argument is stated within the context of economic action. He is arguing that economics is purely deductive rather than like all other ‘sciences’ a mixture of: (a) the limits of our biological ability to perceive in real time, (b) a theory describing a general rule, (c) the use of logic to test the internal consistence of the theory, (d) and instrumental tests that replicate and falsify the theory But he misunderstands (or intentionally mischaracterizes) the development of theories. There is no point in retesting them if they’ve been sufficiently tested and criteria for falsification defined. We can develop economic laws just like we can develop physical laws. But we cannot develop economic axioms because axioms are not required to be correspondent with reality, while theories are – and human action exists in reality. [P]hilosophy itself, when expressed operationally, as action (realism), rather than as analogy (platonism etc), or as experience (phenomenalism etc), results in a statement of the ratio-empirical method. The philosophy of action is science, not rationalism, precisely because only science requires demonstration of action. Reason does not. Reason is a continental attempt to conflate authority, morality and reason as a reaction to ratio-empircal science, and commercial morality which would upset the hierarchy as it has in the anglo countries. It’s nonsense though. Economics, and human action, are empirical sciences that may, for the purposes of convenience be reduced to laws that are expressible in axiomatic terms. But axiomatic systems are not dependent upon external correspondence, and as such economics cannot under any circumstances be reduced to a logic. It is a science. It is the most challenging science because it lacks causal relations but it is a science born of observation, reducible to theories, we can use as laws, but these laws are not equivalent to axioms because axioms are not bounded by reality. Period.
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Logic vs Science
(on praxeology) (getting closer) (attestation theory of truth) [S]o, if the defining property of the discipline of science is observation, and praxeology is purely deductive independent of observation, then how can praxeology honestly be termed a science? It cannot. Praxeology can be defined as a logic, but not a science. Formal Logic and mathematics are branches of logic that produce proofs, but not truths. Truth, to have any universal meaning at all must mean correspondence to reality with increasingly weaker definitions in niche application as we move into various branches of logic. Yet while truth is constrained by reality, axiomatic systems are not constrained by reality. We may produce theories, and rigid theories at that, but correspondence with reality is never axiomatic – axioms are limited to internal consistency. We are certainly missing a logic of cooperation with which to repair ethics. (I think I have articulated the criterion for that logic as voluntary transfer, symmetrically informed, warrantied, and free of externality.) But, I do not yet understand why we require a logic of action – or if there is any value in such a thing. But regardless of that question, logics are not identical to sciences and sciences not identical to logics, any more than proofs are identical to truths, or axioms identical to theories. We may pretend for amusement purposes that human actions are, by analogy, functionally axiomatic rather than functionally theories in a given context, but this is a mere pretense. Theoretic systems must retain correspondence with reality, while axiomatic systems are not bound by correspondence with reality. Human actions occur within reality and are bounded by reality. Axiomatic systems are imaginary and are only bounded by imagination. For this reason human actions can only be theoretically constructed as correspondent with reality, just as logical systems can only be axiomatically constructed. As such axiomatic systems tell us only about the internal consistency of our statements, and theoretical systems tell us only about the external correspondence of our theories – but not the internal consistency of our descriptions of those theories. If we use both tests of internal consistency and tests of external correspondence, and our statements are demonstrably valid proofs, and our theories are demonstrably valid tests, and both proofs and theories are stated operationally, then we can attest to the truth of our theories. And the only means by which we can subjectively test either axiomatic or theoretic statements is to reduce them to analogies to experience, by stating them in operational sequence – which we call “Constructionism”. If we cannot test the internal consistency or our arguments and external correspondence of our actions, then we cannot EVER honestly attest that our theories are true to our knowledge and understanding. [T]his is the only standard of truth for any theory that I know of: attestation. If a theory is both externally correspondent, internally consistent, operationally stated, and falsifiable, then to our current knowledge that theory as stated is true – one can attest to its truth, and not commit unethical attestation. This does not mean that the theory cannot be improved upon. But it means one’s attestation about it is true. And that is the best that we can ever hope for. There is a great difference between a true theory and a complete theory. At some point any theory must evolve into a tautology, at which point one cannot attest to one’s hypothesis (theory, conjecture). Than is non-sensical. So a theory free of attestation is merely complete – tautological. Identical. Not correspondent dependent upon attestation ‘true’, nor imaginary and proven ‘proof’.) Getting closer. It should be possible, if difficult, to follow that argument. I bet within six months I can get lightbulbs to come on. Not quite there yet. But very close. This approach reduces all statements to human actions and truth to attestation rather than the platonic.
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Logic vs Science
(on praxeology) (getting closer) (attestation theory of truth) [S]o, if the defining property of the discipline of science is observation, and praxeology is purely deductive independent of observation, then how can praxeology honestly be termed a science? It cannot. Praxeology can be defined as a logic, but not a science. Formal Logic and mathematics are branches of logic that produce proofs, but not truths. Truth, to have any universal meaning at all must mean correspondence to reality with increasingly weaker definitions in niche application as we move into various branches of logic. Yet while truth is constrained by reality, axiomatic systems are not constrained by reality. We may produce theories, and rigid theories at that, but correspondence with reality is never axiomatic – axioms are limited to internal consistency. We are certainly missing a logic of cooperation with which to repair ethics. (I think I have articulated the criterion for that logic as voluntary transfer, symmetrically informed, warrantied, and free of externality.) But, I do not yet understand why we require a logic of action – or if there is any value in such a thing. But regardless of that question, logics are not identical to sciences and sciences not identical to logics, any more than proofs are identical to truths, or axioms identical to theories. We may pretend for amusement purposes that human actions are, by analogy, functionally axiomatic rather than functionally theories in a given context, but this is a mere pretense. Theoretic systems must retain correspondence with reality, while axiomatic systems are not bound by correspondence with reality. Human actions occur within reality and are bounded by reality. Axiomatic systems are imaginary and are only bounded by imagination. For this reason human actions can only be theoretically constructed as correspondent with reality, just as logical systems can only be axiomatically constructed. As such axiomatic systems tell us only about the internal consistency of our statements, and theoretical systems tell us only about the external correspondence of our theories – but not the internal consistency of our descriptions of those theories. If we use both tests of internal consistency and tests of external correspondence, and our statements are demonstrably valid proofs, and our theories are demonstrably valid tests, and both proofs and theories are stated operationally, then we can attest to the truth of our theories. And the only means by which we can subjectively test either axiomatic or theoretic statements is to reduce them to analogies to experience, by stating them in operational sequence – which we call “Constructionism”. If we cannot test the internal consistency or our arguments and external correspondence of our actions, then we cannot EVER honestly attest that our theories are true to our knowledge and understanding. [T]his is the only standard of truth for any theory that I know of: attestation. If a theory is both externally correspondent, internally consistent, operationally stated, and falsifiable, then to our current knowledge that theory as stated is true – one can attest to its truth, and not commit unethical attestation. This does not mean that the theory cannot be improved upon. But it means one’s attestation about it is true. And that is the best that we can ever hope for. There is a great difference between a true theory and a complete theory. At some point any theory must evolve into a tautology, at which point one cannot attest to one’s hypothesis (theory, conjecture). Than is non-sensical. So a theory free of attestation is merely complete – tautological. Identical. Not correspondent dependent upon attestation ‘true’, nor imaginary and proven ‘proof’.) Getting closer. It should be possible, if difficult, to follow that argument. I bet within six months I can get lightbulbs to come on. Not quite there yet. But very close. This approach reduces all statements to human actions and truth to attestation rather than the platonic.
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Philosophical Matchsticks
[P]hilosophy is too much like giving children matches to play with. And as Durant said, there are really no answers there. History is the only evidence of the nature of man, and the answers to our political nature are there. Philosophy is, at best, just a tool that helps us reduce our ever-present tendency to err. It is more often a tool by which we increase our errors. At its worst, it is a tool for self deception, or the deception of others. BUT If I succeed with a logic of cooperation, and the morality of stating philosophy operationally, I think that I will have ‘cured’ discourse.
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Philosophical Matchsticks
[P]hilosophy is too much like giving children matches to play with. And as Durant said, there are really no answers there. History is the only evidence of the nature of man, and the answers to our political nature are there. Philosophy is, at best, just a tool that helps us reduce our ever-present tendency to err. It is more often a tool by which we increase our errors. At its worst, it is a tool for self deception, or the deception of others. BUT If I succeed with a logic of cooperation, and the morality of stating philosophy operationally, I think that I will have ‘cured’ discourse.
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Burning Obscurant And Platonic Philosophy On The Pyre Of Deception
[M]ost of my attacks on a priorism are tests to see if the delta in utility between ratio-empirical and ‘Real’, and aprioristic-deductive and platonic, is sufficient to compel a change in method, but I am clearly dealing with very habituated people, and not giving them enough of a breadcrumb trail. And worse, I’m leading them into a dark and unfamiliar conceptual forest where they don’t want to follow. What do moral men do, when moral intuition fails them? They can’t do much until they learn enough new tools with which to restate their emotional intuitions in different terms now that the old terms are invalidated. Even the best people, who tend to be technologists, conflate general rule, theory, and axiom, into a single utilitarian category. Yet again demonstrating the difference between knowledge of use and knowledge of construction. I suppose I will just keep attacking a priorism as incomplete, and utilitarian, but now also as immoral obscurantism, and part of the continental-kantian and cosmopolitan-hermeneutic forms of deception. Part of the revolt against ratio-scientific. Although since I’ve already outed Rothbardian ethics as parasitic, and stated that Misesian praxeology was an error, I suppose that adding that a priorism (or any kantian construct) is immoral obscurantism, and part of the continental-cosmopolitan attack on human reason so loathed by Rand is just a continuation of my criticisms. So libertarianism as constructed, prior to its ratio-scientific expression in Propertarianism, is: a) parasitic b) insufficient for the production of a voluntary polity. c) argumentatively obscurant and immoral d) fails the test of its claims (deducibility of the scope of economics) e) inferior to ratio-scientific method for the accumulation of general rules of human behavior. But with Propertarianism, all of these faults are corrected. Of course people being as simple as they are, and even the best philosophers fairly weak, it’s probably lost that my attack on a priorism is an attempt to delegitimize on the right and libertarian spectrum, the same as I delegitimize on left-postmodern and socialist programs. I can’t kill off the obscurantist deceptions of the left without killing off the same techniques on the libertarian corner of the political spectrum. No matter what corner of the political spectrum one advocates, the prohibition on obscurantism that invalidates the arguments of the others, invalidates one’s own as well. All I have to do with the right is to give them a rational language. Most of what they believe is right in the first place. They just don’t have the ability to talk about it in rational terms – and perhaps once I focus there, I’ll be equally frustrated by their lack of intellectualism and mindless dependence on moral intuition. And perhaps at that point I will have to fight the battle against religion. But I think that religion cohabitates with Propertarianism as comfortably as does capitalism. BUT LIBERTARIANS DON’T GET A FREE PASS. I’m burning continental philosophy, cosmopolitan philosophy, psychological philosophy (classical liberal), and marxist-socialist-postmodern philosophy on the same pyre. And it is a bonfire unlike any before it. The Ratio-scientific form of argument under Propertarianism (moral realism) is all that remains. Because it is the only moral form of discourse on ethics itself. Everything else is deception, fraud or worse. Burn, baby, burn.
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Burning Obscurant And Platonic Philosophy On The Pyre Of Deception
[M]ost of my attacks on a priorism are tests to see if the delta in utility between ratio-empirical and ‘Real’, and aprioristic-deductive and platonic, is sufficient to compel a change in method, but I am clearly dealing with very habituated people, and not giving them enough of a breadcrumb trail. And worse, I’m leading them into a dark and unfamiliar conceptual forest where they don’t want to follow. What do moral men do, when moral intuition fails them? They can’t do much until they learn enough new tools with which to restate their emotional intuitions in different terms now that the old terms are invalidated. Even the best people, who tend to be technologists, conflate general rule, theory, and axiom, into a single utilitarian category. Yet again demonstrating the difference between knowledge of use and knowledge of construction. I suppose I will just keep attacking a priorism as incomplete, and utilitarian, but now also as immoral obscurantism, and part of the continental-kantian and cosmopolitan-hermeneutic forms of deception. Part of the revolt against ratio-scientific. Although since I’ve already outed Rothbardian ethics as parasitic, and stated that Misesian praxeology was an error, I suppose that adding that a priorism (or any kantian construct) is immoral obscurantism, and part of the continental-cosmopolitan attack on human reason so loathed by Rand is just a continuation of my criticisms. So libertarianism as constructed, prior to its ratio-scientific expression in Propertarianism, is: a) parasitic b) insufficient for the production of a voluntary polity. c) argumentatively obscurant and immoral d) fails the test of its claims (deducibility of the scope of economics) e) inferior to ratio-scientific method for the accumulation of general rules of human behavior. But with Propertarianism, all of these faults are corrected. Of course people being as simple as they are, and even the best philosophers fairly weak, it’s probably lost that my attack on a priorism is an attempt to delegitimize on the right and libertarian spectrum, the same as I delegitimize on left-postmodern and socialist programs. I can’t kill off the obscurantist deceptions of the left without killing off the same techniques on the libertarian corner of the political spectrum. No matter what corner of the political spectrum one advocates, the prohibition on obscurantism that invalidates the arguments of the others, invalidates one’s own as well. All I have to do with the right is to give them a rational language. Most of what they believe is right in the first place. They just don’t have the ability to talk about it in rational terms – and perhaps once I focus there, I’ll be equally frustrated by their lack of intellectualism and mindless dependence on moral intuition. And perhaps at that point I will have to fight the battle against religion. But I think that religion cohabitates with Propertarianism as comfortably as does capitalism. BUT LIBERTARIANS DON’T GET A FREE PASS. I’m burning continental philosophy, cosmopolitan philosophy, psychological philosophy (classical liberal), and marxist-socialist-postmodern philosophy on the same pyre. And it is a bonfire unlike any before it. The Ratio-scientific form of argument under Propertarianism (moral realism) is all that remains. Because it is the only moral form of discourse on ethics itself. Everything else is deception, fraud or worse. Burn, baby, burn.
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The End Of Moral Intuitionism And The Rise Of Moral Realism
(meaningful) [M]ost philosophical debate degenerates to a recursive discourse on norms. That’s because human beings really enjoy the ease of introspection, and the self reinforcing reward of moral intuitionism. But if Propertarianism is correct, and I am pretty certain that it is, then moral truths can be expressed as purely rational arguments, and introspection merely tells you about your own reproductive strategy, class strategy, culture strategy, and cognitive biases. That means an end to moral intuitionism. Propertarianism allows us to produce a formal logic of ethics and morality, that denies us our cognitive biases and rational limitations. And that is why we need formal logics.