In principle it could however since we act within in the universe implies that time exists so it must be timeless and temporal with action. Now given the absurdity of the actual infinites time has to come into existence at some point. Therefore an action needs to be performed, given my definition in the linked threads, to begat time. Now unless you are going for a pantheist, or more precisely panentheist position, the universe does not have agency and as such the universe could not act and time could not exist.
The question really is, are they in principle arbitrary or only in practice?
You seem to be denying the possibility of language to describe anything but the material. So when religions, collectively, speak of spirits etc all the language is actually referring to is a specific type of action in the material realm and not actually to their states of being? Please explain why.
The ontological character of objects. Do you believe objects have fixed natures or is it all fluid?
As an aside it is clear you believe that language is purely a creation of man and follows a similar path to biological evolution. Can you provide historical evidence for this development of language ie from simple to complex?
I won’t lie- I didn’t read all of it when I posted the question. I now have but it still doesn’t answer it. You claim that you can hold individuals to account, and thus implicitly penal sanction, based upon utility. My question remains: of who’s utility do you speak? Uncle Joe Stalin’s? Yours? Mine?
Well you’re right to the extent that Mises’ argues thus but it doesn’t mean that it is in the heart of praxeology- all it asserts is that when you act it demonstrates you prefer state x over y. It does not argue what causes you to act, it just takes action as a given. To explain why you act is a categorically different field which I would label psychology.
Wo wo wo. So are you saying naturalistic evolution COULD or WOULD lead to a foundation of truth?
In that case why does utility imply a basis for truth?
Edit: ignore the last point. You’ve answered that.
I will put my own view forth instead of trying to argue for Mises:
There are certain existential or experiential facts about which we can know, by virtue of being aware and intentional, that apply. These would be the laws of Praxeology, non-contradiction and the forms of mathematical reasoning. This is not to say, of course, thay we are all aware of them but that apprehension is possible without any particular experiential situations; any experiential circumstance whatsoever it sufficient to demonstrate them.
There is nothing wrong with the theoretical basis of a causal consciousness, though the mechanisms of it are very poorly understood as yet. However, intentionality and consciousness are part of the phenomena requiring explanation. Even if we had a fully developed science of human cognition the very nature of cognition itself would mean that praxeology would still apply, i.e. that what is mechanistically caused is itself intentionality and awareness.
No, I’m just denying the possibility of language to describe anything that we can’t conceive. If you can’t tell me how to conceive something, how could expect me to be able to know what you are talking abut? And, if can’t conceive it yourself, how could you expect to be doing anything but playing with words?
Doesn’t the word “material” exclude things in your head? But I already referred to “emotions” and other things like that as observables!
Historical evidence? What’s that? Aren’t we both Austrians here!
Also, I’m not sure what you are asking me to prove here. Language is a kind of action. If you think that there is more to it than just the fact that particular people acting in particular ways at particular times, it is up to you to show me how to observe what you are talking about.
I read your argument about infinities being absurd, but, regardless of how sound it was, it was about space, not time. Why couldn’t time just go in a circle? A → B → C → A → B → C . . .
I have no idea what those words are supposed to refer to.
I also have no idea what those words are supposed to refer to.
Only in practice, because an omniscient being wouldn’t use any arbitrary models.
Whoever wins.
It just happens that society exists, and that means that the people who “won” the fight aren’t the rapists, thieves, and whatever, but are the “social” kind of people: those who think that raping people, stealing from people, and so on is “evil”, and would be willing to beat anybody into submission who doesn’t carry their same ideas.
Oh, wait, but what about the state? Looks like their utility matters too. They won, right? I mean, they are doing pretty well right now.
Keep in mind that I’m not prescribing anything. I’m just describing what is going on. People punish anti-social people because society is useful to them, and these anti-social people can’t be trusted to not try to tear it down. And the fact that society exists right now means that the social people are generally stronger, and have an easier time imposing their will, on the anti-social people.
So whose utility? Everybody’s. Well, everybody’s who is still alive. Everybody acts in their own interest, and things happen. One of those things is that social people punish anti-social people for being anti-social. That means that more people will end up being around whose utility is “socially oriented” instead of the opposite. Why? Because they have been able to beat the others in submission. They are stronger. Again, the fact that society exists implies that the social people are able to impose their wills on the anti-social people.
In those posts, I try to explain why I think that psychology (thymology) is necessary for praxeology. Sure, acting just means that you prefer A to B. But what the hell does that mean? It means something, and that something implies that it is nonsense to prefer anything if you are omnipotent.
I mean I have no idea how anybody could argue against this: If you are omnipotent, that means that you could stamp out all of your dissatisfaction in one moment, which would mean that you would be instantly content and would never act again. But what if the omnipotent being wants to act? What if he wants to be dissatisfied? Isn’t that a paradox? Wouldn’t he not be omnipotent anymore if he couldn’t pull that off? No, this is all just wordplay. An omnipotent being wanting to act: that is just wordplay. How could you “want to be dissatisfied”? How the hell could you even imagine “wanting to be dissatisfied”? The bottom line is that, to act, you must be dissatisfied with your position, and an omnipotent being would be forced to stamp out all of its dissatisfaction in just one moment. And, either way, I’m not sure that the idea of “omnipotence” is conceivable anyway.
No idea. Really, I’m totally lost at this point. I’m just going to try to make my final push about being “correctly incorrect”, and then I just ask that you maybe try to explain how believing in God could give us a way to explain what the “foundation for truth” is.
Let me start from the beginning.
How do people usually use the word “correct”?
First, sometimes people use the word “correct” to describe language reflecting reality. If a sequence of words reflects reality, it is “correct” in that sense; and, if it doesn’t reflect reality, it is “incorrect” in that sense. So, for example, let’s say that, if I walk north, I won’t get home. Let’s say that we believe that idea. Well, in that case, if somebody were to say that, if I were to walk north, I would end up getting home, he would be “incorrect” in that sense. We would call him “incorrect” in that sense. If, in our minds, we were to imagine the images, sounds, and so on conventionally associated with that sequence of words in that contex, we wouldn’t believe it. We could easily imagine walking north in a particular way, seeing my house approaching from a particular angle, and so on, but we just wouldn’t believe it. We would call it “incorrect” in that sense.
And, second, sometimes people use the word much differently, to describe a sequence of images, sounds, emotions, and so on in somebody’s head reflecting reality. If such a sequence in somebody’s head reflects reality, they are “correct” in that sense; and, if it doesn’t reflect reality, they are “incorrect” in that sense. So, for example, let’s say that, if I walk south, I will get home. Let’s say that we believe that idea. Well, in that case, if somebody were to imagine that, if I were to walk north, I would end up getting home, he would be “incorrect” in that sense. We would call him “incorrect” in that sense. If, in our minds, we were to imagine walking north and getting home, we wouldn’t believe it. We could easily imagine walking north in a particular way, seeing my house approaching from a particular angle, and so on, but we just wouldn’t believe it. We would call him “incorrect” in that sense.
Sometimes, like in the above example, those two senses of the word coincide. But they don’t have to. So, for example, if somebody were to imagine that, if I walk south, I will get home, but says something much different, that, if I were to walk north, I would actually end up getting home, those two senses wouldn’t necessarily coincide. He would be incorrect in his words, but wouldn’t necessarily be incorrect in his thoughts. We would have to know a lot more about his motives and so on to say whether he would be incorrect in his thoughts. Maybe me wanted to play a joke on me, and thought that telling me to go north would end up being hilarious. But maybe it wouldn’t end up being anything to joke about. Maybe he wanted to dead, and thought that telling me to go north would end up getting me killed. And maybe it really would. Or whatever.
For another example where those two senses don’t coincide, let’s say that, if we increase the minimum wage, we would hurt the young kids looking for their first job, but that, if a particular politician gives a speech saying that we should increase the minimum wage, because it would end up helping those young kids, that is the only way that he will get re-elected. Well, in that case, if he imagines that exact situation - giving the speech, and the getting re-elected, he would be correct in his thoughts, but, if he gives the speech, he would be incorrect in his words. If he imagines that, if he gives the speech, he would get re-elected, and then decides to give the speech, he would be correct in his thoughts, but incorrect in his words.
So there are two kinds of “correctness”: first, when the particulars conventionally associated with a sequence of words reflect reality; and, second, when the particulars making up a thought reflect reality. So which kind are you talking about? If you are talking about the first, we just need to establish that the second exists, and there could be people with the desire to make their language reflect reality. I don’t think that anybody would say that it would be too big of a leap to go from correctness in the second sense to correctness in the first sense. But what about the second sense? I’m not totally sure where you are trying to go with this, but I think that you are saying that we could be “usefully incorrect” in the second sense: that is, correctly incorrect. But actually I really don’t know where you are going with this, simply because that isn’t even conceivable. It isn’t conceivable that somebody could, in their mind, imagine a causal connection, but then somehow be usefully incorrect. Isn’t being correctly incorrect just a contradiction in terms?
Somebody could believe in God not because they actually think that he has evidence that he exists, but just because he thinks that believing in him would make his life better. Well, how would it make his life better? If simply acting as if he believes in it would make other people accept him more easily; well, it isn’t that he actually believes that God exists, but that he believes that saying certain things about God existing would lead to people accepting him more. And maybe that is totally true.
My point here is that, whenever you think that you came up with a situation where something is “usefully incorrect”, it is either that you are confusing the two senses of correctness, or that you are saying that something would be useful (correct) at one time, but incorrect (useless) at another time period. How could it be any other way? If something is “correctly incorrect”, the “correctness” must refer to something else than the “incorrectness”: And I think that I have figured out what those different things are. For something to be “correctly incorrect”, the “correct” need to refer to one of the senses of correctness, and the “incorrect” needs to refer to another; or, if not that, the “correct” needs to intead refer to one time, and the “incorrect” needs to refer to another time.
Either that, or you would just have to play with words. Maybe a tribe puts their sick in quarantine because they are “cursed”, and because they want to avoid friendly fire from the Gods who are angry at them, but not at the other people in the tribe. But, then we could just say that, unless there is something that we are missing here, like that they also apply this “cursed” theory to something else, where it doesn’t work, I guess that by “cursed” and “having the gods be angry at them” on one hand, and “avoiding friendly fire by quarantining them” on the other hand, they mean the same thing that we mean when we say “sick” on one hand, and “contagious” on the other hand.
So why does utility imply a basis for truth/correctness? Well, simply because that’s how we use the word half of the time. It doesn’t really imply a basis for truth/correctness, it just really is what we mean when we talk about truth/correctness. Nothing more. Connecting your means to your ends, imagining things which reflect reality, or whatever you want to call it: This is the relevant part of what we refer to as truth/correctness. The foundation of all “truth” is utility, and can be explained very concisely in a great line from David Hume: “If we believe, that fire warms, or water refreshes, 'tis only because it costs us too much pains to think otherwise.” All of our beliefs have to do with how to bring us satisfaction. Truth/correctness in the second sense is what brings us “satisfaction”. This is how it implies the basis for it.
Sorry about how rough this is, but hopefully you got the point.
I’ve been reading up on the history of pragmatism, and I think some of what I’ve read is relevant to this question.
“Pragmatism” was coined by Charles Peirce. Peirce was influenced by his friend Nicholas St. John Green. He recounted the influence as follows:
“he [Green] often urged the importance of applying Bain’s definition of belief, as “that upon which a man is prepared to act.” From this definition, pragmatism is scarce more than a corollary; so that I am disposed to think of him as the grandfather of pragmatism.”
The philosopher and psychologist Alexander Bain had proposed that definition of belief in 1859 in “The Emotions and the Will”. Peirce himself was something of a psychologist, so it makes sense that he would attribute Green’s position to Bain. But Green was a legal scholar. As Louis Menand argues in “The Metaphysical Club”, Green more likely got the position from an 1863 work he read: A General View of the Criminal Law of England by James Fitzjames Stephen. Notice the decidedly praxeological, and even Misesian, spin on the following
“The desire to act and the desire to act successfully are ultimate facts in human nature; but we are so constituted that all actions involve belief, and the world is so arraged that all successful action involves true belief. Hence, the ultimate reason for believing is, that without belief men cannot act. And the reason for believing what is true is, that without true belief they cannot act successfully; thus the advantage derived from true as distinguished from false belief, and not the bare fact that the thing is true, is the reason for believing what is true. The proposition that in the reign of George II. such a man lived at such a house in London may be perfectly true, and yet may be one which it is not worth the while of one person in ten million to believe. On the other hand, the reason for believing the multiplication table is not its truth, but the practical utility which it derives from its truth. If all the affairs of life, moral and intellectual education included, could be conducted as well by a person who believed that twice two make six, as by one who believed that twice two make four, there would be no reason for believing the one proposition rather than the other. Hence, belief is not a mere impression which the mind receives passively from the contemplation of facts external to it, but an active habit involving an exertion of the will.”
Remember how primordial the action axiom is. It is prior to all economic theorems. Embracing the “pragmatic maxim” simply recognizes that the action axiom is not only prior to economic theorems. It is prior to the very epistemology and rules of logic which Austrian economics uses (along with the action axiom) as its underpinnings.
After all, action is known immediately via self-reflection: no process of inference is needed to know it. Even the truth of the rules of classical deductive logic is not immediately self-evident in the way the reality of action is. I know action, because I’m living it at this moment. Do I know that “If all A’s are B’s, and all B’s are C’s, then all A’s are C’s”? It certainly strikes me as true. But I’ve made reasoning errors before. More importantly I can’t try to “prove” the rules of logic without taking recourse to the very rules I’m attempting to prove. I accept the validity of the rules of deductive logic, not only because they strike me as true, but because acting as if they were true has served my ends. Doing so has served my ends so well, that I accept them pretty much without reservation. Because I believe in the rules of logic so strongly, I accept the implications they bear in conjunction with the action axiom with regard to economic theorems. Deducing from the action axiom (as I am wont to do, because again, I accept the validity of the rules of deductive logic) I conclude that if using them did not serve my ends, I, as an acting individual, characterized by end-seeking behavior, would not use them. I would act as if the rules of logic were false, and therefore not really believe in them (however the rules may strike my mind when I reflect upon them).
By placing the action axiom prior to all other epistemology, pragmatism is, as it were, the praxeological epistemology. Thus, it makes sense that, as Guido Hulsmann points out in biography of Mises:
“In Human Action, Mises adopts the pragmatist definition of truth (“that which works in practice”) and maintains this definition throughout all later writings.”
Mises used to have an example of a positivist and a praxeologist observing people in rush hour. The praxeologist could obtain many facts - that they are attempting to go XYZ from XYZ because of this and that and other, while the positivist could only obtain their movements as he sees it. Obviously, it is more applicable to deduce things as they are praxeologically.
I think all of us here are overthinking the situation. Praxeology does work better than positivism and pure empiricism. You do obtain more facts about the social sciences by using its methodology. Positivism doesn’t work…they always rely on ceteris paribus all the time in even applying their views. Really, it doesn’t work.
Even so, this entire thread’s racking my brain. D:
He clearly was an a priorist, as Hoppe says. But, he was also a pragmatist, as Hulsmann says and as the passage you quoted in your OP shows. But I don’t think the two positions are antithetical. See how Mises, below, characterizes geometry as a priori, yet pragmatically verified. The procedure of geometry is a priori, but the reason we accept the conclusions of this a priori procedure is that doing so has worked.
From Economic Foundation of Economic Science (emphases added):
In order to examine this philosophy, let us refer to the conflict between the Euclidian geometry and the non-Euclidian geometries which gave rise to these controversies. It is an undeniable fact that technological planning guided by the Euclidian system resulted in effects that had to be expected according to the inferences derived from this system. The buildings do not collapse, and the machines run in the expected way. The practical engineer cannot deny that this geometry aided him in his endeavors to divert events of the real external world from the course they would have taken in the absence of his intervention and to direct them towards goals that he wanted to attain. He must conclude that this geometry, although based upon definite a priori ideas, affirms something about reality and nature. The pragmatist cannot help admitting that Euclidian geometry works in the same way in which all a posteriori knowledge provided by the experimental natural sciences works. Aside from the fact that the arrangement of laboratory experiments already presupposes and implies the validity of the Euclidian scheme, we must not forget that the fact that the George Washington bridge over the Hudson River and many thousand other bridges tender the services the constructors wanted to get confirms the practical truth not only of the applied teachings of physics, chemistry, and metallurgy, but no less of those of the geometry of Euclid. This means that the axioms from which Euclid starts tell us something about the external world that to our mind must appear no less “true” than the teachings of the experimental natural sciences.
The critics of apriorism refer to the fact that for the treatment Of certain problems recourse to one of the non-Euclidian geometries appears more convenient than recourse to the Euclidian system. The solid bodies and light rays of our environment, says Reichenbach, behave according to the laws of Euclid. But this, he adds, is merely “a fortunate empirical fact.” Beyond the space of our environment the physical world behaves according to other geometries.[3] There is no need to argue this point. For these other geometries also start from a priori axioms, not from experimental facts. What the panempiricists fail to explain is how a deductive theory, starting from allegedly arbitrary postulates, renders valuable, even indispensable, services in the endeavors to describe correctly the conditions of the external world and to deal with them successfully.
The fortunate empirical fact to which Reichenbach refers is the fact that the human mind has the ability to develop theories which, although a priori, are instrumental in the endeavors to construct any a posteriori system of knowledge. Although logic, mathematics, and praxeology are not derived from experience, they are not arbitrarily made, but imposed upon us by the world in which we live and act and which we want to study.[4] They are not empty, not meaningless, and not merely verbal. They are—for man—the most general laws of the universe, and without them no knowledge would be accessible to man.
We cannot know something we do not believe. We only believe that which we are prepared to act upon. We only act upon a theory if we expect to succeed. If acting upon a theory fails us enough times, we will cease to believe it, no matter how sound it seems upon reflection. Theories (even a priori theories) are means, not fetishes.
But doesn’t “a priori” mean that we can’t conceive of the opposite?
To change our course of action, we need to able to have another option. But, in the case of a priori facts, it’s impossible to conceive of, or act upon, the alternative, simply because there just isn’t one. How could we hope to “pragmatically verify” something that we couldn’t even stop doing? Doesn’t something working or not have a lot to do with deciding whether to continue upon the same track, or to change your mind? Well, of course it does, and by definition we don’t have the choice to switch tracks in the case of a priori facts.
But you’re not talking about a priori facts, but are talking about our theories about those a priori facts. We act upon such a theory - such as Hoppe’s “argumentation ethics” - only if we expect acting upon it to be successful, right? Well of course. It’s possible to think that there’s an a priori fact when there isn’t anything at all there, and it’s possible to think that there isn’t one when there is.
Anyway, I’m not sure which Jesse meant.
Was he asking whether our theories about a priori facts are subject to “pragmatic verification”, or was he asking whether the a priori facts themselves are subject to “pragmatic verification”? I’m not sure, but I think that bringing that distinction to the light will be enough for the question. Of course we choose to believe one theory rather than another, simply because we find that believing in the one works better than believing in the other; and of course we can’t choose to not be subject to a priori facts, because by definition we can’t even imagine the alternative, which means that it has nothing to do with utility or pragmatics, because those are categories of action. Our theories about a priori facts are subject to “pragmatic verification”, but the a priori facts themselves are “just there” - they’re just a bunch of ultimate givens.
Thinking about this more, even this realization above is based on the principle of induction. Why do we accept that theories which produce success in the past will produce success in the future? Because operating under that assumption has led to success in the past. This leads us inexorably into the problem of induction. But the problem of induction cannot be solved. The “built-in” rules of the human mind cannot be proved without reference to themselves; they are ultimate givens. When two built-in rules of the human mind clash, you simply have to choose. For myself, if quantum mechanics defies my mind’s principles of deductive logic, yet is supported by my mind’s principles of inductive logic, I would still believe it. If devices I built for myself using the principles of quantum mechanics repeatedly outperformed devices I built without regard to QM, I would choose to build the former, and thus demonstrate my belief in QM.
Now economics is entirely different. The arguments of positivist economists defy my mind’s principles of deductive AND inductive logic. In fact my mind’s principles of inductive logic are silent with regard to positive statements on the matter of social phenomena, because I know how complex they are. Yet my mind’s principles of deductive logic, combined with my self-reflective knowledge of what action is, lead me to assent entirely to the theorems of economic science.
Would you agree that our a priori statements about economics are always contingent? In other words, that it is always possible for future, inductive reasoning to conflict with the deductive principles of economic? Might economics be like quantum mechanics?
No, because something being “contingent” rests on the idea that it’s possible to be another way, whereas a priori means that it’s not possible to be another way. Something a priori is something where it’s not even conceivable that it could be different.
To believe that something could change implies that you can conceive of something for it to change into.