I was recently faced by a very troubling argument from someone I know.
The said how can you ever know for certain your beliefs are true unless you know all criticisms and have answered them all.
I wondered what you thought and if you can see any flaws in this position?
They also said that there could exceptions to what libertarians believe that we don’t know of and so we can’t be certain of this.However this part didn’t seem to ring true because (1) the alleged examples where our principles are supposed to have failed can be shown to be caused by things other than the weakness of libertarianism (2) Unless it’s proven their are such things and they are proven to defeat our claims Libertarianism still stands.
I figure, that it may be untrue that a free society is good -that is a purely moral position. But as far as our scientific analysis goes, we are at least correct that capitalism is the archetype of how an economy works.
So if there are any criticisms of AE that is correct, it doesn’t go against what we already know is correct but only adds to it, also there can be ethical criticisms of libertarianism but these aren’t really about AE which is considered self-evident while libertarianism certainly can’t claim that it is purely self-evident in the sense that “man acts” is.
If you are referring to our belief that “libertarianism brings prosperity” then we know this is true because of Austrian economics. And Austrian economics is true in the same sense that mathematics is true. Does your friend think Pythagoras’ Theorem is true for certain, or does he think there is potentially a right-angled triangle out there for which the theorem doesn’t hold?
He has a great point and I don’t understand why you’re questioning it, to say that you’ve been exposed to one set of beliefs and only one and are not attempting to find flaws in what you believe is the most dangerous position possible, you should always attempt to understand other beliefs. I think that many here on mises have only ever been exposed to mises materials which is dangerous.
This being said, no, you can never “know” that you are right. Ever.
The said how can you ever know for certain your beliefs are true unless you know all criticisms and have answered them all.
this is a sure recipe for the undermining of all knowledge in all fields. it is pure nihilism.
by this formulation it takes infinite time and effort to know any thing.
Its really a question fit for philosophers that lay people and scientists alike ignore and with good reason. If the issue is what is right or wrong about whatever, bring what arguments you can, for and against, and duke it out. and if there’s not much in it, declare a draw, and think about what avenues to investigate to break the tie. be open to new knowledge shaking up prior beliefs, but don’t assume that they will in advance and let that hamstring you. its not enough for someone to suggest that new data or argument might present itself to prove you wrong, your opponent actually needs to ‘bring it’ for it to be brought.
Does this mean that all arguments that haven’t met all critisisms are untrue? No.
The truth of a logical argument stems from true premises and logical deductions. That’s how you know they are true. I take arguments to be true unless it can be demonstrated that they are false. Until they are shown to be false or based on faulty reasoning, I consider them true.
Regardless, many arguments have been made against libertarianism and AE, and many of them have been countered/answered.
History cannot prove a theory. Treating social science as a natural science is a flawed methodology. Look into Mises “theory and history” for more. Or even chapter 2 of Human Action.
The development of the theories of libertarianism and (especially) economics at the LvMI are done through rational deduction, not through empirical observation or the support of evidence.
The answer to your friend’s claim is quite complicated, but it comes down to the following:
“We can’t be sure that we are right, we can be sure that we are wrong.” (not saying that we are wrong)
According to Gödel’s theorem, a formal system (of a certain complexity*) is either:
Complete and inconsistent, or
Incomplete and consistent.
The statement that we need to know and answer all criticisms before we can know we are right is nonsense. We cannot be certain that we are right, but as long as our economics remains consistent, we can be quite sure.
Taken that Austrian Economics is a formal system of a certain complexity, like mathematics.
Even then, you wouldn’t know for sure. You would have to be logically consistent and your original premise would have to be absolutely correct. The problem is that we never actually know, for sure, that our initial premise is true, even if it seems self-evident. But your friend’s argument is a strawman. The fact that we can never attain absolute truth does not mean that (a) it doesn’t exist and (b) that we shouldn’t pursue it. Some positions are better than others, and some are much better than others.
Yes. Mathematics can, at least conceivably, perfectly illustrate real world economic phenomena. But it requires the employment of the most extreme and advanced mathematical tools/methods (like chaos theory, for example). The problem is that there are billions of endogenous economic variables which we must identify and incorporate into our system. We must also identify and incorporate their relations to one another; the entire system is interconnected and interdependent. This requires a level of competence that humans and computers do not posses. Even the most advanced mathematical economics papers, which employ differential equations and multivariate calculus, over simplify the matter at hand. At the undergraduate level, though, math complicates that which is simple and intuitive.
Mathematics and computers fall under the formal systems of a certain complexity, unlike grammar, which is a very simple axiomatic system.
In GEB, Hofstadter made a comparison between computers and the human mind, stating that the human mind is also a formal system of a certain complexity (I believe this to be true).
Human action stems from reason which stems from the human mind, can therefore be considered a formal system of a certain complexity.
edit: Check out the last page (14) of the PDF with a good summary of the argument, concluding:
Certain pre-empirical synthetic intrinsically plausible propositions thus require ontological correlates which are their truth-makers. Hence, there are intelligible structures in the world, which we could also call ‘a priori structures’.
Yes, I’m familiar with the idea of mathematics being limited, especially in explaining or predicting economic phenomena.
The incompleteness theorem implicates that we cannot have a formal mathematical system that is both complete and consistent. Would this hold true for logical systems? In that case, isn’t logic (and by extension, economics) limited?
Right is always right, wrong is always wrong, square is always square, “you” are always “you”. You are always “right” in doing precisely what you are doing, whether you agree or disagree with the results makes no difference in the correctness of “you”.
“We” however is a mythological term. It can only be used in a descriptive sense, that is, it is impossible to be a correct “we” as it is not an acting agent.
