“We all act.” Is that a myth?
Can society act? “We” is a descriptive term.
“We” describes the totality of human beings, all of which act. I mean, I see what you are saying but I can’t see how you can say “we” is a purely mythological term. Couldn’t you also use “we” as a group of 2 or more people who have all individually chosen to do X? I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “descriptive term” either, but this seems like a rather pointless debate.
Q: How can you ever know for certain your beliefs are true unless you know all criticisms and have answered them all.
A: You cannot. That’s why criticisms should be searched for, researched, and answered factually. As to the libertarian-specific part, I think it could be pretty easily argued that libertarianism makes the least assumptions of any ideology, and is therefore the most fact-based. Doesn’t central planning require much more knowledge to perfect than the free market does to take course? Don’t laws regulating human behavior have consistently unintended and unforeseen negative effects?
Proposition: There could be exceptions to what libertarians believe that we don’t know of and so we can’t be certain of this.
You’re right about this part being flawed. It’s actually pretty ridiculous, even if it is completely true because objectivity is always necessary. But nevertheless it is a speculation and not a reasonable argument. If someone showed you an apple and said “this is an apple.” You could very easily reply: “There could be exceptions to what apples are that we don’t know of so we can’t be certain that is an apple.” But you would not be refuting the fact that it was an apple. You’d just be saying that we haven’t discovered that maybe some apples turn in to monsters when we put them in a black hole and some do not, and those that do not are the true apples. That doesn’t prove anything. Nothing should be determined based on what is not known, but instead on what is.
Some of it. My philosophy is kind of weak, so I’ll have to get used to that lingo before I’d be able to formulate a meaningful comment on it.
We cannot be certain of anything. Nothing in nature can be proven. Scientific laws cannot be proven and knowledge gained through induction cannot be certain. The reason why people can still go on living their lives knowing that nothing is certain because some phenomena have a very good track record. I trust that if I fall off a cliff without anything to slow me down I probably won’t walk away from the incident. The law of gravity(this is a simplification) only tells me that in the past everything I have dropped fell towards the center of the earth. I have no idea that this one time might be different, but in the past its happened a certain way every time to my knowledge and that is good enough for me to avoid going over any cliffs. Theories also cannot be proven becuase some contradictory evidence may be unaccounted for, but some theories have such overwhelming support that it is almost silliness to deny them.
Couldn’t you also use “we” as a group of 2 or more people who have all individually chosen to do X? I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “descriptive term” either, but this seems like a rather pointless debate.
Yes you could use “we” to describe various actions of me with x person/people. It tends to be a useful way to catagorize things (such as catagorizing things into species, living, or anything else for tht matter). “We” simply describes a convienent and useful way to state and describe things, though it doesn’t exist as an actual acting entity (like emergence or nature), if it did than less market oriented economic schemes may have a chance to work. “We” does not calculate, only the acting individual agents that make up the entity “we” do.
You are correct though, I don’t really feel like debating this at the moment either. If you want the last word take it. I will however, try to clear up any thoughts that you wished clarified (but I will not defend/ debate them at the moment)
Troubling? You have things bass-ackwards. The moment I somehow come to realize that there’s nothing left to learn/know/comprehend on every subject I’ve ever pondered, then that would be very troubling. In fact, it’d be so troubling that you may as well shoot me and save me from my impending misery right then and there.
“The moment I somehow come to realize that there’s nothing left to learn/know/comprehend on every subject I’ve ever pondered, then that would be very troubling. In fact, it’d be so troubling that you may as well shoot me and save me from my impending misery right then and there.”
Why? Such would mean that you’d reach a near total perspective which would imply that you’ve have incredible power over your environment. Within a matter of weeks if not sooner you would be able to manipulate the peoples of the world to produce your ideal society… This is of course an imaginary construct but hey it has to be true if the above statement is true so is this so might as well have fun with it 
Some of it. My philosophy is kind of weak, so I’ll have to get used to that lingo before I’d be able to formulate a meaningful comment on it.
If you have any questions, you know you can ask me. I remember reading a certain paper after I had read a good bit of Austrian work and realizing I didn’t know nearly as much as I could. One of the books I am working on is Parts and Moments again by Barry Smith. It is 500+ pages and I don’t think that I will understand it close to my satisfaction a year from now, but just the parts that I have read over and over and reflected on have been very rewarding. If you are going to tackle some philosophy he is someone worth reading.
Dondoolee, I think what I actually want to know is how I - or some other word - is used besides just as a “descriptive term”.
The arguably more important point is the importance of methodological individualism versus the perils of collectivism, false organismic analogies, and the way we use language (see). These evils play a part in statist mythology, but I just took issue with it always being so.
It just reminded me of this passage from Mulligan ed. Speech Act and Sachverhalt. This is poorly quoted, really would be better if I scanned a few pages but:
Reinach’s work on social acts, like his work on mental acts and states such as deliberation and belief, is repeatedly characterized by him as being descriptive. His investigations belong to descriptive psychology, the term used by Brentano and all of his heirs up to and including the early Gestalt psychologists. The epithet ‘descriptive’ indicates that clarification and elucidation (aufklären) as opposed to explanation (erklären) are in order. “Descriptive psychology ought not to explain and reduce one thing to another, its aim is to elucidate…” Description is opposed to genetic explanation, to search for empirical regularities, to constructions and to going too quickly. A related contrast is also to be found in Wittgenstein.
…
Descriptive psychology, and in particular the descriptive psychology of meaning, yields not only description, taxonomies and inventories but insight into structure. Reinach’s theoretical concern is to correct, improve and build on the account of mental acts and sign use set out above all by Husserl. To this end he employs a theory of structure which Husserl, like other heirs of Brentano such as Ehrenfels and Meinong, had already employed.
I may have missed the point of your post, let me know if I did:
The "I", when it is actually you as a being who acts, is the “all and all” and the describer of everything. The “I” is the totality of ones existence and can not be exceeded.
As for the quote:
I am not making a connection with the quote and collectivism. Or I may be missing the point you are trying to make
I know of Adolf Reinarch by name only. If he does fit in with later Hurssel works or Heidegger, the “descriptive” that is being spoken of fits right in with the radical subjective theory of value of the Austrians; this sense of descriptive does not deny an objective material plane of reality.
As for descriptive psych, the very little I know of it; while it may miss the mark (as do most branches of psych) it does seem to offer some interesting and fresh perspecives on the psychology field in terms of describing what psychology actually is.
If you don’t mind, can you snd me a link to the article you quoted?
Exactly. Not my definition of fun. I’d trade “incredible power” for “pending knowledge acquisition” any time. I savor and value the journey much more than the “arrival” wherever that may be. This includes “arriving” at stagnant and swampy beliefs/convictions/dogmas that would never be shaken or challenged again.
I think it would be unfair to say that rejection of this point means that I am opposed to critical examination of beliefs including my own.
I agree you should examine other ideas.
"The said how can you ever know for certain your beliefs are true unless you know all criticisms and have answered them all.
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."
That’s exactly the conclusion I’ve come to.There are criticisms to any belief.Just because they MIGHT be true doesn’t mean they actually are.If we’ve proven something to be true and our prove is solid then we have no reason to doubt our beliefs are true.Furthermore humans can’t live in a continual state of doubt and they don’t.
“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.”
Well I reject Positivism of course but I don’t think this requires rejection of all empirical evidence but it must be understood base on a sound rational theory.I don’t think empiricism and rationalism can be seperated at all.It’s impossible.
"“You’re right about this part being flawed. It’s actually pretty ridiculous, even if it is completely true because objectivity is always necessary. But nevertheless it is a speculation and not a reasonable argument. If someone showed you an apple and said “this is an apple.” You could very easily reply: “There could be exceptions to what apples are that we don’t know of so we can’t be certain that is an apple.” But you would not be refuting the fact that it was an apple. You’d just be saying that we haven’t discovered that maybe some apples turn in to monsters when we put them in a black hole and some do not, and those that do not are the true apples. That doesn’t prove anything. Nothing should be determined based on what is not known, but instead on what is.”
Wow.Your completely right.Also isn’t this skeptical argument open to it’s own claim?