I agreed with the first part, but not sure about this part. I’d had to further contemplate with anything you may want to add. I can draw up words. Words, the individual letters can be formed as I write upon a piece of paper. Look at the letter “S”. I can start on the bottom tail end and move along the body of the form to the top. The finished product is static, but it also those words joining up into sentences. Those words mirror thoughts. I think words are a different medium of thought. Still thoughts but a different medium.
One can conceive that the tree really does exist. And one can conceive that the tree doesn’t exist except when it is perceived.
But there is a third way that often goes unnoticed:
One can remain neutral with respect to the tree’s “real existence,” and instead examine the “logic of” when a tree exists for an individual consciousness.
We need not argue for the ontological or “real” existence or non-existence of the tree. We can examine the logic of a tree’s appearance for an individual consciousness. This is phenomenology, and in my opinion, it is praxeology…
I have had similar musings myself. It is fun to try to capture all of the complexities of the human experience and the reality around us. I have always been a very philosophical person, and as I’ve gotten older I have gotten into the idea of inspiration also. In my view, we are attempting to capture all of these things with various scientific categories and the most powerful tool which is human intuition. After all, science is the result of intuition, it has just been formalized into exact science. Also, love, which is more complex than anything else it seems.
So all of these things affect our human experience and the “real” world around us. And sometimes we can take all of the theories we have knowledge about along with our intuition and really get a bird’s eye view of reality in general. I love that feeling.
This is itself human experience also. And also there is the human experience of studying our intuitions and making science which is more focused. Of course, neither of these things is necessarily more important than the other.
Before I came across economic theory, Mises’ work and Austrian theory, I always felt that there was something missing. That there was more to the human experience than just the material world and the relationships between objects of the material world. When I found Praxeology (economics, Mises’ work, austrian theory, etc.) , it fulfilled that missing gap of scientific explanation. I started to understand the relationship between myself and the material world, because I had grasped the science behind the intuition that I was more than an object in the material world. I was an acting being. It is great to have another tool for getting that bird’s eye view of life by capturing another piece of the complexity of life into a scientific theory.
I have come to realize lately that scientific theory does not necessarily discredit a strong intuition.
The approach of the scientific theory may be blind to an obvious equivalency, while the fresh approach founded upon a strong intuition may discover equivalences undiscoverable by previous scientific approaches.
I think this might be something akin to a scientific revolution.
Yes. This is what I was saying previously in this thread about natural and intellect. I didn’t get into the theoretics fully, only briefly to explain the semantics of these terms. But as I pointed out the metaphysics of what is, now for epistemology, say a tree. A tree is, but keep in mind I stated that the metaphysics of a tree, the nature of a tree, is deliberated upon by what the intellect realizes. What the intellect grasps (the metaphysical step) is the tree (the epistemic step). The epistemic realization involves an intellect grasping what is, in this case, a tree. The process is not strictly intellect. Not strictly tree. It is intellect and tree. That is philosophy with all of the distinct actions involved in the philosophic event being the metaphysical step, epistemology step, and logical steps, etc… Each step collaborating as what a human does. Nature, for a human, involves intellect realizing co-dependently with other things. What those things are gets into knowledge of whatever those things might be.
When you say the logic of, I don’t know if that’s completely correct. Logic are rules that provide boundaries and shape amidst the process of our thinking or realizations. Maybe the knowledge or epistemics of a tree is what you mean? Maybe not.
well. I’ve got to go and won’t be able to reply for a couple days. it was fun. I’ll find this thread when I return.
I assume words are actions as well? What I mean, again not on topic necessarily, is simply - for instance - if I ask you, “Do floozelats wear funny hats?”
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Can you notice any meaningful imagery and/or sound(s) that allows you to understand (or to “picture”) the meaning of the question in your mind? Could it be possible to imagine the essence of the meaning of that question purely through pictures and sounds, and do you?
In my case, I see a “floozelat” as a sort of elongated stripey cat done in the style of Dr. Seuss books (probably because the question also mentions cats, and I read The Cat in the Hat when I was a kid). The hat part is fuzzy but has a generally zany outline to it. This is all well and good, but the real question is, how did you imagine the “yes-no-questionness” of the question? I imagine something like this tone (at 0:51), which indicates to me that thing being imagined is a yes-no question. I also know it’s a hypothetical question because the image is slightly transparent on my visual field, and perhaps from the way it comes “on screen” (diagonally from the bottom of my visual field, starting small and then expanding to full screen).
Ok I’m guilty of going way off topic. Please don’t feel the need to respond to my comment before this one. I am going to try to address some of the questions or comment directed at me. I didn’t mean to cause confusion.
OK This begins to be a theory of consciousness in my opinion.
The clarity, cogency, and consistency of the theory of consciousness utilized, is related to the clarity, cogency, and consistency of the social theory advanced.
I strongly agree if you are trying to say that words usually have a preexisting context attached to them, and that we have to be careful to explain what context we are using a word in, when we use it. Also, sometimes words have a context that is so strongly attached to them that it is almost too difficult to use the word in a different context. So that in those cases it is better to just use a different word or possibly even a new word.
What I was trying to say is that it seems that Methodological Individualism is dependent on the the idea of 1 consciousness. So someone might say, what if person A becomes person B? As long as we are talking about 1 conscious, this phenomenon is irrelevant in regard to Methodological Individualism. I wouldn’t want to get into the details of how person A would “become” person B.
But just for the heck of it, lets say we start with consciousness A and consciousness B.
Maybe person A’s consciousness would be merged into B’s becoming 1 consciousness, so that A would now have all of the experiences B had in addition to his own. B’s conscious might still stay independent so that now we have 1 consciousness, AB, and another consciousness, B. Or maybe conscious B isn’t separate so that now instead of conscious A and B, there is just consciousness AB. Or Maybe A could switch back and forth between having 1 conscious, consciousness A, to having another consciousness, consciousness B. This is all hypothetical, so I have no idea really. I am just trying to approach it from the idea of Methodological Individualism.
We can start another thread, or discuss via e-mail.
But I think I can explain while still trying to keep it related to the OP.
“If objective morality doesn’t exist, what justifies libertarianism?”
What is “objective” morality? It can’t be “subjective” morality. Objective morality refers to the idea that the source of our moral sense or intuitions is to be found in “objective” reality; a reality that exists independent of conscioiusness. A plain or basic definition of objective reality is: that part of nature that is in the realm of observation. If we think of it this way, then objective ethics (objective morality) has two parts: [objective reality], and [the moral obligation this imparts to the individual actor]. There is “objective reality” (first correlate), and there is me the actor, and what objective reality requires of me (second correlate).
By contrast, the correlates happiness and unhappiness are correlates of an individual consciousness. They can be conceived without referring to a posited or assumed objective reality. The correlates of consciousness happiness and happiness are what we might call the basis for a “subjective morality.” I.e., a morality based not on what objective reality requires of an individual, but instead based on what an individual’s happiness requires of him.
To answer Nandor’s question succinctly, if objective morality doesn’t exist, then subjective morality can “justify” libertarianism. (i.e., the basis of libertarianism is the individual’s experience of happiness and unhappiness in regard to various social systems and ethical practices)
The individual’s happiness requires specific forms of action and specific forms of social interaction. Libertarianism can be “justified” (a term that is not expedient here) by a subjective morality based on the correlates of consciousness—happiness and unhappiness—rather than an objective morality based on the correlates of objective reality and the individual’s supposed obligations derived therefrom.
May I understand you as saying that libertarianism can be justified for each individual by the fact that, to that individual, practicing libertarianism (or having it practiced with/to him) results in more happiness than not? And it may be possible to show that libertarianism in fact leads to more happiness for everyone, even if they do not realize it?
Interestingly, my own personal “moral compass” is based on the a very broad definition of the word “health.” It’s perhaps functionally synonymous with “happiness.”
Healthy body, healthy personality, healthy relationships, healthy economy, etc.
…all seem to maximize happiness in my experience, although what constitutes “healthy” becomes more and more controversial as we go down the list.
I stumbled upon a little time to respond before I fully leave.
yes, that’s the episteme (theory). For instance, A is A. There’s logic in that statement. Now what is A? That a question of knowledge (episteme). Does A really exist? Again that’s a question of what is, in this case, a question of A. Again that’s a question of knowing about an A and what that A is (again episteme). Whatever A is, whatever is - is, has to do with knowing about such. The logic of A being A is referring to whatever an individual refers to A being, that A is still A - no matter what A is known or defined as or theorized as. Known, defined as, theorized as - each synonymous here considering the context.
If “objective” is dependent on this thread then probably a new thread is necessary cause of what I’m trying to point out. Going by what you say here Adam, the dependent origination of natural is a colloboration of intellect and reality devoid of intellect. The two colloborating are not to get bogged down in subjective and objective because in colloboration it is neither of these two independently but rather dependently. To incline towards one or the other is to forget the significance of the one or the other. To incline towards objective in accord with your definitions is thus devoid of subjective. But to incline towards subjective in accord with your definitions is thus devoid of objective. To get stuck on one or the other is therefore to conceptualize only one or the other. For example, to incline upon objective (or subjective) is have knowledge that is void of subjective (or objective). As I think you brought up earlier about the third that’s what I’m pointing out. The third is what natural philosophy has to do with this. The intellect (thus a human acting) in a world (objective reality). This colloboration of what somebody deems rational is in step with Mises use of the term rational (as well as Aristotle I would say, and others). The knowledge of what the intellect deems as being can take a materialist slant or a psychological slant. I would say what the investigator (materialist or psychologist approach, etc..) keeping in mind is not too dismiss one or the other. To fall into the trap of inclining objectively or subjectively too far to the point of making objective or subjective absent in their cognition. This is undoubtedly why a materialist may argue that they are fully aware of thoughts, words, mental images, etc… because the human actor taking on the role of a materialist very well indeed might be fully aware of all of these because such a human agent didn’t go too far to void the individual. Same goes with a psychologist not going to far to void an external reality of the individual. Neither need to void the subjective or objective, but the trappings are present. The exclusion of the individual or a world outside of the individual may happen if either is taken as the extreme of what is.
Dependent origination is cause and effect where the A might be the cause one circumstance but the effect in another completely different circumstance. Thus A is the cause of B. B is therefore the effect. Yet B is the cause of C. Thus C is the effect. Knowing if A is the cause or the effect is to have knowledge (episteme) of what A is (and to recognize that an A is - is metaphysics and whatever A is, meaning if A doesn’t exist at all or A does exist - again that’s getting into the theory or knowledge of what A is).
A very broad definition of the word “health,” in my opinion, is going to eventually become a formal conception of happiness, and that is what is/was at the basis of Austrian social theory: “utility,” “satisfaction,” etc…
“Man’s aim is to substitute what he considers a better state of affairs for a less satisfactory one. He strives for the substitution of a more satisfactory state of affairs in place of a less satisfactory state of affairs. And in the satisfaction of this desire, he becomes happier than he was before.”
(Mises, The Free Market and its Enemies, p.14)
I would say that Long and his school are heading in this direction (trying to show how libertarianism impacts happiness). The problems:
They mistakenly believe that this demonstration can only be accomplished meaningfully by a normative approach. They believe that Rand and Aristotle hold the key to this approach. And they begin their overall theory with a critique of Misesian and Humean utilitarianism, rather than with an understanding of it. This all adds up to an abandonment of theoretical subjectivism, methodological individualism, and praxeology as the search for exact moral or ethical laws.
I would argue that here, you are presenting a snippet of a larger world-view or philosophy within which these ideas might be better understood. As you write: “getting into the theory of knowledge of what A is”
I assume that requires a book or lengthy essay.
Without that, it may be hard to assess the theory you are summarizing here…
“If objective morality doesn’t exist, what justifies libertarianism?”
I, personally, think that libertarianism is about freedom of choice. It is an intuition that more freedom of choice allows for both success and failure, and that overall this will lead to more success than will less freedom of choice.
This isn’t enough for me though. There has to be more than an intuition. This intuition has to be developed into something that says “this” causes “this”. Or “less freedom of choice” causes “less success”. For me, this would justify libertarianism.
If we look within ourselves there is something very basic that does exist for us. We have a priori knowledge that we have subjective values, and that we use the objective material world to satisfy those values. And I consider this consciousness.
Can this basic concept of consciousness derive a cause and effect relationship (justification) between less freedom and less success?
Aristotle was not a libertarian. And Rand was only partially a libertarian. Hume was no libertarian at all. And to what extent Mises was a libertarian is debatable. I mean, a pro-conscription amoralist can be a libertarian…? The thing is, ‘misesian’ and ‘humean’ utilitarianism are both bankrupt (and they are not exactly the same thing by the way).
Of course libertarians are not ‘radical’ subjectivists who believe that the legitimacy of say, killing people, is just a ‘subjective preference’. The bit about abandoning ‘methodological’ individualism is just a lie since libertarianism is based on philosophical individualism.
As to abandoning so called ‘praxeology’, good riddance! ‘Praxeology’ is mostly a bunch of empty tautologies. Frankly the followers of the Mises cult are no different than commies who babble about ‘scientific socialism’. Political economy did pretty well before Mises ‘discovered’ that “humans act” or Ayn Rand invented the identity principle ™.
