Mises ill-definition of Natural Law, why?

[wilderness]

@Lilburne

No, it’s only a very vocal handful who, like you, come off the rails when natural law doctrine is questioned. Most are like nirgraham and are very capable of debating these matters without becoming “mad as hell”.

I am not “off the rails”. When are you going to stop the emotional rhetoric? That’s all you’ve done throughout this thread. Are you “off the rails”?

@Lilburne

Despite all your twisting of Mises’ writings, my position on natural rights doctrine is the same as that of Ludwig von Mises. Here on the Ludwig von Mises Community Forums I would ask that you drop the intolerant, inquisitorial tone regarding my position.

Then “drop” philosophically attacking life, liberty, and private property (natural rights). I haven’t been “intolerant or inquisitorial” with you Lilburne. I would really like for you to stop the emotional rhetoric and stop pulling out and attempting to hide behind Mises quotes that say “non-sense” and “wishful thinking”.

This is just another example of your posts of recent. Unproductive. Please address the meaningful substance like I. Ryan is. Esuric and I have already addressed this to you in the beginning of this thread.

• thank you.

[wilderness]

@I. Ryan

Where did Hume advocate that we should not use induction, despite its expediency?

What did you think of those quotes I provided? I don’t know what you are asking pertains to what I’m trying to say. Those quotes of what I’m saying address my point.

[I_Ryan]

@wilderness

Hume philosophically attacked “First Principles” (axioms).

Where?

@wilderness

Kant rebutted him.

Where?

[I_Ryan]

@wilderness

What did you think of those quotes I provided?

I did not get their relevance.

@wilderness

I don’t know what you are asking pertains to what I’m trying to say.

You said this:

@wilderness

It would mean the end to science if Hume’s way was fully followed.

I want you to substantiate that.

[wilderness]

@twistedbydsign99

I have heard that, that it wouldn’t apply to our constitution for example. But does his proof necessitate simple math to be covered by your axioms?

I don’t know how to fully answer that twisted. I’ve seen a paper floating around that discusses that.

I did find this post that was interesting from another thread.

[wilderness]

I. Ryan,

There’s more in that first source I provided but here’s one quote:

@source

In his earlier writings, in Latin, Kant had actually used the Latin expression principia prima, “First Principles.” In the Critique of Pure Reason, we get an explicit discussion of principia only at the beginning of the “Transcendental Dialectic”:

The term ‘principle’ [Prinzips] is ambiguous, and commonly signifies any knowledge [Erkenntnis] which can be used as a principle [Prinzips], although in itself, and as regards its proper origin [Ursprung], it is no principle [Principium]. Every universal proposition, even one derived from experience, through induction [Induktion], can serve as major premise [Obersatz] in a syllogism; but it is not therefore itself a principle [Principium]. [Norman Kemp Smith translation, St Martin’s Press, 1929, 1965, p.301, A 300]

Here the difference between Kant’s use of the German term and the Latin is, shall we say, lost in translation – an entirely unnecessary loss, since the Latin term could have been used in English just as in German. Kant explains the drift in meaning of “principle,” but instead of contrasting principium with principium primum, as in English we can contrast “principle” with “first principle,” he contrasts German Prinzips with Latin Principium. By translating both the German term and the Latin one as “principle,” Kemp Smith obscures the difference between a principle, in the modern sense, and a first principle. This may reveal that Kemp Smith actually isn’t very sensitive or interested in either first principles or the Problem of First Principles. Indeed, Anglo-American philosophy, with its empiricist tendencies, has not been attracted to anything so un-empirical as first principles.

The passage also displays a bit of evidence that Kant takes the derivation of universal propositions from experience through induction as unproblematic. He cannot have been unaware of the Problem of Induction, having read Hume, but had not worked out, as no one would until Karl Popper, that there is a solution.

It discusses how Kant rebutted Hume, the debate has been on-going with various philosphers rebutting Humean along the way including Austrian economics-philosophers, realist phenomenologists, Karl Popper, and what I think Fenyman was also addressing in that youtube. My research on this doesn’t only include this one source.

[I_Ryan]

@wilderness

It discusses how Kant rebutted Hume, the debate has been on-going with various philosphers rebutting Humean along the way including Austrian economics-philosophers, realist phenomenologists, Karl Popper, and what I think Fenyman was also addressing in that youtube. My research on this doesn’t only include this one source.

I want to know where, in the works of Hume, he attacked “first principles”.

[wilderness]

@wilderness

It would mean the end to science if Hume’s way was fully followed.

@I. Ryan

I want you to substantiate that.

@source

Later, Karl Popper proposed a special solution for the Problem in that science, by using falsification, does not need to worry about a positive justification of First Principles at all. This enables scientific progress to heedlessly continue, as it has, regardless of the status of any philosophical solution.

Hume made “First Principles” (axioms) out to be ‘skeptically acquired’. Axioms are of common sense. Hume philosophically attacks common sense. Popper came along to philosophically find a solution to this internal philosophical debate. You quoted Mises, but Mises didn’t provide a philosophical argument that fully rebutted Hume. Karl Popper did. As it says above, “This enables scientific progress to heedlessly continue, as it has, regardless of the status of any philosophical solution”.

There wasn’t a philosophically solution and I’m not sure, as I’ve been saying, if there is one now either as the debate that started with Hume v. Kant, in which an extant philosopher Seifer not only calls Kant v. Hume but also calls the debate Thomism v. Scotists. Or what can be argued to be also called A-T tradition v. Misean skeptics.

[I_Ryan]

@wilderness

You quoted Mises, but Mises didn’t provide a philosophical argument that fully rebutted Hume.

When did I say that I meant that quotation from Mises to “rebut” Hume?

@wilderness

As it says above, “This enables scientific progress to heedlessly continue, as it has, regardless of the status of any philosophical solution”.

Hume never tried to stifle it. He never said that we should not use induction, despite its expediency.

@wilderness

Hume made “First Principles” (axioms) out to be ‘skeptically acquired’.

I have no idea what that means.

@wilderness

There wasn’t a[…] solution[.]

A solution to what? The problem of induction?

[I_Ryan]

I still want to know what you meant here:

@I. Ryan

@wilderness

I. Ryan,

I answered that here.

I answered that here:

@I. Ryan

@wilderness

At first no, cause it’s presupposed.

I have no idea what that means.

[wilderness]

I. Ryan:

@source

Kant approaches the matter as he does because he is responding to Hume, and one of Hume’s initial challenges is about the origin of “ideas.” While the Problem of First Principles is about the justification of propositions, Hume’s Empiricist approach goes back to asking about the legitimacy of the very concepts, of which the propositions are constituted, in the first place…

Thus, Kant begins, like Hume, asking about the legitimacy of concepts. However, the traditional Problem has already insensibly been brought up; for in his critique of the concept of cause and effect, Hume did question the principle of causality, a proposition, and the way in which he expressed the defect of such a principle uncovered a point to Kant, which he dealt with back in the Introduction to the Critique…

In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hume made a distinction about how subject and predicate could be related:

All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain [note: these are Locke’s categories]. That the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the square of the two sides, is a proposition which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty, expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.

Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality. That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction than the affirmation, that it will rise. We should in vain, therefore, attempt to demonstrate its falsehood. Were it demonstratively false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly conceived by the mind. [Enquiries, Selby-Bigge edition, Oxford, 1902, 1972, pp.25-26]

Both paragraphs warrant quoting in full. The first now would seem properly more a matter of embarrassment than anything else. Whatever Hume expected from intuition or demonstration, it would be hard to find a mathematician today who would agree that “the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.” If Hume’s fame rests on this point, there would be little to recommend it. The second paragraph, however, redeems the impression by giving us a logical criterion to distinguish between truths that are “relations of ideas” and those that are “matters of fact”: A matter of fact can be denied without contradiction…

For, indeed, outside of an axiomatized logic itself, the First Principles of Demonstration will be synthetic. However Kant can explain the truth of non-empirical synthetic propositions, i.e. those that are a priori instead of a posteriori, that will be his answer to the Problem of First Principles. Yet Hume himself is often poorly understood. While it is common to say that Hume denied the existence of synthetic a priori propositions, there is some question about whether he actually does. He says that the relationship of cause and effect is not discovered or known by any reasonings a priori, but that is not the same thing. A synthetic a priori proposition is not known from any reasonings. In fact, Hume does not see that the relationship of cause and effect is discovered or known from anything, since it is not justified by experience, in which there is no necessary connection between cause and effect, and there is in fact nothing in the cause to even suggest the effect, much less that the effect must follow. Hume’s famous explanation was a psychological one, that we become accustomed to the association of certain events (“causes”) with others (“effects”); but this, obviously, carries no weight whatsoever about the nature of things, which is what makes Hume, very properly, a Skeptic.

At the same time, Hume had no doubts whatsoever of the necessity of cause and effect.

Hume gives a psychological explanation and not a logical one. That’s what makes him an academic skeptic. It’s what pulls the term ‘axiom’ into a psychological explanation instead of being able to use philosophy to define ‘axiom’ namely the philosophical field of ontology, ie. realism. To only give a psychological explanation pulls the discussion out of the realm of science because it is Hume’s psyche that determines this, not anything that can be verified in theory. Mises theory and history divide comes to mind on this point.

edit:

Here’s Hume explaining cause and effect but leaving it to a psychological explanation instead of theory/ontology/philosophy. It’s from the same book.

@source

Thus, Hume says:

Nor need we fear that this philosophy, while it endeavors to limit our enquiries to common life, should ever undermine the reasonings of common life, and carry its doubts so far as to destroy all action, as well as speculation. Nature will always maintain her rights, and prevail in the end over any abstract reasoning whatsoever. Though we should conclude, for instance, as in the foregoing section, that, in all reasonings from experience, there is a step taken by the mind which is not supported by any argument or process of the understanding [i.e. from cause to effect]; there is no danger that these reasonings, on which almost all knowledge depends, will ever be affected by such a discovery. [ibid., p. 41]

[wilderness]

1 - As to Mises rebutting Hume. I didn’t say you quoted that in order for Mises to rebut Hume. I know that.

2 - In philosophy this has been the debate. Kant v. Hume. Popper v. Hume. and others. Popper made it possible to maintain Humean skepticism out of the natural sciences. It’s not that Hume himself would go and stop science. Science continued no matter what Hume said. It’s the consequences of Hume’s skepticism in which the “cause and effect” of experiences can not be fully known with reason and argument that within the philosophic circle the debate has been on-going. Again Fenyman’s video. And all of the natural sciences, including what humans experience (human biology) science for a fact can know counter to Hume’s skepticism. But since it was only Hume’s psychological skepticism and not a philosophical argument by Hume (as the article mentions some people misunderstand), then Hume says axioms are ‘iffy’ but that’s only Hume’s pysche stating they are “iffy”. There is no philosophical argument by Hume actually making a reasonable argument to support ‘skepticism’. It’s only psychologically supported - Hume’s psyche. Which goes back to the quote I gave of Barry Smith in which he says paraphrasingly, ‘ok hume, that’s fine if you psychologically don’t know for sure, but there are things external to the mind (experience) that can be known for sure’ (Fenyman’s video).

[I_Ryan]

I still have no idea how Hume attacked “first principles”.

[I_Ryan]

@Kelly Ross

The first now would seem properly more a matter of embarrassment than anything else. Whatever Hume expected from intuition or demonstration, it would be hard to find a mathematician today who would agree that “the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.” If Hume’s fame rests on this point, there would be little to recommend it.

Huh? How did those “demonstrated by Euclid” not “retain their certainty”?

[wilderness]

Ok.

Hume attacked the concepts in propositions. He said they can’t be known for sure, but only stated that psychologically, not philosophically. He was a skeptic.

Here are the formal terms in a proposition: Subject copula predicate.

Informal example: Mary (subject) is (copula) tall (predicate).

This is a cause-effect relationship in which the attributes of Mary are denoted by her being ‘tall’. Being is the copula. Any form of ‘is’ is the copula in formal propositions. In this proposition the statement is one that says Mary is tall. Mary being tall. Mary exists tall. ‘is’, ‘being’, ‘exists’ all forms of being and when used in a formal proposition the term denoting ‘being’ is named copula.

Ok. So. These concepts provided in the proposition are of experience. They are not logically deducted. They are determined by evidence. There is such a person named Mary who is in fact tall. The concepts/terms of a proposition (Mary, is, tall) are not logically deducted. Axioms are not logically deducted. Axioms are first principles but not the terms in the proposition - yet - all of them come from non-logically deductive methods. Hume was skeptical psychologically about the concepts, terms, and axioms being true because they are not logically deducted. Hume wanted logical deductive proofs to ascertain if they are to be certain or not. Again though, Hume does not say ‘don’t use the concepts, terms, axioms’ that later can be used in logical deductions. He doesn’t doubt their use and practicality as mentioned in the quote I gave. All Hume does is psychologically state they may not be true which is why he is a skeptic. Him being a skeptic is not controversial and this is slightly a trivial point. Yet in philosophy it did make philosophers begin to wonder and be skeptical about the terms and axioms in and of themselves. Axioms are self-evident as Aristotle had shown. All these terms and axioms are grounded in evidential facts of the world. Hume psychologically questioned if the evidence is true or not, but gave no reasonable method, meaning, philosophical method that would find out if the evidence is true or not. That’s why Popper called it a philosophic problem and maintained it out of the natural sciences. Hume’s psyche made philosophy in and of itself appear to be a skeptical method instead of being able to show with certainity how things can be known in the world.

Did that help any?

[wilderness]

@I. Ryan

Huh? How did those “demonstrated by Euclid” not “retain their certainty”?

I assume this:

@wikipedia

For over two thousand years, the adjective “Euclidean” was unnecessary because no other sort of geometry had been conceived. Euclid’s axioms seemed so intuitively obvious that any theorem proved from them was deemed true in an absolute sense. Today, however, many other self-consistent non-Euclidean geometries are known, the first ones having been discovered in the early 19th century. An implication of Einstein’s theory of general relativity is that Euclidean space is a good approximation to the properties of physical space only where the gravitational field is not too strong.

^source

[I_Ryan]

@wilderness

I assume this:

@wikipedia

For over two thousand years, the adjective “Euclidean” was unnecessary because no other sort of geometry had been conceived. Euclid’s axioms seemed so intuitively obvious that any theorem proved from them was deemed true in an absolute sense. Today, however, many other self-consistent non-Euclidean geometries are known, the first ones having been discovered in the early 19th century. An implication of Einstein’s theory of general relativity is that Euclidean space is a good approximation to the properties of physical space only where the gravitational field is not too strong.

What happened was that people started to question (a) whether the axioms that he used conformed to reality and (b) whether they were the only option. But what Hume said was not even relevant to that. He was just saying that the relations among the ideas would remain certain, not whether people would always agree that it conforms to the structure of space of the external world.

[wilderness]

@I. Ryan

What happened was that people started to question (a) whether the axioms that he used conformed to reality and (b) whether they were the only option. But what Hume said was not even relevant to that. He was just saying that the relations among the ideas would remain certain, not whether people would always agree that it conforms to the structure of space of the external world.

@Hume

Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.

Hume was ‘forever certain’. That some people questioned what Euclid did, wasn’t due to Hume. I see you’re saying that in accord to Euclid relation of ideas those ideas are certain. I agree. But nobody now says only Euclidian relations of ideas are certain. There are others, that thereby show that Euclidian ideas were not certain. The interpretation by Euclid wasn’t certain. The ideas are certain, but the interpretation of reality wasn’t.

I don’t think the source was saying much more than that. It was a simple declarative statement that Euclid isn’t forever certain. The main point, as the source notes, is the next paragraph.

[I_Ryan]

@wilderness

I see you’re saying that in accord to Euclid relation of ideas those ideas are certain. I agree.

That is what I was saying, yes. But that is also what Hume was saying.

@wilderness

The ideas are certain, but the interpretation of reality wasn’t.

Yes, but that is Hume was only asserting the former, not also the latter.

[wilderness]

I. Ryan,

Yes but this is a side issue. The source said in that same paragraph:

@source

The second paragraph, however, redeems the impression by giving us a logical criterion to distinguish between truths that are “relations of ideas” and those that are “matters of fact”:

By understanding the second paragraph then the first paragraph is “redeem(ed)”. The author of that article seemed to be only saying if you don’t understand ‘relation of ideas’ then it would seem Hume was only embarrassing himself. But the author points out that the second paragraph “redeems” the understanding that one might have of the first.

There isn’t an argument here.