I. Ryan: "I don’t think that you are using the word “sensation” how Neoclassical defined it, as experience of the public world.
In my signature, the first link is one to a thread in which I show that Mises and Hume, two of my favorite writers, weren’t opposed to each other at all at least in epistemology, though most people would think that they were, because they would see the words that they used, such as “experience” and so on, and see that they used those words in superficially contradictory ways.
If you don’t want to read it, I can give you a quick summary of what I was saying, and why it is relevant to what is going on here. Mises defined “experience” as that of the public world, and “reason” as that of the private world, yet Hume defined “experience” as that of either the private world or the public world. So people see Hume talk about experience like it is the only thing that matters to science, and see Mises talk about experience like it can’t tell us anything about praxeology, and they think that they are saying entirely different things, and would be super opposed to each other. But they are missing what I already said, that they defined the terms in different ways.
I think that you are doing the same thing.
I asked Neoclassical whether he was using the word “sensation” to mean experience of the public world, and he said yes. But I think that you are switching it up to mean experience either of the private world or the public world. How Hume used the word “experience”, yes, I think that experience is the only basis of science. But, how Mises used the word “experience”, no, I don’t think that experience is the only basis of science. So, in the same way, how you used the word “sensation”, yes, I think that sensation is the only basis of science, but, how Neoclassical used the word “sensation”, no, I don’t think that sensatian is the only basis of science."
You have this exactly correct as far as my position, and that is very illuminating regarding Mises and Hume.
OK, words are very hard to parse at this level of analysis. The word “sensation” auto-equivocates between, for lack of better wording, “public” and “private” sensation. If Neoclassical means public, then his position makes sense. I mean private. Or rather, I reject the public/private distinction as anything other than an explanatory device of convenience. And I suppose that’s the real core issue:
At this deep level of analysis, “reality” is just a term of convenience for that set of sensations that presents in more permanent and “high-detail” fashion, relatively consistently day after day, and where I can only control things by means of this physical body; unlike, say, “the fantasy world” or “dreams,” where sensations are not as permanent or high-detail, and I may actually be able to control things just by thinking something different.
“I am an empiricist in the tradition of Hume, but a rationalist in the tradition of Mises. I think that the same thing probably applies to you. How that is possible is that people just got tripped up by the words that each of them used, and didn’t get a good understanding of what they actually were saying, and they came up with terms to use to contrast them.”
Indeed, I am probably the same, although I am a “first-person empiricist” w.r.t. myself, and I believe that’s the only coherent position.
“How is it possible” for words to trip people up? Words just suck as explanatory devices, but they’re all we have - for now. In fact, in most all arguments of this nature I don’t think there would be any disagreement if the semantic issues were resolved. As your example of Mises and Hume shows.