Property rights are coercive

[liberty_student]

Not if they are like the other “responses”.

[ClaytonB]

@Daniel Kuehn

Epistemology will give you bullshit conclusions if you’re willing to wave your hands at infinite regress problems. A lot of people who are just playing logic games think they are doing epistemologically sound work. Epistemology largely should have stopped with Socrates: “the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing”.

Useful understanding is something we can work with, though. I suppose useful understanding is just providing a rational explanation of the world that bears a close correspondence to the behavior of the world you observe and can dependable explain unexpected or future phenomena as well. It may even end up being “true”, which would be nice as well. “True as far as we can tell” works pretty well though.

We all already have an epistemology whether we want one or not. Our brain has a lot of hardwired epistemological (and ontological) circuitry in it, so I find the out-of-hand dismissal of epistemology to be… odd. Of course, I can agree that a lot of the more grandiose epistemological ambitions around trying to find truth-with-a-capital-T are fruitless and we can explain in clear and concise detail why this is the case but there’s no need to go all Zen about it. Steven Pinker explains here the innate theories of physics and sociology which the human brain has hardwired within it.

It turns out that our intuitive theories of physics break down when extended beyond the range in which our corporeal body can interact with the physical world and the same thing happens with our intuitive theories of sociology when extended beyond the range of familial and clan-like interactions. This partly explains why people are so bad at reasoning about economics and public policy. But we have access to something more than our intuitive theories of physics or sociology because we have a prefrontal cortex… that is, we can purposefully engage in careful, formal reasoning. While our prefrontal cortext won’t carry us to nirvana - sorry to disappoint the truth-with-a-capital-T types … - it does help us escape some of the mistakes in our hardwired theories of physics and sociology that arise when we push our experience beyond the boundaries in which those hardwired theories evolved.

Clayton -

[Daniel_Kuehn]

I’ll take a look at the video - thanks.

That we have a hard-wired ontology and epistemology sounds right, but I’m not sure how good such an ontology or epistemology would be. It WOULD be good for getting around in the world, I imagine (I see you’re getting into this as I read your second paragraph!). It would be a useful fiction, in other words.

Certainly there’s value to thinking seriously about what we want to say constitutes justified or unjustified claims. If you want to call that “epistemology” I’m fine with that.

[ClaytonB]

@Daniel Kuehn

I’ll take a look at the video - thanks.

That we have a hard-wired ontology and epistemology sounds right, but I’m not sure how good such an ontology or epistemology would be. It WOULD be good for getting around in the world, I imagine (I see you’re getting into this as I read your second paragraph!). It would be a useful fiction, in other words.

Certainly there’s value to thinking seriously about what we want to say constitutes justified or unjustified claims. If you want to call that “epistemology” I’m fine with that.

You’ll find the video is well worth your time… Steven Pinker is literally my hero.

Clayton -

[Dondoolee]

I’m interested in methodology, not epistemology.

If you have the time what are your thoughts on this:

https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/lachmann-on-keynes-and-methodology/18793

[liberty_student]

@Clayton

This partly explains why people are so bad at reasoning about economics and public policy.

I don’t have this problem, and I am pretty sure I qualify in your terms as “people”.

Gross generalizations are a waste of time in discussion, I advise you avoid them.

[Phaedros]

Lol I’m sorry but how did they determine the content of sociological and physical theories “hardwired” in the brain? All they are looking at are electrical signals.

[ClaytonB]

@Phaedros

Lol I’m sorry but how did they determine the content of sociological and physical theories “hardwired” in the brain? All they are looking at are electrical signals.

Watch the lecture. They’ve learned by studying how we use language.

Clayton -