[PEN-L:11687] Re: Empiricism

[Mathew Forstater <forstate@xxxxxxxx>]

Sam- You may be interested in my paper on "Working Backwards: Instrumental
Analysis as a Policy Discovery Procedure" that argues for a "working
backwards" approach to economic planning.  If you send me your snail mail
address, I will send you an offprint, and I would greatly appreciate your
comments if you have the time and willingness to share criticisms, etc.
Norwood Hanson's work, mentioned in your post, is cited in the paper, along
with Polya's work on heuristics, Michael Polanyi's tacit knowledge, Peirce's
abduction or retroduction, and other work along those lines, only I am
applying it to economic planning instead of solving a mathematical proof or
scientific discovery.  We begin from where we want to go and work backwards,
trying to discover possible paths connecting a desired future to our present
state. This is what the greek geometers called "analysis" and Polya calls
this planning (he calls it many other things, too, like heuristics, etc.).
Once we discover possible paths we then move to "synthesis" which is
implementation or execution of the plan, working forward from the present,
following one of the paths toward the desired future.

mf



Sam Pawlett wrote:

> I don't think there is another way of proceeding other than what is
> being called 'empiricism' here.Outside of math and logic, you can only
> look at the facts or
> evidence and try and draw inductive inferences from them building up to
> explanation of causal patterns. You need a certain amount of empirical
> evidence before you can even formulate a hypothesis let alone test it.
> All theories to some extent must be based on empirical observation. Even
> if one believes in knowledge a priori, such knowledge would only account
> for a miniscule amount of what we do or can know.
>   It is a mistake to counterpose theory and facts since all observation
> of the facts depends on already assimilated theory. The famous example
> by N.R. Hanson was an x-ray. When I look at an x-ray I see gray and
> white bloches, a doctor looks at an x-ray and sees a fractured tibula.
> Same with data and causal patterns in the world.
>   Much of "theory" in the social sciences is not theory in the same
> sense that evolution by natural selection is a theory because you cannot
> predict anything from "theories" in the social sciences-- its just too
> complicated with too many variables. The best one can do is ex post
> causal explanation. Further, theories in social science will always be
> underdetermined i.e. multiple explanations are true of the same
> hypothesis.
>    Much of social sciences consists of starting with your conclusion and
> working backwards trying to get the 'facts' to fit into your theory.
> Especially in economics, theorists start with what they are trying to
> prove and then go to work. The political conclusions are drawn at the
> outset.
> Sam Pawlett