Re: Falsifiability and the law of value

[Ian Murray <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "andie nachgeborenen" <andie_nachgeborenen@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2003 8:22 AM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Falsifiability and the law of value


> This was unnecessary. First of all, the reasons that
> have motivated most skeptics who have thought about
> the matter to reject the LOV or LTV -- like me -- are
> not that it is an "unscientific notion" that cannot be
> "falsified," but that it is  a bad scientific notion
> whose time is up bewcause it has not proved to have
> any explanatory value or theoretical use, other than
> employing a shrinking group of true believers
> increasingly arcane defenses. Second, only the crudest
> and most mechanical sort of Popperianism (not
> Popper's) would proceed proposition by propostion
> through a body of theory, testing the "scientificity"
> of each independently of others, so this would be a
> really dumb objection if somewone were to make it.
> Third, no one has. Everyone involved, except Ian, who
> rejects the vulgar interpretation of Popperianism but
> thinks is it is really important to engage with straw
> men, acknowledges that there is no alternative to
> evaluating theories as wholes, which means that it's
> no prob from a demarcation criterion pov if a bit of a
> theory that does important work isn't falsifiable on
> its own. If it's not falsifiable in the context of the
> wholed theory, as with notions like "Oedipus complex,"
> that's a problem.
>
> jks

=======================

Please don't conjecture that I hold a view which I don't. How many straw
men did you deal with before you came to the Rorty-ization that they were
straw men? The problem with your sfw is the attitude it conveys; disdain
and contempt when disagreement occurs is counterproductive to
communication. It's part of the reason 'regular' folks hate many
scientists, arrogance is a public bad.


Ian