Re: Response to Gonzalo

[ROSSERJB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx id <01HPSMPDI65C8ZE6TC@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; Wed, 26 Apr 1995 12:43:01 -0500 (EST)]

     This point has been made before, and was made
in New York, but I guess it needs to be repeated as
Paul Davidson continues to declare that the "generality"
of a model is a function of the number of axioms it
uses.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.
     What matters, and is not easy to measure, is the
generality of the axioms THEMSELVES.  Thus Paul has
a small number of axioms, but some, e.g. non-ergodicity
(not in Keynes, BTW, at least not in the form presented
by Paul), are very restricting.
     An analogy is to the law of gravity.  Its usual
form is to assume a vacuum, one axiom (really just an
assumption, not an axiom, for the philosphical purists).
An alternative would be state it in a more general form
allowing for some limits or conditions of atmospheric
pressure, wind velocity, temperature, etc., each of these
constituting a distinct assumption.  But the sum of these
will be more general than the one-axiom vacuum model.
Barkley Rosser
James Madison University