Re: Conflict - Notre Dame and elsewhere

[Ted Winslow <egwinslow@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul wrote:

>> ===== Original Message From Tracy Lightcap <tlightcap@xxxxxxxxxxxx> =====
>> Freeman Dyson makes a useful distinction
>> between what he calls "Athenian" and "Manchesterian" science. For those
>> sciences that concern themselves with largely invariant entities that
>> aren't effected by historical processes Athenian science is useful.
>> Here general abstract theories can be built that lead to deductive
>> models testable by experimental methods. Classic physics, chemistry,
>> some aspects of the life sciences - all can be approached this way.
>> Manchesterian sciences, on the other hand, deal with variable entities
>> that are effected by historical processes.
>>
>
> What you are saying is that Athenian science deals with ergodic  processes --
> while  Manchesterian science involve nonergodic processes.
>
>
>
> I think you can see why focusing on the axiom of whether the science deals
> with an ergodic system (as mainstream classical economics does) or nonergodic
> processes (as Keynes's GT does) provides a precise taxonomic logical
> difference-- and is independent of whether one is dealing with classical
> physics or social science.  As I said a number of time, modern physicists
> recognize that some aspects of their discipline may be dealing with nonergodic
> processes.  --

You don't understand the ontological concept of "internal relations" Paul.
Marshall and Keynes, as I've just again been showing, make the distinction
to which Tracy points here.  The distinction is underpinned by this concept.

This is one reason the identification of Keynes's approach in the GT with
Einstein's is mistaken.  As is evident from the passage Gunnar frequently
quotes, Einstein treats the "laws" of nature as "fixed, eternal laws
regulating all behaviour".

"The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal
elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction.
There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on
sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them."  ('Principles of
Research', 1918 - reprinted in Albert Einstein - Ideas and Opinions, Dell
Publishing Company, Laurel Printing, 1976, p. 221)

This idea is explicitly rejected as a basis for social theory in general and
economics in particular by Marshall and Keynes on the ground that social
relations are "internal relations" - i.e. on the ground, as Marshall puts it
in the passage on method quoted and endorsed by Keynes, "man himself is in a
great measure a creature of circumstances and changes with them" (X, p.
196).  It is in this sense that social science deals with "variable entities
that are affected by historical processes."  Marshall himself pointed to the
implication elaborated in the passage from Whitehead I recently quoted that
this requires the treatment of "Law as immanent".

"As the [19th] century wore on ... people were getting clearer ideas as to
the nature of organic growth. They were learning that if the subject-matter
of a science passes through different stages of development, the laws which
apply to one stage will seldom apply without modification to others; the
laws of the science must have a development corresponding to that of the
things of which they treat.  The influence of this new notion gradually
spread to the sciences which relate to man; and showed itself in the works
of Goethe, Hegel, Comte and others."

Keynes endorses this understanding of the difference "between the objects
and methods of the mathematical sciences and those of the social sciences"
(X, p. 197) as demonstrative of "the profundity of his [Marshall's] insight
into the true character of his subject in its highest and most useful
developments" (X, p. 188).

He also explicitly rejects the "axiomatic approach" set out in the passage
from Einstein:

"Professor Planck, of Berlin, the famous originator of the Quantum Theory,
once remarked to me that in early life he had thought of studying economics,
but had found it too difficult!  Professor Planck could easily master the
whole corpus of mathematical economics in a few days.  He did not mean that!
But the amalgam of logic and intuition and the wide knowledge of the facts,
most of which are not precise, which is required for economic interpretation
in its highest form is, quite truly, overwhelmingly difficult for those
whose gift mainly consists in the power to imagine and pursue to their
furthest points the implications and prior conditions of comparatively
simple facts which are known with a high degree of precision." (X, p. 186)

Your "axiom" that agents in economic models must be assumed to be everywhere
and always "sensible" contradicts the Marshall/Keynes idea that "man himself
is in a great measure a creature of circumstances and changes with them",
i.e. the idea that social science deals with "variable entities that are
affected by historical processes."

As Whitehead also points out, this conception of law as immanent doesn't
invalidate induction; it justifies it while limiting its applicability.
Specifically it limits the generality of "laws" so that the farther into the
future are the events we wish to predict the more difficult prediction
becomes.  It's this that makes the long-run future likely to be "uncertain"
in Keynes's sense while at the same time allowing for rational induction and
forecasting  within shorter time horizons (as in Keynes's idea of rational
"speculation" in financial markets).

For the reasons elaborated by Whitehead, the concept of "internal relations"
is incompatible with the "axiomatic" and "taxonomic" approaches which you
continue to attribute to Keynes.  As reasoning weaves "novel compositions"
the "axioms" can be invalidated.  Precise meaning can't be maintained
because "self-identity" isn't maintained.  This doesn't rule out deductive
reasoning from assumptions; it limits its applicability.

The implications of the concept for "formal logic" in general are implicitly
pointed to in Keynes's essay on Frank Ramsey.  In A Treatise on Probability,
Keynes had attempted to ground the philosophy of probability in formal logic
via the idea of "logical probability relations".  Ramsey had criticized and
rejected this attempt.  In the essay, Keynes explicitly acknowledges that
Ramsey was right and in so doing accepts that "formal logic" is much more
limited in its scope than his Treatise argument had assumed.  In particular,
much of what Russell and the early Wittgenstein had identified with "formal
logic" had been shown to be dependent on the ontological premise of atomism.
Keynes doesn't mention Whitehead in this context.  Ramsey does, however. In
the essays Keynes is reviewing. Ramsey defends the key concept of
Whitehead's criticism of the "axiomatic approach" - "internal relations" -
from Russell's criticism (criticism which Russell himself subsequently
admitted was mistaken).

Whitehead makes this distinction a basis for criticizing what he claims is
the excessive reliance of science in general, natural as well as social, on
"deduction", a reliance pointed to in Keynes's footnote reference to Planck.
He does this, for instance, in his 1937 lectures on philosophy as recorded
in James Tobin's 1937 lecture notes.

"Misuse of elaborate edifices based on narrow premises & data has misled
mankind very much.  Use of that is scientific method - only way we can
advance, we can't know everything at once.  It is dogmatic use of data &
premises which is misuse.  Full consideration of data requires knowledge of
rest of world - omission can be fatal.  Part of phil. is development of
arguments based on selected data.  When you are reducing dialectic to a
minimum & trying to survey experience which enters conscious human exp.,
that is another part of phil.  Hence in these lectures, the side of
deduction subordinated to aim of adequacy to the data." (Lecture 31 4/27/37
p. 227}

This is the distinction between "formal logic" and "human logic" made by
Ramsey and endorsed by Keynes.  The ontological basis of the distinction is
spelled out in the passage on the role of deductive reasoning in philosophy
from Whitehead's Modes of Thought I've many times quoted.

This changed view of "formal logic" underpins Ramsey's idea of
"scholasticism" which Keynes also endorses both by quoting it as
exemplifying Ramsey's genius and by himself making use of it in various
contexts (including "My Early Beliefs" where he invokes it the context of
rejecting his own and others - in particular Moore's and Russell's - early
"analytic" philosophical views):

"scholasticism" - "the essence of which is treating what is vague as if it
were precise and trying to fit it into an exact logical category." (quoted
by Keynes in X, p. 343 and endorsed by him, among other places, in "My Early
Beliefs",  X, p. 440)

It's also connected by Keynes to economic analysis.  This is done in his
1933 lectures as recorded in the notes of students:

Nov. 6, 1933 Lecture

"The first thing I want to give you is not a very suitable topic for verbal
discourse: you could get it better from print.  That is the precise
definition of terms.
    "There is some question as to the utility and propriety of this
scholastic exercise of trying to define terms with great precision in a
subject like economics.  Marshall, e.g., does not make any effort to use his
terms precisely, but you get his meaning always from the richness of his
context.  This is much better than that specious precision which some
writers effect, because you are not misled by supposing the terms to be
precise, and you must supply the precision from the context and the whole of
the thought.  Another danger is that you make [may] 'precise everything
away' and be left with only a comparative poverty of meaning.
    "He quoted somebody (an early writer?) [Ramsey, X, 341] on the grey,
fuzzy, wooly monster in one's head, of imprecision.  In a complicated
subject the thing to do is to avoid wooliness on the one hand, and
scholasticism on the other.  In economics one's thinking is perforce not
truly by generalization, but rather by sample.  So you must always see
whether the imperfections in your sample case are relevant or irrelevant to
your conclusions.
    "Even in mathematics, when it is a matter of original work, you do not
think always in precise terms.  The precise use of language comes at a late
stage in the development of one's thoughts.  You can think accurately and
effectively long before you can so to speak photograph your thought.  A not
quite perfect epitome of this would be to say that when you adopt perfectly
precise language you are trying to express yourself for the benefit of those
who are incapable of thought.
    "The reasons for being scholastic are two:
1.  If you are not precise, those of your opponents who are capable of
following your thought but do not choose to do so, will demonstrate that
your expression is bad instead of that your thought is bad, and they will
discredit your thought to some extent when it doesn't merit it.
2, The effort of trying to be scholastic does disclose gaps and
imperfections in your thought, and thus helps you to satisfy yourself that
your fluffy monster is really pretty good.  The value is to yourself rather
than to the reader.
    "The first of these is a 'low' reason, and the second the high or
important one.
    "Precision in economic thought implies the possibility of dealing with
homogeneous [sic] units of production, and these reduce to two, namely Money
Values, and Quantities of Employment (also in terms of money.)" (G6-8 in the
notes of students transcribed by Rymes)

The "taxonomic approach" which you claim is the foundation of Keynes's
economics is "scholasticism" in this sense.  It's explicitly rejected by
Keynes.

Ted