Re: Harvard rejects alternative eco course

[Clifford Poirot <cpoirot@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Since this question has now come up again-I will make an extreme pest of
myself and ask one more time, since no one has been willing to give an
answer thus far:

How do you know when you have the correct, most fundamental axiom, and how
do you justify the use of a closed system of deductive logic to make "truth"
statements about the real economy?

-----Original Message-----
From: J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. [mailto:rosserjb@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 3:42 PM
To: Paul Davidson
Cc: pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Harvard rejects alternative eco course


     Simply avoid making logically inconsistent remarks,
like A is true and A is not true (I am ruling out intuitionistic
math here).  It is not inconsistent to say that A is true
some of the time, under these circumstances, but not
true some of the rest of the time, under these other
circumstances.  None of this requires laying out a
formal axiomatic substructure for formal deduction.
Barkley Rosser
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Davidson" <pdavidson@xxxxxxx>
To: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>
Cc: <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 3:53 PM
Subject: Re: Harvard rejects alternative eco course


> At 01:27 PM 4/15/03 -0400, you wrote:
> >      If "rigor" means a formal axiomatic approach a la
> >Debreu, then it is part of the problem.  If by "rigor" one
> >simply means being clear about what oen is assuming
> >and being logically consistent in one's arguments, then
> >I do not think it is part of the problem.
>
>
> I fear, Barkley, that to many, the above will be making a distinction
> without a diffeence.  Can you explain how you can be logically consistent
> without using a"formal axiomatic base"?
>
> Paul
>
>
> Paul Davidson
> Editor, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics
> Economics Department - 523 SMC
> University of Tennessee
> Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-0550
> phone # (865) 974-4221
> fax # (865) 974-1686
> home phone  (865) 692-0802
> http://econ.bus.utk.edu/davidsonextra/Davidson.html
>
>
>
>
>