Sebastien
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Posts posted by Sebastien
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Doug Morris,
The reason you are not going to win this argument
is because you are defending a position that is not in accordance with
Objectivist theory.
If you want to win this argument, you need to base your premises
on Objectivist theory.
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Doug Morris,
That is according to mainstream economics,
not Objectivist economics.
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TruthSeeker946
If you are interested in this line of debate,
you've actually touched upon the fundamental theme found in Marx's Capital Volume I.
Marx argues that workers consent to their own exploitation.
Whether he is right that workers are exploited, I think he's not.
But this debate has been raging for more than 100 years.
Great question, my friend.
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TruthSeeker946
If you are interested in this line of debate,
you've actually touched upon the fundamental theme found in Marx's Capital Volume I.
Marx argues that workers consent to their own exploitation.
Whether he is right that workers are exploited, I think he's not.
But this debate has been raging for more than 100 years.
Great question, my friend.
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If you go to Hawaii, you'll notice that prices of everything are higher.
If you go to Missouri, prices of cigarettes are lower.
Prices keep pace with ground rent.
End of argument.
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Doug Morris,
If you don't stop harassing me I'm going to report you.
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What you are articulating is called economic determinism.
Economic determinism is that every action of an economic agent is predictable
and follows definite laws.
Economic determinism is not at home in Objectivism.
Objectivists maintain that individuals have free will, and their behavior can only be examined in retrospect, not predicted.
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Doug Morris,
I'm not interested in having this conversation with you.
What fault do you see in my argument, specifically?
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Doug Morris,
You'll notice that in my style of argument, I never make things too personal.
Ideas are what we are discussing. Can we stick with ideas and try to find agreement?
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Doug Morris,
If I am making a generalization about conservatives being more friendly to talk to than liberals,
am I forcing myself to be correct about every instance?
Or can I speak with statistical confidence based on my experience?
Obviously, from your strong argumentative tone in your responses to my posts,
Objectivists are not friendly with each other either.
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The Federal Government guarantees that if you want to participate in the cash economy, your cash will serve as legal tender.
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Government does not force anyone to accept using paper money. When was the last time a government official pointed a gun to your head and said "You must use U.S. dollars."
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Doug Morris,
I would offer that you are correct about the implication of fiat currency, but not the definition.
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The empirical data collected since WWII suggests that people have spent extra money on their children's college education, not on commodities.
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Doug Morris,
You are assuming that people spend extra money, rather than saving it or investing it.
This is not self-evident as deterministic consumer behavior, nor is it empirically supported.
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Boydstun,
A very interesting and illuminating comparison of early Dewey and Late Dewey. Nice work!
I come to this discussion as an Objectivist with a Hegelian attitude, although I am not an idealist.
Whereas Idealists posit the unity of subject and object in reality, I posit the unity of subject and object according to the interpretive horizon of intelligible shared principles of rationality and tradition.
In other words, unity of subject and object is how we typically behave in our linguistic interactions with one another, even though science tells us that there really is a real world that exists independently of our thought and perception.
However, as much as I differentiate myself from Idealists, I must put my foot down in one regard.
Everyone knows that before you can be a good doctor, you must first study medicine.
To be a good lawyer, you must first study law.
Would there be a reality of good doctors and good lawyers without first their being their study and knowledge of medicine and law?
Clearly the social reality that objectively exists cannot be separated from the knowledge that makes it possible.
The Hegelian dialectic does therefore give us insight into the mediated structure of reality. Reality as we typically experience it is thoroughly saturated by mediations of knowledge.
Dewey was partly right before and he was partly right after. He just didn't reconcile his two different ways of thinking.
1. In my opinion, percepts can indeed be thoroughly cognitive. But this only becomes evident or self-evident if you engage in a lot of studying and then go out into the world only to find that the same world you knew yesterday has been magically transformed into something else today.
2. Percepts are also organic responses. But agency can play a role as well. Depending on our choices of reading, our organic perception will see different things.
What do you think about this truism: the more we read the more we see.
If the truism is not self-evident, then take for granted Ms. Rand's comparison in Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology:
Ms. Rand compares mathematical cognition with conceptual cognition.
They both have the same purpose: to expand the range of man's consciousness beyond what is immediately perceivable.
She never says that perception is not cognition, or that cognition is not perception. She says instead that cognition is not immediate perception.
In some cases, however, it might as well be immediate perception, given the right amount of study and concentration of mental contents.
Sincerely,
Sebastien
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We might be able to combine a Kantian Transcendental Deduction with Hegelian Phenomenology.
But honestly, I think Ms. Rand might have the answer we are looking for.
Capitalism the Unknown Ideal, "The Roots of War."
Rand talks about modern Europeans not having outgrown their tribal mentality.
Simple, but I think a good place to start.
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However if we want to take a Kantian approach, this is the general structure.
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But as for a Kantian understanding,
we need the following A Priori Transcendental deduction:
1. Time is necessary for history to be recollected.
2. If time is necessary for history to be recollected, then people do not know ahead of time the history they are making.
3. If people do not know ahead of time the history they are making, then something other than foreknowledge must be responsible for the actions people take as time passes.
What is necessary for people to act without foreknowledge?
There are several possible candidates:
Unified leadership
Ideas
Courage
Morale
Habit
Tradition.
Which of these candidates do you think is most responsible for German war behavior before and during WWI?
I do not have enough knowledge to complete the Transcendental Deduction.
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Hi Boydstun,
If you know that 100,000 copies of The New Testament and Thus Spoke Zarathustra were both widely disseminated and also equally widely read, phenomenology can give us some tools.
All we need to do is closely read those same texts and also read work of scholars who have kept track of the changing interpretations of the two texts, zeroing in on what the current interpretations were before and during the war.
TSZ for instance was widely misread for a long time, as Nietzsche himself predicted it would be.
The Ubermensche was supposed to be a symbol of heroic redirection of the cultural inheritance of Christianity and enlightenment rationalism. Not a justification for nationalism, colonialism, and imperialism.
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As with Austrian Economics,
a well-designed thought experiment can be evidence enough.
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Ms. Rand herself uses weak evidence to make a strong point.
"Imagine you rob a house and the government you pay for says you didn't rob that house."
(Paraphrased)
Actually, the real point is that anarchists tend not to have strong arguments in the first place,
so that it is easy for a Randian minarchist to win the debate, even with weak (even anecdotal) evidence.
I've studied quite a bit of Anarchist literature in my youth.
It's typically concerned with lamentations about why the state is so bad.
Meanwhile, that same state is securing your right to purchase and read anarchist literature
without some private government accusing you of being a seditious dissident and capturing you
and keeping you in prison until the next government comes along and murders you.
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Luke77 may have initiated a side of an argument with less evidence,
but that does not mean no evidence.
Luke77's point about anarchism being a floating abstraction is actually strong.
The evidence comes from either logic or experience, take your pick.
Luke77 provides the logic, the French Revolution provides the experience.
Not much more needs to be argued.
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I know Ms. Rand's minarchist state is attractive,
but I've never heard or read an Objectivist say that it is elegant.
In mathematics, we typically approve of a proof if it is true and also elegant.
Personally, I know Ms. Rand's theory justifying a minarchist state is true.
But isn't a Randian minarchist state also elegant?
Military.
Police.
Law Courts.
No nonsense.
What do you all think?
Inflation, GDP and M4
in Economics
Posted
If I am acting out of self-interest (which I am),
then make a prediction.
What am I going to say or do next?