E. R. Olovetto:'Blue' is what 'blue' means to those communicating. A typical "English blue" is not a typical "Japanese Blue". Japanese people speaking English won't mean the same thing as you when they say, "The light is blue".
My only point was that a language definition can't be empiricized, at least in this case.
February 17 - 1600 - Giordano Bruno is burnt alive by the catholic church. Aquinas : "much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."
E. R. Olovetto: I don't think I ever said language is not conventional,
I don't think I ever said language is not conventional,
That comment wasn't directed at you, it was directed at the inevitable response that is coming (even though i've already answered it, I'm sure it will come anyway)... "But language isn't conventional! Blue doesn't just mean whatever anybody thinks it means!"
and if I did please forgive me. My care factor is plummeting and I regret stepping into this debate.Something still seems fishy about blue being XYZ wavelength because ABC people say so. You guys go have your playtime. All I request is this dictionary wavelength definition of blue.
You guys go have your playtime. All I request is this dictionary wavelength definition of blue.
I would like to add to that, since "blue" has been in the English language since at least the 16th century (it may have been spelled differently), I would like to see such definition constructed from pre-17th century sources, please. Thank you, I won't be holding my breath.
Clayton -
Juan:My only point was that a language definition can't be empiricized, at least in this case. I'm afraid I don't fully grasp your point. If you feel like further explaining it, please do.
Empirical facts do not exist, uninterpreted, as meaningful. When an ancient human stepped out of his mud hut and looked toward the sky, he saw the Sun - this was empirical observation, empirical fact. But when he communicated with his fellow ancient humans about the objective, empirical fact they all had experienced by virtue of having looked in the sky, they did not mean at all the same thing we mean when we use the word "Sun." When you and I use that word, we mean a thermodynamic star located about 93 million miles distant from the planet Earth about which our planet orbits, and which rotates into view for about half of the planet's 24-hour rotation period. In other words, along with the changes in human knowledge has come a change in the meaning of the word "Sun" which, if language was empirical, would remain exactly the same thing in the minds of humans today as it did in the minds of humans 20,000 years ago. When we speak about the physical world, we are translating empirical facts (brute, uninterpreted sensory experience) into a different domain, the domain of human language. Everything about which we speak exists in this (non-empirical) domain. Natural language which is about the physical world is trapped from ever touching the physical world itself, that is, from having a 1-to-1 correspondence with the physical world. Everything we say about the physical world is a translation from the physical and, therefore, not empirical.
When an ancient human stepped out of his mud hut and looked toward the sky, he saw the Sun - this was empirical observation, empirical fact. But when he communicated with his fellow ancient humans about the objective, empirical fact they all had experienced by virtue of having looked in the sky, they did not mean at all the same thing we mean when we use the word "Sun. When you and I use that word, we mean a thermodynamic star located about 93 million miles distant from the planet Earth about which our planet orbits, and which rotates into view for about half of the planet's 24-hour rotation period."
and meanwhile it's still the Sun
the object, Sun, isn't changing it's nature, it's our knowledge of the nature of the Sun that can change. and if the nature of the Sun changes, then our knowledge of such a change would be precise to include such a change in the nature of what the Sun truly is. no matter what it's still the Sun.
"I used to see a mountain as a mountain.. Thereafter.. when I saw a mountain; lo! it was not a mountain.. yet now of final tranquillity: I see a mountain just as a mountain as I used to.." - Master Yuan; molon labe
Juan:I'm not sure what your point is, Clayton. When an ancient human stepped out of his mud hut and looked toward the sky, he saw the Sun - this was empirical observation, empirical fact. But when he communicated with his fellow ancient humans about the objective, empirical fact they all had experienced by virtue of having looked in the sky, they did not mean at all the same thing we mean when we use the word "Sun. When you and I use that word, we mean a thermodynamic star located about 93 million miles distant from the planet Earth about which our planet orbits, and which rotates into view for about half of the planet's 24-hour rotation period." I don't know the distance to the sun - it seems you do. However that changes nothing with respect to the usage of the word "sun" and what we mean by it. And the same is true for your hypothetical ancient human. The fact that we have more knowledge today doesn't change the objective nature of things. Language is just a tool which can be used when describing nature - I'm not sure what further conclusions you want to draw from those facts.
If language were empirical, then the meaning of "Sun" would be as static as the Sun itself. This is not the case because language is not the physical world itself, or even a perfect image of it. Hence, language is not empirical, it is representational.
If language were empirical, then the meaning of "Sun" would be as static as the Sun itself.
Hence, language is not empirical, it is representational.
Juan:If language were empirical, then the meaning of "Sun" would be as static as the Sun itself. Sorry, I still don't see your point. What do you mean by "language not being empirical" ? For instance, it's an empirical fact that language exists and works when describing reality.
OK, the fact that an apple falls when dropped from a height is an empirical fact. What this means is that you, me or anybody else can go out and drop an apple from a height and see it fall. I don't need to "take your word for it" as I do for how you feel when looking an Van Gogh's Starry Night. Empirical things can be objective. Subjective things are not empirical, at least, not for anyone other than the subject. The meaning of "Sun" is not like dropping an apple from a height to see if it falls. It's not simply a matter of looking up in the dictionary what the word means because a) words are antecedent to dictionaries and b) infinite regress.
The meaning of "sun" is indeed static in that it's the name for an object that seems to have been out there for some time now.
Well, if you lived 2500 years ago in the Mediterranean region, odds are you may have thought of a brightly lit deity named Apollo riding behind a chariot across the sky, through the Zodiac, when you thought of the Sun. Today, you think of the Sun as you would any other star, just a lot closer to Earth than any other star. The meaning of "Sun" is radically different. This should go without saying.
OK, the fact that an apple falls when dropped from a height is an empirical fact. What this means is that you, me or anybody else can go out and drop an apple from a height and see it fall. I don't need to "take your word for it" as I do for how you feel when looking an Van Gogh's Starry Night. Empirical things can be objective. Subjective things are not empirical, at least, not for anyone other than the subject.
The meaning of "Sun" is not like dropping an apple from a height to see if it falls.
Well, if you lived 2500 years ago in the Mediterranean region, odds are you may have thought of a brightly lit deity named Apollo riding behind a chariot across the sky, through the Zodiac, when you thought of the Sun.
Today, you think of the Sun as you would any other star, just a lot closer to Earth than any other star. The meaning of "Sun" is radically different. This should go without saying.
Juan:OK, the fact that an apple falls when dropped from a height is an empirical fact. What this means is that you, me or anybody else can go out and drop an apple from a height and see it fall. I don't need to "take your word for it" as I do for how you feel when looking an Van Gogh's Starry Night. Empirical things can be objective. Subjective things are not empirical, at least, not for anyone other than the subject. Not really true. I can put you in a torture rack and know that you will feel pain.
OK, I don't see what that has to do with this discussion. I never denied that. Pain is still subjectively experienced.
The meaning of "Sun" is not like dropping an apple from a height to see if it falls. So ? The meaning of sun is objective nonetheless. It's not objective as in being a physical thing out there.
Right, meaning is the result of interpretation. Interpretation is a process that occurs in your brain. Brains (human brains, anyway) have the amazing feature of being subjective, that is, your brain is inextricably tied to your subjective consiousness. While our interpretations objectively correlate to one degree or another (when a group of language speakers are taken as a collective), that does not imply that interpretation itself is an objective process.
However the word sun is objectively tied to objective facts. If you pointed at the sun and said "that's the moon" you'd be objectively wrong.
I agree. But if you pointed at the Sun 2500 years ago and said "that's a star" you'd be objectively wrong in exactly the same sense. Which is why language is not empirical.
Changes in knowledge have nothing to do with language per se.
Nonsense. Language conveys knowledge and is defined by knowledge. Humans living today are not appreciably more intelligent than when modern man first emerged 300,000 years ago, yet our vocabulary is orders of magnitude larger. Our vocabulary grows in proportion with our knowledge.
excuse me for reposting this from earlier in the thread but I added a significant edit.
Lilburne: wilderness:but since the "oughtism" group wants to continue denying that an object's truth can be intellectually apprehended wilderness, Contra GAP's tactical flip, I think "oughtism" is much more fitting for your side of the debate, because it is your side that sees "ought"s where we say there are none.
wilderness:but since the "oughtism" group wants to continue denying that an object's truth can be intellectually apprehended
wilderness,
Contra GAP's tactical flip, I think "oughtism" is much more fitting for your side of the debate, because it is your side that sees "ought"s where we say there are none.
Meanwhile you spent most of your posts in this thread (and others) explaining how it's all subjective, nothing is objective, and we "ought" to listen to how Hume feels even though Hume can only say how he feels but not what object is relating in value to such a feeling. I haven't read Hume, so I'm going by your posts, Plauche anaylsis, and Rommen's (and other's cited from both of them) that Hume, even according to you, rejects the intellect and reason. It's only about how Hume feels. So Hume can't tell what something actually is - which regresses into me wondering how Hume can even understand his own feelings. It's perpetual. It was you agreeing with Clayton that blue can't be objectively defined as X frequency.
Edit: I believe this discussion began in the 'Natural Law' thread some time ago (the actual name of the thread escapes me, but I provide the link) in which Rothbard pointed out Hume's problematic philosophy too (and Rothbard again cites more people that have refuted Hume in the same way in that very quote given). That quote in Rothbard's book (The Ethics of Liberty I believe) in which was pasted on that thread also showed how Hume is inconsistent in his own philosophy for Hume took a position and by the end of the book, as the quote of Rothbard notes I believe, Hume had to usurp his own position on objective justice for he saw the flaw in his own philosophy eventually. Yet Hume didn't, as far as I understand, further anaylize his own change in heart upon his own position. This quote I remember vividly lead to a stampede in which you yourself started a thread coming up with a term 'Rothbardians' as your objection to Rothbard's denouncing of Hume's position also had you defending Hume. So are all these people wrong even Hume himself in having to adjust his own philosophy in latter works (even within the same book) or is Hume still being strawmanned by all these people that include Plauche, Veatch (spelling?), Rommen, Rothbard, and numerous others cited that speak out against Hume's position? Or is it as I've learned: that Hume has actually strawmanned Natural Law in a unnecessary arbitrary institution of a so called is-ought gap? of course you know the answers I have to these questions
And then you blogged how Rothbard denies desire and happiness. Yet I quote Rothbard explicitly discussing happiness in the "Ethics of Liberty". Also from Aristotle to Aquinas to Locke to Hutcheson to Jefferson to Rothbard and numerous in-between, including Long from what I gather (I haven't read his books), has not only mentioned happiness but some have written long enough upon this eudiamonia subject that recently in the forum this has been discussed at great length on how passions are not denied, but embraced by the (neo-)Aristotle position without, as Hume does, denying the intellect and metaphysics role, etc.... And now agent-relative, objectivity has been further brought up to show the depth to what this position holds.
Which is why he ascribes the label to people who claim to see none (autism/oughtism.)
To darkness I condemn you...
This is not really true. An axiom is a proposition for which no other argument is given. Usually, because no other argument can be given. Showing that some proposition must be assumed within a particular argumentative framework does nothing to prove the axiom to be true. Else, the axiom were not an axiom (it is really a theorem based on more fundamental arguments). Axioms, in other words, are supposed to be those things which are "self-evident", not those things which are "irrefutable." I find both Hoppe's and Rothbard's reliance on this "presuppositional" approach distinctly unsatisfying.
Then call them something else. And I don't see why being 'self-evident' precludes something from being 'irrefutable'.
But this is only a very weak link since many things that are uncontroversially immoral (e.g. rape) are not necessarily "bad" from the evolutionary point of view. Reproduction without resort to rape may be more efficient than reproduction via rape but reproduction via rape is better (from evolution's PoV) than no reproduction at all. So, deriving ethics from reason is very dangerous, leads to obviously wrong conclusions, entails collectivist morality, and does not even square with our intuition.
How does the "so" even follow? Who cares what is better from "evolution's" POV? Are you discussing mindless biological automata?
wombatron: Adam Knott:Here, I believe you miss something important. There are at least two possible approaches to ethical phenomena. Ethics can be considered a discipline of shoulds and oughts, or ethics can be considered a value-free science of ethical phenomena, the same as economics, but with ethical rather than catallactic (market) phenomena as its object. When ethics is considered a value-free science of ethical phenomena, then whatever Austrian subjectivism says generally, it says about each of the particular realms of inquiry of Austrian subjectivism. And thus your statement above is not entirely accurate. I should have specified that I was talking about normative ethics, as opposed to descriptive ethics (which I believe is what you are talking about in your second approach).
Adam Knott:Here, I believe you miss something important. There are at least two possible approaches to ethical phenomena. Ethics can be considered a discipline of shoulds and oughts, or ethics can be considered a value-free science of ethical phenomena, the same as economics, but with ethical rather than catallactic (market) phenomena as its object. When ethics is considered a value-free science of ethical phenomena, then whatever Austrian subjectivism says generally, it says about each of the particular realms of inquiry of Austrian subjectivism. And thus your statement above is not entirely accurate.
I should have specified that I was talking about normative ethics, as opposed to descriptive ethics (which I believe is what you are talking about in your second approach).
If you mean descriptive ethics in the sense in which Menger and Mises pursued descriptive economics, then yes. This pursuit concerns the invariant regularities of/in human action. As ethical actions are acts, then this type of descriptive ethics seeks to ascertain the invariant regularities specifically of ethical actions, and conceive such regularities as exact laws, in the same way descriptive economics does with regard to economic actions. Of course, this type of descriptive approach was termed praxeology by Mises.
"It would be preposterous to assert apodictically that science will never succeed in developing a praxeological aprioristic doctrine of political organization..." (Mises, UF, p.98)
Jon Irenicus: This is not really true. An axiom is a proposition for which no other argument is given. Usually, because no other argument can be given. Showing that some proposition must be assumed within a particular argumentative framework does nothing to prove the axiom to be true. Else, the axiom were not an axiom (it is really a theorem based on more fundamental arguments). Axioms, in other words, are supposed to be those things which are "self-evident", not those things which are "irrefutable." I find both Hoppe's and Rothbard's reliance on this "presuppositional" approach distinctly unsatisfying. Then call them something else. And I don't see why being 'self-evident' precludes something from being 'irrefutable'.
Rothbard tries, in this passage, to say "A is irrefutable, therefore, A is self-evident." Not only does this make A not an axiom, it just doesn't follow that something is self-evident if it is irrefutable in a given argumentative framework. None of Hoppe's or Rothbard's arguments work if the axiom of universalizability is rejected, but that would be the first thing that a coercive arguer would reject, "I can coerce you but you can't coerce me, f--- universalizability." This is, in fact, exactly the argument that the State makes when it drags you into court and charges you with virtual offenses against itself or other virtual entities. You dare not defend yourself from the aggressions of the State because that is a "crime", but the State has every right to defend itself from classes of aggression that it has invented out of thin air, e.g. smoking pot in your own home. The state is not accepting the universalizability axiom, so trying to argue with the agents of the State that "by virtue of dragging me to court to have a verbal argument, you are agreeing that I own my own body" yada yada yada is a laughable exercise in logical and social futility. They already acknowledge that the same rules do not apply to them as apply to you, that is, they freely admit that they reject the axiom of universalizability.
It is not an axiom that one must be "in support of life" whatever that would mean and this passage is a pretty disappointing departure from Rothbard's usually unflinching intellectual rigour, in my view.
But this is only a very weak link since many things that are uncontroversially immoral (e.g. rape) are not necessarily "bad" from the evolutionary point of view. Reproduction without resort to rape may be more efficient than reproduction via rape but reproduction via rape is better (from evolution's PoV) than no reproduction at all. So, deriving ethics from reason is very dangerous, leads to obviously wrong conclusions, entails collectivist morality, and does not even square with our intuition. How does the "so" even follow?
How does the "so" even follow?
Reason --> Rape is not wrong (rape maximizes the "flourishing" of life by virtue of guaranteeing human survival in certain circumstances)
Rape is not wrong --> Clearly incorrect
Therefore, "reason" leads to clearly ethically incorrect conclusions. The whole idea of measuring ethics by the "flourishing of life" is blatantly collectivist reasoning. I don't see how anyone can miss it, especially Rothbard.
Who cares what is better from "evolution's" POV?
I don't know if anyone cares or not, but evolution is what has programmed our ethical patterns. People generally do not murder not because it is "unreasonable" to murder or solely because of the prospect of retaliation. People generally do not murder because we are not the descendants of species that heavily cannibalized themselves. That is, species which heavily cannibalize themselves tend to go extinct, so cannibalism (and its corrolary, murder) is relatively absent from nature. I was pointing this out to note the sense in which our ethics are determined by reason. They are also weakly determined by physics, as well, but I don't think anyone here is arguing for deriving "good" and "bad" from Newton's Laws of Motion or Einstein's General Relativity.
The state is not accepting the universalizability axiom, so trying to argue with the agents of the State that "by virtue of dragging me to court to have a verbal argument, you are agreeing that I own my own body" yada yada yada is a laughable exercise in logical and social futility. They already acknowledge that the same rules do not apply to them as apply to you, that is, they freely admit that they reject the axiom of universalizability.
But the point is whether the state can do so and remain credible, i.e. whether it can logically justify this. Perhaps it could but the onus would be on proponents of initiatory aggression to show why the same rules don't apply to them.
That only works if you conflate flourishing with survival, and not even survival but genetic reproduction.
Only if flourishing is not relativised to the individual (e.g. saying the life of the intellectual is best for all and the only way to flourish, regardless of the individual's talents, interests, history &c.) Saying humans act (i.e. behave purposefully) is not any less collectivist than that; both flourishing in the abstract and teleology refer to general facts about human action. If you want to comprehend eudaemonism I'd avoid Rothbard and go straight to a neo-Aristotelian work like Norms of Liberty.
wilderness:Meanwhile you spent most of your posts in this thread (and others) explaining how it's all subjective, nothing is objective
I never said nothing is objective; I only say that value is never objective.
wilderness:we "ought" to listen to how Hume feels
Hume makes reasoned arguments about feelings. He doesn't "feel" his theory concerning human feeling.
wilderness:Hume, even according to you, rejects the intellect and reason. It's only about how Hume feels. So Hume can't tell what something actually is - which regresses into me wondering how Hume can even understand his own feelings. It's perpetual.
You don't understand. Hume does not reject intellect and reason altogether. He rejects them as the source of human morals.
wilderness:That quote in Rothbard's book (The Ethics of Liberty I believe) in which was pasted on that thread also showed how Hume is inconsistent in his own philosophy for Hume took a position and by the end of the book, as the quote of Rothbard notes I believe, Hume had to usurp his own position on objective justice for he saw the flaw in his own philosophy eventually.
wilderness: So are all these people wrong even Hume himself in having to adjust his own philosophy in latter works
I addressed Rothbard's erroneous allegation of Hume's inconsistency in this article. I know for a fact that you've read it already, but it may have been a long time since you did, since you talk as if I've never addressed the matter. Here are the two paragraphs which bear the main point:
As discussed and concurred with by Rothbard, A. Kenneth Hesselberg countered that Hume, in his own writings, inconsistently resorts to normative natural law. Hume states that man’s happiness depends on a social order. Hesselberg notes that the way a social order can be attained and preserved can only be found through contemplation of natural law. Therefore, according to Hume’s own theory, concludes Hesselberg and Rothbard, reasoning from natural law is needed for choosing ends. While Rothbard is my intellectual hero, I must here differ with him. In Hume’s construction, the social order is a means to the end of human happiness. And, as Rothbard himself states, Hume recognizes the value of natural law in choosing means. And, nowhere in his construction, does Hume ever promote the use of natural law to choose the end of human happiness; it is only promoted for choosing the means of social order.
wilderness:This quote I remember vividly lead to a stampede
What do you mean by "stampede"?
wilderness:you yourself started a thread coming up with a term 'Rothbardians'
I assure you, I did not invent the term "Rothbardian".
wilderness:is Hume still being strawmanned by all these people that include Plauche, Veatch (spelling?), Rommen, Rothbard, and numerous others cited that speak out against Hume's position? Or is it as I've learned: that Hume has actually strawmanned Natural Law in a unnecessary arbitrary institution of a so called is-ought gap? of course you know the answers I have to these questions
And you know mine.
wilderness:And then you blogged how Rothbard denies desire and happiness.
Where did I blog that?
wilderness:discussed at great length on how passions are not denied, but embraced by the (neo-)Aristotle position
How are passions "embraced" by the neo-Aristotelean position?
wilderness:And now agent-relative, objectivity has been further brought up to show the depth to what this position holds.
As I argued in my response to GAP, I don't think the notion of agent-relative objective value is coherent.
Human Action Comics Issues 1-6
Lilburne:He rejects them as the source of human morals.
Juan: Lilburne:He rejects them as the source of human morals. That's wrong. Hume clearly says that justice is grounded in public utility. His claim is quite objective and 'rationalistic' - and false of course.
Wrong. He claims that justice is a custom that men establish in pursuing their self-interest. As I explained in my post I mentioned, men choose to abide by the custom as a means for their self-interest, not as an end itself. And self-interest, according to Hume, is grounded in the passions.
I should note that I completely disagree with Hume on justice being entirely a matter of custom. He said that some virtues were "natural" and some "artificial". He placed property-relative virtues (justice) in the artificial camp. And as I've expressed many times, I believe they are natural impulses.
Juan:He was libertarian leaning in some ways since libertarianism was floating in the air, but at the same time he was a court intellectual.
I myself have derided Hume's mild Toryism (although I don't think "court intellectual" is accurate).
Is that like being full of hot air and the community jester?
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
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