A PRIORI VIS-À-VIS A POSTERIORI
Alvin Lowi
[The following is a synopsis
of Libertarian Forum discussions initiated
by the author http://groups.google.com/group/LibertarianForum?hl=en
. The Libertarian Forum is moderated by Stephan Kinsella, adjunct to the Mises
Institute and acolyte of Professor Hans-Herman Hoppe.]
I had mostly lurked on the
Libertarian Forum until I encountered an exchange between Max Chiz (MHC), Brad
Edmonds and Paul Edwards that appeared in a thread on the subject entitled “An
Article Critical of Anarcho-Capitalism.” Their discussion focused on the meaning of the
Latin terms a priori and a posteriori and how those meanings
pertained to the findings of the Austrian school of libertarian economics. It
occurred to me that a dose of Eddingtonian epistemology[1] was called for to sort out some of the
controversy, so I started a new topic with the following narrative.
This narrative is based on
arguments I first heard from Andrew Galambos.[2] It
was developed over several days of posting replies to the title subject.
A Priori
The Latin phrase a priori means “examination before experience.”[3] When
thinking arrives at a conclusion a priori,
it is the result of deductive reasoning, which is analysis governed
entirely by the rules of logic. It is correct if and only if it is internally
consistent according to the rules of logic. There is no need to resort to any
observable experience in the course of the analysis. The process starts with
statements called premises (propositions, hypotheses, postulates, axioms,
etc.), which may be true or false without affecting the validity of the
conclusions of the analysis.
Logical thinking, reasoning
or analysis alone produces results a
priori because they are rendered before any new experience is gathered on
the subject. If the premises are false, the conclusions will be false. Starting
from hypotheses that represent certain generalizations of experience,
analytical conclusions are reached a
priori before any additional facts are sought. The generalizations that
underlie the analysis may or may not contain any real experience. Regardless, such
generalizations serve as premises.
In summary, a priori arguments are reasons derived
by logic from abstract definitions and generalizations that are assumed or
adopted for the sake of argument. The premises are formed antecedent to the
analysis and must remain fixed for the duration of an argument. The arguments
may be valid without an iota of truth, in which case they are valid but untrue.
Or they may be true (by accident) but internally contradictory, in which case
they are true but invalid. The issue whether or not the conclusions are true is
outside the province of analysis. That is a question to be settled by further
observational examination.
Thinking a priori is governed by formal rules of
logic, and the conclusions, if valid, constitute extrapolations of the premises,
which are predictions of certain specific consequences that would prevail under
observational examination provided the hypotheses on which they are based are
true. Valid conclusions a priori will
have followed from a rigorous and reproducible path of thought that constitutes
a "proof" in logic. They are necessarily "true" if and only
if the premises are true. They are observable if the definitions are rendered in
an operational form [as prescribed by Bridgman].[4] To
arrive at the truth by thinking a priori
anticipates further examination (see definition above).
Premises are never
necessarily true. Therefore, conclusions a
priori are not necessarily true even if they are rigorously logical. Premises
are generalizations of the observational experience of humans. Accordingly, they
are subject to bias and error. If they are true, it is because bias and error
have been somehow avoided or otherwise filtered out by repetitive and
independently reproduced observational trial accounting for bias and error.
Thinking alone will not suffice to weed out error in the interpretation of
reality.
Since deductive conclusions
are based on necessarily tentative inductive conclusions (hypotheses,
premises), they require specific observational verification. Verification involves a risk of
falsification. If a statement cannot be falsified, it cannot be verified. If a
so-called a priori truth cannot be
falsified (as claimed by Hoppe), neither can it be verified. Hence, “a priori truth” is an oxymoron.
A Posteriori
Generalizations are
conclusions obtained by inductive thinking or synthesis a posteriori. A priori is
the Latin phrase meaning examination based on experience, i.e. after the fact.[5] Generalizations
from particulars results from the kind of thinking known as induction. Such
conclusions cannot be proven true in a closed system of logic because they
cannot possibly account for all possible experience relevant to the
generalization.
So how is the inductive
generalization or a posteriori conclusion
“proven?” Its proof, such as it is, depends on the proper use of a priori thinking. But there is no
guarantee of a proof even if the a priori
(logical) process is flawless. What id required is a succession of observations
that are consistent with the predictions that have been deduced from the a posteriori conclusions taken in as the
premises in an a priori derivation.
Consistent results build confidence
in the generalizations or hypotheses. The proof consists in the always
tentative consistency. Hypotheses well supported by positive and consistent observational
experience are known as theories.
Conclusions – Two Types
The conclusions of
analytical thinking (conclusions a priori)
can be valid without necessarily being true. If they deal with observable subject matter,
they may be both valid and true. Only if the hypotheses upon which they are
based contain observable truth will the question of truth arise and the
consequences be observable. Such conclusions consist of the particulars that
derive logically from generalizations taken for granted.
Conclusions based on
experience (conclusions a posteriori)
are mental propositions arrived at from (after) observable (i.e. sensory)
experience. These conclusions are generalizations of particular facts that are
arrived at by mental processes that are known variously as inductive reasoning,
synthesis, creative thinking or innovation. There are no formal rules of logic
to discipline the thought processes involved in arriving at conclusions a posteriori.[6]
That discipline comes from the scientific method or not at all.[7]
The Scientific method
The scientific method
integrates these two types of thinking – synthesis (a posteriori) and analysis (a
priori). The scientific method is a
cyclic process that can be visualized in four steps. The cycle begins (step one)
and ends (step four) with observation, which is sensory. The two steps in
between are consciously mental, one spontaneous and the other deliberative. The
second step follows observation for the purpose of gathering data. It is
obviously a posteriori, i.e. after
the fact. The hypotheses (generalizations) arrived at in this second step form
the basis for the third step, which consists of deductive (systematic) reasoning
to form specific, particular conclusions that extrapolate the hypotheses into specific
as-yet-unobserved situations. The third step is before the facts of specific
observation are gathered and is thus a priori
the observations anticipated in the fourth step. The observations that comprise
the fourth step are sometimes referred to as falsifications because they test
the truth content of the hypotheses if any. If a prediction arrived at by
analysis cannot be falsified by observation, neither can it be verified.
Concepts are falsifiable when they can be operationalized.[8]
Knowledge consists of generalizations
of experience. Such generalizations evidence organization and order presumed to
mimic the orderliness of nature. The highest form of such order consists of
connections between causes and effects.
Such generalizations of experience can be
"proven" only by further experience. But they cannot be tested under
all circumstances by all observers. Thus, there remains a seed of doubt in
their wisdom. The endless cycle of the scientific method has evolved to discipline
this quest. It is an humbling experience even for strong egos because there is
no certain destiny.
Truth is in the eye of the
beholder. Literally. Truth is not something made up out of whole cloth. Even
fiction contains some truth, although it may be more trouble than it is worth
to try and sort it out. Even when observations are deliberate and calculated, there
is always a degree of wishful-thinking present to bias or color the results.
And in the fine-structure limit of the phenomenon under study, there is the
indeterminacy of Heisenberg to contend with.[9]
Etymologically, truth means
faithful to the act in progress. In science, the crucial fidelity is to nature.
So truth refers to the authenticity of the
brain recognizes as true was derived by synthesis from a real or imaginary
sensation experienced beforehand. Analysis, if any, follows synthesis inasmuch
as the process of analysis cannot begin until its premises are formed and set.
Analysis cannot add any truth because it is a wholly mental process. On the
other hand, facts are gathered by the senses or not at all. Facts cannot be
concocted by thinking alone no matter the fertility of the imagination or the
excellence of the logic. The relevant criterion for analysis is validity, not
truth.
It is essential to recognize
the difference between truth and validity. Truth is what comes out of sensory
perceptions. Validity is what comes out
of mental processes.
A Priori vis-à-vis A Posteriori
Some libertarian aficionados
of H-H. Hoppe[10]
object to the preceding treatment of the knowledge-building process because it
does not recognize what they call synthetic a priori truth. One critic cites Kant’s
2X2 matrix of conceivable categories of thought processes and points out that
two of the categories were omitted, one of which the synthetic a priori.
Kant’s matrix consist of
four categories, two categories of thinking (synthetic vs. analytic) and two categories
of observational priority (a priori vs. a posteriori). A schematic
representation of the possibilities is as follows:
The critic correctly notes that
the two cross-product categories of thinking -- the synthetic a priori and the analytic a posteriori – never came up in foregoing
description of scientific method. The reason these categories do not arise is
attributable to the fact that the scientific method is cyclic but irreversible.
It proceeds historically in one irreversible direction only, in fits and
starts, trials and errors and in successive observational steps. Consequently, only
synthetic a posteriori and analytic a priori categories of thinking
processes are useful – one follows the other. The analytic a posteriori category does not exist in nature – there is no such
thing as tabula rasa.[11] It is the fourth category, synthetic a priori, that is controversial. The
followers of Hoppe believe this mode of thinking is essential in the study of the
social phenomenon of human action.[12]
Hoppe aficionados attribute
what they call “a priori truth” to this category of thinking. They claim it is
not only possible but an essential mode of thinking in the Austrian approach to
the study of human action, known as Praxeology. They assert that any omission
of this fourth category of thinking is tantamount to dismissing the whole
Mises-Hoppe contribution to science. They also assert that this omission opens the
trap into either idealism or empiricism, two classical intellectual positions roundly
refuted by Mises. [13]
Maybe so, but their refutations refer to relics of classical thinking
reminiscent of the antique a prioristic
epistemology of Aristotle and his descendent Aquinas,[14]
or else they beat a more modern straw man called positivism or empiricism. They
have never actually considered the 20th century observational-synthetic-analytic
epistemological arguments of such philosophers of science as Eddington,
Bridgman, Cohen and Nagel.
Mises’ contribution to
science cannot be dismissed notwithstanding questionable claims to a priori truth. Such claims are offset
by Mises own prescription for knowledge as follows:
“In the course of social events there prevails a regularity
of phenomena to which man must adjust his action if he wishes to succeed. It is
futile to approach social facts as the censor who approves or disapproves from
the point of view of quite arbitrary standards and subjective judgments of
value. One must study the laws of human action and social cooperation as the
physicist studies the laws of nature. Human action and social cooperation seen
as the object of a science of given relations, no longer as a normative
discipline of things that ought to be – this was a revolution of tremendous
consequences for knowledge and philosophy as well as for social action.”[15]
Thus Mises actually embraced
the same method of acquiring knowledge of the natural world as accredited by
the other natural sciences.
So it should not be
surprising that the conclusions of Austrian school economics hold up very well
to scrutiny in the real world. They are constantly being subjected to
falsification without resort to controlled experiments no matter the protests
of the acolytes of Rothbard and Hoppe to the contrary. The conclusions of the
Austrian school are falsifiable and they are regularly tested by observation of
events to which they apply. Mises initial assumptions (axioms) are true (eminently
self-evident), so the conclusions he reaches by scrupulously valid deductive
analysis are not only as valid as any result in Euclidean geometry but also
falsifiable as a result of the truth content of the axioms.
Mises' "science of
human action" is actually the first three steps of the very same
scientific method applicable to physics, biology and astronomy. Those steps are
roughly (1) historical data gathering, (2) formulation of hypotheses
connecting the historical facts and (3) deductive extrapolation of the
hypotheses into hitherto unobserved or unexplained situations from the past.
The fourth step of the full procedure is observational corroboration of the
extrapolations, which Mises left to others. As a result, he could claim his conclusions
are a priori, i.e. before observation. However, since his derivations
were based on postulates induced from experience, they can also be considered a
posteriori.
Mises condemned the fourth
step of the scientific method as "positivism." The “positivists”
condemn the first three steps as if blind empiricism eventually discovers
knowledge if only by accident, like one of an army of monkeys with typewriters
eventually types the Declaration of Independence. But the positivists (following Comte) did not
invent the scientific method that has been so productively applied in the field
of physics. Indeed, the positivists seem not to understand this
knowledge-building procedure of the natural sciences at all. They do not even acknowledge
that experience a posteriori informs their judgment in deciding what
observations they will undertake to extend their “knowledge” of the world. To
the extent the positivists reject the first three steps of the scientific
method, they are blind empiricists, not scientist of any kind.
Mises never denied his
conclusions were falsifiable. He simply claimed he did not need to test them
against any special observations because of the strength of his logic in
extrapolating from his truth-containing axioms. And he was a scrupulously
honest intellectual who was exceptionally devoted truth-seeking. He just left
it to others less confident of their inherited data and logic to do the
testing. I liken Mises' position on his Theory of Human Action to Einstein's on
his Theory of Relativity.
As Galambos tells the story,[16]
the renown astrophysicist Arthur Stanley Eddington led a Royal Society
astronomical expedition to
Another
acolyte of Hoppe considers my discourse itself to be a synthetic a priori proposition. He asserts my statement
implies ipso facto (merely by the fact of the statement) that it is necessarily
true, thereby creating an example of synthetic a priori thinking. He says that such truth is not uncertain as is
science in general, and that it will not be shown to be false by any future testing.
In other words, as a proper conclusion of synthetic a priori thinking (as if possible), it cannot be tested by
observation. He says that anything I can
say that is based on synthetic a priori reasoning
*properly done* is not a tautology provided it has practical relevance.
(I confess I really don’t understand what he means by this argument.)
Actually, my epistemological beliefs are misrepresented
by my libertarian critics. The fail to appreciate that if I cannot be sure of
my original data, neither can they. Never mind how they can be so sure of
theirs. That they misrepresent my statements is evidence that they don’t
understand them. With all due respect to
Hoppe, I do not believe reason and argumentation are sufficient to discover urgent
and practical truths. I believe reason must be
I do not believe there is such a thing as synthetic
a priori truth, which is also known as “revealed truth.” I realize this puts me
at odds with the world’s theologians, but I am concerned with an actual reality
while they are concerned with a presumed hereafter. Everyday existence is a
test of my thinking. Nobody ever returned from the grave to test theirs.
Truth is not merely a revelation in the mind,
like a hallucination. Truth must be identified by the senses, and even then
there are questions. Phantasmagoria is something other than reality to which
truth refers. However, I have no doubt
that revelation does occur in the minds of believers in a faith. Synthetic a priori conclusions are tautologies or
self-fulfilling prophesies based on made-up facts or unexamined hypotheses.
My libertarian critics seem unfamiliar with
the cyclic observational-synthetic-analytic-observational procedure that
constitutes the scientific method. However, when they have understood it, if
ever, they will realize my statements are not only internally consistent but
are actually descriptive of mans’ way of life – theirs, mine and everybody’s
including the professional scientists devoted to authentic studies of the natural
world including the physical, biological and social phenomena. The libertarian
followers of Hoppe seem to believe the social world belongs to a different
universe of phenomena that calls for a different world of thought and
experience. The only other world I can think of is the supernatural world that
can only be imagined. If so thee name of that study is “hermeneutics.”[17]
Synthetic a priori thinking is problematical
because a priori thinking is
irrelevant to synthesis. Synthesis is an inductive process for which there are
no set rules of procedure. A priori thinking
is a deductive process, which is dependent on rule-and premises from an
external source. To that extent, the term “synthetic a priori” is an oxymoron.
A priori
thinking is not applicable to the synthesis of generalizations from the
particulars of experience. The thinking process applicable to synthesis is
known as induction, whereas, deduction is the process of thinking that derives
particulars from generalizations by analysis. Inductive thinking starts with
experience, hence a posteriori.
Deduction has to start somewhere also. That “somewhere” is at least one premise
or hypothesis, which is an inductive generalization that must be taken for
granted.
Premises are general
statements which must be synthesized. The
trouble is that they can be synthesized as well from hallucinations as
observations of the natural world outside the human brain. As an outsider, how
can you tell what another person has integrated into his thinking and opinions?
Logic makes a deduction valid.
But what makes it true? To be right, a conclusion has to be both valid
and true.[18]
With all due respect to Hoppe, no mere
argument will suffice to tell the truth. No amount of argument, no matter how
eloquent or how well supported by the most meticulous deduction can add a
single fact to a proposition. Facts are added only by observation, which come
to the brain via the senses. The only truth embodied the deductive argument per
se, if any, is contained in the premises. That’s where evidence of reality is
found, if any. If the argument stretches that truth – which it will if it aims
to advance knowledge – it begs to be tested by further observation for precisely
that purpose.
Ought/Is Gap
My libertarian critics believe
my approach to discovery reopens a breach in scientific protocol that Mises and
Hoppe had already closed by a process Hoppe calls “argumentation.”[19]
They argue against the acceptance of my thesis on the grounds that it not only reopens
this breach but prevents it from ever being closed again. And what is this
breach of which they speak? I can only guessing because they never name it. But
my guess is the differentiation science makes between perception and
conception. Perception is. Conception ought. Rothbard referred to
this distinction as the ought/is gap.[20] The more sober libertarian followers of Hoppe
puzzle over the question of how or whether this gap can be bridged at all. It
puzzles me that the discussants are oblivious to the answer.
Whether this gap can be
bridged and how to bridge it if possible depends on the practice of the
scientific method, whatever that is. The scientific method is the only
discipline known to man for checking arbitrary opinion.[21]
"Ought" is an opinion of the human being who thought it up.
"Is" is a fact of nature. The opinion and the facts relevant to it
can be reconciled only by observing the results that "ought" to have
occurred as a consequences of acting as one "ought." Opinions cannot test opinions. Only
observations can.
Science in Practice
The scientific method
combines thinking and observation in a certain systematic way in search of
order in natural phenomena. It brings to bear on a subject the history,
synthesis, induction, reason, deduction, experiment, observation, etc. in an
iterative manner to build confidence in specific conclusions derived from
generalizations. It is inclusive of but not limited to those disciplines. It
combines both a posteriori and a priori modes of thinking and requires
a modicum of competence in both. Its practice does not require credentials or
academic preparation. But it does require a degree of honesty, diligence and
courage. In the process of practicing scientific method, opinions can become
knowledge.
Science aims for a mental
picture of nature as it really is unencumbered by any philosophical,
ideological or theological prejudice as to how nature OUGHT to be. Science is a
search for the unchanging reality behind the ever-changing spectacle we observe
with our senses: the truth behind the truth. The ultimate prize in that search
is a law of nature -- a fragment of the transcendent reality that governs all
change, but itself never changes; the principle underlying the fluctuations.
"Ought" denotes
individual preferences among all conceivable outcomes. "Oughts" are
personal value judgments. They are not subject to study by the scientific
method precisely because they are private, and they remain so against all
efforts to expose them to view by others. Oughts are features of autonomous
individual human nature, that unique part of nature that is distinguished by a
willful mental faculty.
The scientific method
applies to human action phenomena only under the hypothesis that all persons
have equal moral standing to have, hold and express their own preferences, and
that they are bound by nature to act accordingly. This is the basis of the
science of human action that leads to free-market economics.
The scientific method
reconciles the separation of perceptual and conceptual powers by a cyclic process
that never ends. By contrast, the libertarian followers of Hoppe, like Plato, believe
they can conceive of ideals that are true to reality by the right kind of thinking
unfazed by observation. In other words, they believe that “right” thinking is
made in heaven untouched by grubby experience, that experience is irrelevant to
thinking the truth.
To assert truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth
by pure deductive reasoning is Platonic tyranny. It was precisely such tyranny that
burned Bruno at the stake for heresy, suppressed Galileo’s astronomical
findings and oppressed him personally.
To try to generalize particular
observations without resort to inductive reasoning and the responsibility that
entails is empirical masturbation. (Figures don’t lie but liars can figure.) Data-gathering
disembodied from inductive reasoning recognized as such is blind empiricism,
which often masquerades as science.
I am probably the only participant
in the Libertarian Forum Group who ever had a face-to-face discussion with
Ludwig von Mises on this subject. So I am mindful that what I recall in my word
against their word. As I recall, Mises did not realize there was a difference
between the scientific method and what he condemned as positivism and
empiricism. He admitted with some candor that he was an economist, not a
physicist, and that he assumed the method of the natural sciences consisted of the
scientistic and pedantic fads fashionable in his youth in the
While my libertarian critics
admit that experience sometimes leads to the recognition of certain useful truths
(small concession), they claim they can go further (i.e. extend truth) by
reasoning alone never to be tested by subsequent observation and experience. They
assert certain truths, specifically “a priori
truths,” must be recognized as “necessarily true” because “they are based
on reasoning alone [which can be perfect thanks to logic] and that it would be
impossible to ever demonstrate the truth of such conclusions, or refute them via
empirical testing and observation [which can be faulty].” (Bracketed phrases added.)
Indeed.
One of these critics offers this example: Man acts. This statement is said to be a synthetic a priori truth that cannot be subject to empirical testing. It is
self-evident.
But if the axiom is self-evident, evidently
it is observable. If it is observable, it can be tested by observation.
That men act ostensibly on their own
recognizance is a ubiquitous phenomenon, which is easily seen with the naked
eye. I say ostensibly because the acts of human individuals are clearly willful
(spontaneous, self-directed) even though their specific motives are invisible
to an outside observer. “Human action” in the Austrian (Misesian) sense of the
word is such a familiar phenomenon that one can safely depend on it continuing
to occur and seldom be mistaken without further testing. But it can be tested
ad infinitum. Human action meets Popper’s falsifiability criterion.
I stick to my original statement that
"Knowledge
consists of generalizations of experience, which are a posteriori at the outset. Such generalizations of experience can
be ‘proven’ only by further experience directed by deductive (a priori) analysis (extrapolation). The
endless cycle of the scientific method has evolved to discipline this quest and
refine, amend and rectify the conclusions."
The statement “man acts” is the
revolutionary hypothesis of Ludwig von Mises in his formulation of his
remarkable theory of human action that he named Praxeology. His postulate is all
the more powerful because it refers to familiar experience that is seldom
falsified if ever. Mises’ postulate is a prime example of a self-evident
statement, which is the best kind of truth with which to launch a scientific
inquiry. But it does stand up to the observational test even though the
faithful say it need not.
With all due respect to
Mises, Rothbard and Hoppe, I do not believe there is such a thing as synthetic a priori truth. A priori truth is an oxymoron because, by definition, it is a
statement made before the facts are gathered, therefore before any new truth. Because
the a priori is purely analytical, it
cannot by itself add any truth beyond what may be contained in its premises.
Synthetic reasoning a priori does not
exist because all conscious reasoning has to have a starting place anchored in
reality, which is no place before the facts, i.e. before experience. Premises
without any observational content or reference would have to be hallucinations.
It is impossible to test such “truth” by empirical means because they cannot be
seen outside the head of the hallucinator. There may be a question of sanity
here, but it is not a question of scientific epistemology.
A priori reasoning
is analytical or deductive, or it is not reasoning. Whether analytical conclusions
can be tested by observation depends on whether the premises from which they
are derived contain any truth, and the conclusions there-from include
appropriate operational instructions for the observations prescribed. A priori synthesis has no necessary
reference to reality so its claim to truth is unfounded. Therefore, there is no epistemological
foundation
for a so-called a priori science.
Knowledge of the world cannot be obtained a
priori. Mathematics, cited as an example of a priori science, is not a science at all. It is an intellectual
discipline and a abstract language of discourse capable of great precision and
repeatability.
My libertarian critics bring
up the subject of “imaginary numbers.” Imaginary numbers, like "real"
numbers, are merely abstract tools of thought that have been invented to simplify
the arguments of analysis. Imaginary numbers are used in vector analysis, a discipline
invented by J. S. Gibbs that has been found to be essential for understanding
the reality of mechanical vibration and other wave phenomena such as
electricity and electromagnetic wave propagation. But only in the mind’s eye do we
"see" such abstractions. Actual “sight” with the sense organs must be
brought to bear on actual phenomena in the world outside the brain to finally
settle the truth of the matter. This is often easier said than done and almost
never done inside the ivory tower.
The renowned semanticist
Korzibski pointed out the obvious, that “the word is not the thing.” Words,
numbers and symbols are features of languages, not observations. Language and argumentation are analytical
tools. Their practice involves the use of the senses only to receive and
transmit the sounds, symbols and signs of language, not to add new evidence to
the argument at hand. Observation with the senses produces evidence of
existence.
In engineering, we are
inclined to take the observational imperative for granted because our
experience of the natural order, of cause and effect, is on a short leash. Touch
a hot stove, feel pain and see a blister rise. However, experience in such
studies as geology, astronomy and economics finds the effects of concern are at
such distances in time and space from their causes as to render observation of
the phenomena seemingly irrelevant to the truth of the matter. Nevertheless,
this is only an illusion, a handicap of human perception. It is safe to say
there is only one natural world, and the human means of understanding it cannot
differ merely because of the variations in the natural frequency of events and
the intimacy of the effects. The longer the periods and the greater the scale
and complexity, the greater must be the reliance on analysis, on patience with
the observations and on humility in the conclusions. Limitations on knowledge
also arise as the scale of events diminishes approaching the unit of inquiry in
size. Location, motion and simultaneity are famously indeterminate in quantum
affairs. There is a similar indeterminacy in the field of human action, which
is known as free will.
Since there is only one
natural universe of phenomena as far as we can know, the method of learning
about its order must be common and universal for all intelligent entities – shall
we say “man” for the lack of a better term. Since human nature is part and
parcel of this natural world, the method of understanding it cannot differ in
principle from the common and universal method of the natural sciences,
whatever that is. Physicists have come to terms with the indeterminacies and
uncertainties in the physical world. Their study is easier because is can be
done largely at arms length on matter having no moral standing or emotional
preference. Economists will come to terms with indeterminacies and
uncertainties in the social world comprised of individuals having equal moral
standing with the observer. This study is somewhat more difficult because the
observer is just as much a part of the study as the observed. All humans are
part and parcel of the study of society.
Although science, which is a
human institution, assumes the natural universe is absolute, rational and
knowable, it concedes that human knowledge of it is selective and subjective
(Eddington). We humans can only speculate about the eternal and absolute truths
that are features of the objective world of nature because our perceptions are only
partial, selective and subjective as filtered through our sometimes cranky
sensing and thinking faculties.
My libertarian critics ask
if I am propounding what they call “methodological monism.” I don’t know and
cannot find the answer in Wikipedia. But
I find they would be misreading Webster to consider my views a version of “classical
monism” because nowhere in my exposition do I suggest there is a knowable universal
principle governing all creation, whatever that means. I don’t even suggest the
possibility of a universal field theory, which is the holy grail of some
physicists, let alone a supreme being, an intelligent designer of the natural
order. I only point out that humans are apparently limited by nature to a
common method of learning about nature, if for no other reason than that they
are an inextricable part of the whole. The fact that I admire the philosophy of
B. Spinoza could not have raised this question of monism because I did not
disclose it up front. And even if I had, pantheism is indifferent to such
questions as a single cause of existence and a supernatural creator of the
natural order.