>From: "Forstater, Mathew" <ForstaterM at umkc.edu>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
>Subject: RE: Positivism [was Re: Ethical foundations of the left]
>Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 14:34:38 -0500
>
>speaking of people who call themselves 'pragmatist' my friend and
>colleague Jim Webb (who quit academia to take up professional gambling
>because it gave him more time to work on his research in methodology and
>economics and philosophy), is just off to a conference at the American
>Institute for Economic Research in Great Barrington on Dewey and
>Postmodernism, with Richard Posner, Stanley Fish, Richard Bernstein,
>Larry Hickman, etc. I've heard the AIER is basically a gold-bug outfit,
>but there's obviously more going on there than calling for a return to
>the gold standard. the Division sponsoring the conference, The
>Behavioral Research Council, is headed by a New School Economics grad,
>Elias Khalil, who has done some very good work on neo-Darwinism and
>neo-Classical economics, among other things. wish I was invited..
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Justin Schwartz [mailto:jkschw at hotmail.com]
>Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 1:24 PM
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Positivism [was Re: Ethical foundations of the left]
>
>
>Yeah, that's right. I should add that my Michigan PhD is in philosophy
>and
>political science, so I'm trained as a U-M number cruncher in polisci,
>worked with David Singer, etc. When I was doing my polisci coursework,
>the
>classes would start with a "methods" section restating as "scientific
>method" the tenets of high logical empiricism circa 1956. I would make
>merciless fun of this stuff, and suggest that my profs and fellow grad
>students disregard it. I guess things have not improved since I left
>Michigan.
>
>As to whether postpositivist analytic philosophers "all" reject the
>analytical-synthetic distinction and the fact-value distinction, "all"
>is a
>strong word. I'd say that most of us trained at the high-powered
>analytical
>schools are more less Quinean, which doesn't mean necessarily, that you
>don't think there are any necessary truths or truths in virtue of
>meaning
>(sorry about the double negative), but that you think that necessity and
>
>analyticity are relative. Some statements have more of it than others.
>
>As to the fact-value distinction, although _I_ think that Quinean
>principles
>totally undermine it in the same way as the A/S distinction, a lot of
>philosophers put a lot of weight on it, including,e.g., Donald Davidson,
>a
>pragmatist philosopher (so he says) who is generally named in the same
>breath as Quine as a major figure of postpositivist neopragmatism. I
>think D
>is overrated, but he's clearly a major figure. So rejection of the
>latter is
>more controversial.
>
>--jks
>
> >From: "Michael McIntyre" <mmcintyr at wppost.depaul.edu>
> >Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> >To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
> >Subject: Positivism [was Re: Ethical foundations of the left]
> >Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 11:03:39 -0500
> >
> >I've heard that analytic philosophers are all post-positivists now, but
>I'm
> >not sure the word has reached the social sciences. Lots of folks I
>studied
> >with were still willing to call themselves positivists. John
>Mearsheimer
> >calls himself a "logical positivist". David Laitin calls himself a
> >"neo-positivist". On the other hand, Henry Brady, whom most would tar
>with
> >the brush refuses to call himself a positivist. So maybe we need a
>quick
> >survey of the territory. My third-hand [and quite likely wrong]
> >understanding is that analytic philosophers of all stripes now reject a
>
> >distinction between analytic and synthetic statements, and between
> >statements of fact and statements of value. Those distinctions,
>however,
> >are still at the heart of state-of-the-art books on social science
>research
> >design. (I have King, Keohane and Verba's _Designing Social Inquiry_
>in
> >mind). So perhaps positivism isn't entirely dead . . . or it is dead
>but
> >those in the lower reaches of the academy have!
> >n't gotten the word yet.
> >
> >Clarifications Justin?
> >
> >Michael McIntyre
> >
> > >>> jkschw at hotmail.com 07/18/01 09:45AM >>>
> >Positivist leanings? That's a new one. I'm a pragmatist and a
>scientific
> >realist in the manner of Sellars, Quine, Richard Boyd, the old Hilary
> >Putnam
> > (circa 1967-75)(at least two stages back), that lot. Of course, all
>of
> >us
> >trained in analytical philosophy "come out" of positivism, but that
>doesn't
> >make us us positivists, any more than the fact the Solidarity "comes
>out"
> >of
> >groups with Trotskyist politics makes it Trot.
> >
> >I have developed more respect and appreciation for positivism than I
>(we)
> >had in the 1970s, when it was still hip to beat up on it, and when
>there
> >were positivists of a sort still around. There aren't, really, anymore
> >today, except for maybe Larry Sklar at Michigan.
> >
> >No, I don't accept verificationism of any sort, and I'm a sort of moral
> >realist in that I think that ethical claims like "Exploitation is
>unjust"
> >or
> >"Freedom is better than slavery" are properly appraised as true or
>false.
> >My
> >metaethical position is probably close to that stakes out by Eliz.
>Anderson
> >in Value in Ethics and Economics. I have written a number of papers in
> >political ethics, and at least one defending the objectivity of
>justice.
> >
> >Btw, the positivists did not "deny the existence of ethics"; they just
> >interpreted ethical statements as presciptive. The classical statement
>is
> >C.L. Stevenson's still-wonderful Ethics and Language. My dissertation
> >advisor Allen Gibbard--no positivist! (he has written important papers
>in
> >grand metaphysics)--has a brilliant restatement of prescriptivism in
>his
> >book Wise Choices, Apt Feelings.
> >
> >I think it is odd to describe Rawls as a "dissenting utilitarian." He's
>not
> >a utilitarian of any sort.
> >
> >I have not read Singer's "Darwinian left," although I have read other
>of
> >his
> >books, such as Practical Ethics. I find his flat headed utilitarianism
> >rather unpersuasive, although his applied discussions are generally
> >interesting and sensitive.
> >
> >--jks
> >
> >
>
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