> That brings to mind Heidegger's argument interpreting the Greek word
> "mathemata" as "rearranging what is already known." In the same
> context
> Heidegger also talks about transforming science into "research work" -
> i.e.
> changing it form the quest for meaning and knowledge into performance
> of
> rituals defined as "scientific."
>
> This brings us to the nature of behaviorist experiments that Joanna
> mentioned, and for that matter, much what passes for economics
> nowadays.
> The subject matter and conclusions of behaviorist experiments (or
> economic
> theory) are so common sense that they border on triviality. You do
> not need
> a behavioral scientist telling you that dogs learn from experience -
> every
> kid who had a dog knows that from his/her own experience. You do not
> need
> an economist telling you that people balance benefits with costs and
> that
> the more of something they have the less value they attach to
> individual
> units of that something - as the folk saying "a drop in a bucket"
> attests.
> As Bob Dylan aptly pointed out, you do not need a weatherman telling
> which
> way the wind blows.
Whitehead's argument is much closer to Husserl's than to Heidegger's (which misunderstands Husserl's)
Whitehead's point is that the application of any kind of axiomatic reasoning (it doesn't have to be "mathematical") requires that the material to which it's to be applied meet certain conditions. This can't be decided by axiomatic reasoning itself (i.e. "you must not ask mathematics to provide you with the apple, the atoms, and the finiteness of their number").
In particular, "internal relations" mean that identity changes with changes in relations so, if, as Whitehead claims, relations can be shown on other grounds to be "internal," forms of reasoning (e.g. any kind of "algebra," linear or non-linear) that assume the maintenance of self-identity (at least to the degree required by the argument) can only be validly applied where it can reasonably be assumed that this condition is met.
Keynes's point was that this condition is much more restrictive in the social than the natural sciences.
He rejected the neoclassical "rational choice" premises you seem to be endorsing not only on this ground but also on the ground that they weren't a realistic representation of either rational choice or of the actual decision making of individuals. He claimed actual decision making normally involved a significant degree of irrationality, the nature and degree of which varied with variation in the relations within which individuals develop and live.
I've quoted Whitehead's summary statement of the argument before. Here it is again.
> "In this lecture we seek the evidence for that conception of the
> universe which is the justification for the ideals characterizing the
> civilized phases of human society.
> "We have been assuming as self-evident the many actualities, their
> forms of coordination in the historic process, their separate
> importance, and their joint importance for the universe in its unity.
> It must be clearly understood, as stated in earlier lectures, that we
> are not arguing from well-defined premises. Philosophy is the search
> for premises. It is not deduction. Such deductions as occur are for
> the purpose of testing the starting points by the evidence of the
> conclusions.
> "A special science takes the philosophic assumptions and transforms
> them into comparative clarity by narrowing them to the forms of the
> special topic in question. Also even in reasoning thus limited to
> special topics, there is no absolute conclusiveness in the deductive
> logic. The premises have assumed their limited clarity by reason of
> presuming the irrelevance of considerations extraneous to the assigned
> topic. The premises are conceived in the simplicity of their
> individual isolation. But there can be no logical test for the
> possibility that deductive procedure, leading to the elaboration of
> compositions, may introduce into relevance considerations from which
> the primitive notions of the topic have been abstracted. The mutual
> conformity of the various perspectives can never be adequately
> determined.
> "The history of science is full of such examples of sciences bursting
> through the bounds of their original assumptions. Even in pure
> abstract logic as applied to arithmetic, it has within the last half
> century been found necessary to introduce the doctrine of types to
> correct the omissions of the original premises.
> "Thus deductive logic has not the coercive supremacy which is
> conventionally conceded to it. When applied to concrete instances, it
> is a tentative procedure, finally to be judged by the self-evidence of
> its issues. This doctrine places philosophy on a pragmatic basis.
> But the meaning of 'pragmatism' must be given its widest extension.
> In much modern thought, it has been limited by arbitrary specialist
> assumptions. There should be no pragmatic exclusion of self-evidence
> by dogmatic denial. Pragmatism is simply an appeal to that
> self-evidence which sustains itself in civilized experience. Thus
> pragmatism ultimately appeals to the wide self-evidence of
> civilization, and to the self-evidence of what we mean by
> 'civilization.'
> "Before we finally dismiss deductive logic, it is well to note the
> function of the 'variable' in logical reason. In this connection the
> term variable is applied to a symbol, occurring in a propositional
> form which merely indicates any entity to which the propositional form
> can be validly applied, so as to constitute a determinate proposition.
> Also the variable, though undetermined, sustains its identity
> throughout the arguments. The notion originally assumed importance in
> algebra, in the familiar letters such as x, y, z indicating any
> numbers. It also appears somewhat tentatively in the Aristotelian
> syllogisms, where names such as 'Socrates,' indicate 'any man, the
> same throughout the argument.'
> "The use of the variable is to indicate the self-identity of some use
> of 'any' throughout a train of reasoning. For example in elementary
> algebra when x first appears it means 'any number.' But in that train
> of reasoning, the reappearance of x always means 'the same number' as
> in the original appearance. Thus the variable is an ingenious
> combination of the vagueness of any with the definiteness of a
> particular indication.
> "In logical reasoning, which proceeds by the use of the variable,
> there are always two tacit presuppositions - one is that the definite
> symbols of composition can retain the same meaning as the reasoning
> elaborates novel compositions. The other presupposition is that this
> self-identity can be preserved when the variable is replaced by some
> definite instance. Complete self-identity can never be preserved in
> any advance to novelty. The only question is, as to whether the loss
> is relevant to the purposes of the argument. The baby in the cradle,
> and the grown man in middle age, are in some senses identical and in
> other senses diverse. Is the train of argument in its conclusions
> substantiated by the identity of vitiated by the diversity?
> "We thus dismiss deductive logic as a major instrument for
> metaphysical discussion. Such discussion is concerned with the
> eliciting of self-evidence. Apart from such self-evidence, deduction
> fails. Thus logic presupposes metaphysics." (Whitehead, Modes of
> Thought, pp. 105-7)
Ted