Sebastian
As i said, i have no problem with mathematics or algebra.... I just don't think that the reliance of quantitative (qt) methods in Economics can take us beyond empiricism and/or a constant conjunction of events.
I don't accept the methological monism that positivist social sciences promote; the social world is an open system and the natural world is a closed system. Likewise, I have difficulty accepting the "objectivism" and "indiidualism" promoted by positivism and economics methodology.. I believe that Economics Methodology in the mainstream can lead us to Empirical realities, only. And. Empirical reality is just that ...
I try to avoid the epistemic fallacy in terms of which being (ontology) is reduced to our knowledge of it (epistemology). My approach, shaped as it is by Critical Realism, puts forward the argument that the social world/manifest phenomena exist prior to our knowledge, or understanding of it. In order to explain the social world/understand it, we assume a Kantian transcendental logic (not idealism and individualism, while holding on to the philosophical Realism). Whereas Kant based his analysis on an individualist and idealistt mode of analysis, for instance he conceives the human mind as the condition of possibility of knowledge, Critical Realists submit that the conceptual categories we use to identify and understand social events are socially and historically determined - in that sense they precede us/our knowledge of them. To understand reality, and provide greater clarity on causitive mechanisms, we ought to move beyond empiricism (and the reliance of a constant conjunction of events) to identifying the (actual) mechanisms and structures that underly and make possible these events.
In my work I look have tried to look beyond the empirical indicators (the statistics) to try and establish the social and historical forces that shape(d) the empirical. in this respect i identify homologies with Gramscian thought on the role of intellectuals in establishing orthodoxy (methods of inquiry), setting boundaries of discourse (what can be said about certain issues), and that way try to understand the way in which social agency (scholars, policy-makers) reproduce orthodoxy (on the veracity of their own claims) etc...
my god i am talking too much
whatev
----- Original Message ---- From: "moominek at aol.com" <moominek at aol.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Monday, 14 July, 2008 5:27:02 PM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Mathematics and Algebra in Economics Research
>For instance, I have no problem with statistical data, but refuse to >reproduce
mainstream/orthodoxy practices and arguments "hidden behind thickets of
algebra". This is essentially a philosophical problem. My work is influenced by
Marxism in general, and Critical Realism in particular.
Marxism against mathematics? If we take a look on mid-XIX-century political economy, it is quite difficult to find an author so keen on using mathematics like Marx. Not every time successfull, sometimes even obsessed. But he failed not because of philisophical concepts ore problems. He failed because of his emigration to the only country in reach for the defeated revolutionary: And London may have been the best place for studying political economy, but in the XIXth century Britain was - all historians of mathematics confirm this - certainly not a good place for studying mathematics. Many of the best mathematicians hade to study stuff like law (Sylvester, Cayley) ore religion (Young). Their students left the discipline soon. Sylvester had his best time on John Hopkins University in the US.
In consequence Marx "mathematical adviser" Samuel Moore was an professional mathematician, but not capable to find out the structure of Marx mathematical problems. I tried to show this in an german articel on the volume II/14 of the complete edition of Marx-Engels-writings. This volume contains the long time mystified 132 -page manuscript out of 1875 on the mathematical treatment of the rate of profit and the rate of surpus. Marx wa s not able to deal with the mathematics of growth rates ore rates of change. Not in the continuous case - the derivative of the logarithm and so on - and not even in school-algebra case studies. He never made a clear definition of the rate of change of a magnitude and so every moment came back to calculate numerical examples. Not in the attempt to produce numerical examples as illustrations of his ideas, but - my interpretation - in the attempt to find out an unknown to him function: The function showing the influence of changig parameters on the rate of profit/the rate of surplus. The background was his fight with the "law" of falling rate of profit he tried to prove.
In case of Marx problems, basic algebra would have been sufficient to learn, that no necessary tendency towards a lower rate of profit can be deduced in general. In the case of dealing with I-O-Models, with the Cowles Commission treatment of allocation and production (Kornais "Anti-Equilibrium"), the attempts to use the experience of nonlinear dynamical systems in modeling selforganization of matter ore to use normal stochastics in analyzing modern capitalism - in all these cases more then basic training is needed. Not only to use the mathematicals instruments properly, but to find out, where their limits are. (Easyer to pose this task in general, then to solve it in one special case.)
Hard core mathematical, economic and statistical training is needed. And quite a lot of history too. No easy to bring these things together,=2 0when there is no real chance for beeing paid for such research. Even in job in the better unions is not designed to analyse in cold blood the advances and costs of capitalism. Even in theory without mutual help and cooperation there is no chance of change for better.
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