Re Paul C's [5510]: Previously I asked (among other questions): > Does Ockham's Razor then not suggest that we > should embrace VFT in preference to Marx's > theory? By the same token, does Ockham's > Razor suggest that we should embrace surplus > approach theory in preference to either VFT or > Marx's theory? > 1) to what extent can an appeal to empirical > evidence 'settle' the question of the superiority > of alternative paradigms? Paul C responded (to the last question): > There is an extensive literature on the > relationship between Occams razor and choice > between theorems. > This goes under the heading of the Minimum > Description Length principle, (snip, JL) As always, thanks for your response -- it seems to have set a few hares in motion. You didn't really answer, though, the first group of questions that I asked (see above). These questions are related to another one that I asked in [5500]: "How simple is *too* simple?". Occam's razor (also called Ockam's razor) and the MDL principle suggest that the simplest theory that is capable of explaining a phenomenon is the best. Yet, if the phenomenon under investigation is inherently complex then one can *over-simplify* the subject to such an extent that essential aspects of that subject are not included within the explanation. It seems to me that there are many instances of the latter in the history of political economy. I think that this was a major part of Marx's critique of authors such as Torrens, McCulloch, and James Mill. I.e. part of Marx's critique of the 'vulgar economists' associated with the 'disintegration of the Ricardian school' (see _TSV_, Part 3, Ch. XX) was that these economists represented a step backwards from Ricardo to the extent that their theories were *too* simple. But, figuring out what is "too simple" is by no means an easy task (although I don't think that it requires that we throw up our hands and "choose not to choose" a la Feyerabend. See Nicky's [5513]). Consider again the first question I asked above (I'll expand on it here). VFT (e.g. our own R/W) have suggested that a systematic dialectical reconstruction in thought of capitalism should identify money with value and should not consider either labour-power or money to be commodities. They (especially Mike W) has offered many reasons for this shift. One of the reasons offered, it appears to me, is that these concepts in Marx are not only outdated and erroneous but are *also* unnecessary and redundant. That last argument seems to me to be an appeal to Occam's razor and the MDL principle. Yet, if we are going to appeal to the MDL principle, wouldn't Sraffa and surplus approach theory be a 'winner' in relation to *both* Marx and VFT? Indeed, didn't Steedman's critique of Marx in its claim that value theory is 'redundant' and 'unnecessary' implicitly appeal to Occam's razor and the MDL principle? So if both theories implicitly appeal to the MDL principle, how do we then choose between VFT and surplus approach theory? I think that the answer has to concern trying to draw a line a proverbial line in the sand where on one side of the line there are unnecessary assumptions and on the other side there is over- simplification to such an extent that essential aspects of the subject under investigation are abstracted from. To address this question more concretely would thus, for example, require that we consider to what extent money and value are essential to comprehending the subject matter of capitalism. This, though, can not be resolved through an appeal to Occam's razor and the MDL principle -- or so I am inclined to believe. In solidarity, Jerry
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Jun 02 2001 - 00:00:06 EDT