From: ajit sinha (sinha_a99@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Sat Nov 15 2003 - 01:03:15 EST
--- Ian Wright <ian_paul_wright@HOTMAIL.COM> wrote: > Hello Ajit, > > >If you are referring to Sraffa's book, then, of > >course, Sraffa is not developing any causal theory > >there. > > In its typical form it's a constraint-based theory, > in the sense that it defines a set of logically > possible > configurations of an economy given the assumption of > reproduction and information regarding technical > constraints > between commodity types. I agree it is not a causal > theory. > The fact that mathematically it is expressed as > solutions to a set of simultaneous equations (i.e, > constraints on possible values of variables) is a > sign > of that. > > But this isn't a good thing. It's a limitation. > Although this is not to deny that an initial > abstraction from change can be illuminating. So I > think there's no need to justify a constraint-based > theory by implying that philosophy tells us we > can't hope to do any better. We can and should build > dynamic, causal theories of the economy. _____________________ True! But Sraffa's project in his book is very limited. But it tells us a few very important things. (1) Prices and wages cannot be compared once methods of production of any basic good changes, since the theory loses any standard for measurement. Thus any dynamic theory that admits of changes in methods of production should not go about camparing prices and wages in two regimes and coming up with implied causal relations. But there can be many other variables that can be logically measured over periods of time with such changes. One has to know what can be done and what cannot be. (2) A theory of value is essentially a timeless problematic. A dynamic theory of value is bunk. A problem of asertaining the reasons for changes in the price of a commodity over a period of time is not a theory of value but rather an entirely different problem. (3) There is no essence of value, i.e., value is not rooted in either labor or utility. It is simply implicated in a given system of production and distribution. ____________________________ > > (As an aside, mathematical logic does admit of > causality, as computer science has shown, although I > admit > this is an obscure point for those not trained in > computer > science). _________________ May be that's why I never get along well with my computer! _____________________ > > >Hume's challenge on causation has never been > answered. > > There's been lots of answers to Hume, not least Kant > and Hegel. A modern approach is Bhaskar's critical > realism, in particular "A Realist Theory of > Science". > Related to Andrew's point: he holds that critical > realism doesn't fully answer Hume either, and that > to > fully answer him requires a more forceful identity > between > thought and reality. _______________ So my point stays. _______________ > > But really it is very silly to deny the reality of > causal change independent of our knowledge of it. > And Wittgenstein was regularly quite silly in his > reduction of ontology to epistemology, his > empiricism > of language, and belief that philosophy was > essentially > about analysing implicit common-sense theories. > Here I agree with Popper that philosophy (and > reality) > is much more than that. ______________________ Well! if you believe in cause then questioning it will always sound silly. I think wittgenstein was always interested in finding the limits of language. In Tractatus he tries to find the logical limits, in the Investigations he suggests that there are many internal limits defined by language games, that are given by the lived experience of human beings. Moving the meaning of a word from the context of one language games to another creats nonsense. He thought most of the philosophical problems were of this nature. At one place in the Investigations he says that 'philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday'. Cheers, ajit sinha > > > -Ian. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection > with MSN 8. > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree
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