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description=15 posts published by Lars Syll during December 2025;

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ul knowledge only by acknowledging its dependence on that external reality my core critique of mainstream economics is its failure to take this ontological requirement seriously share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky schwarzfahrer 31 dec 2025 at 12 23 posted in politics society comments off on schwarzfahrer schwarzfahrer a razor sharp timeless and unforgettable 12 minute masterpiece great storytelling doesn t need length just depth share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky the holy grail of science 30 dec 2025 at 10 42 posted in theory of science methodology 4 comments traditionally philosophers have focused mostly on the logical template of inference the paradigm case has been deductive inference which is topic neutral and context insensitive the study of deductive rules has engendered the search for the holy grail syntactic and topic neutral accounts of all prima facie reasonable inferential rules the search has hoped to find rules that are transparent and algorithmic and whose following will just be a matter of grasping their logical form part of the search for the holy grail has been to show that the so called scientific method can be formalised in a topic neutral way we are all familiar with carnap s inductive logic or popper s deductivism or the bayesian account of scientific method there is no holy grail to be found there are many reasons for this pessimistic conclusion first it is questionable that deductive rules are rules of inference second deductive logic is about updating one s belief corpus in a consistent manner and not about what one has reasons to believe simpliciter third as duhem was the first to note the so called scientific method is far from algorithmic and logically transparent fourth all attempts to advance coherent and counterexample free abstract accounts of scientific method have failed all competing accounts seem to capture some facets of scientific method but none can tell the full story fifth though the new dogma bayesianism aims to offer a logical template bayes s theorem plus conditionalisation on the evidence that captures the essential features of non deductive inference it is betrayed by its topic neutrality it supplements deductive coherence with the logical demand for probabilistic coherence among one s degrees of belief but this extended sense of coherence is almost silent on what an agent must infer or believe stathis psillos in mainstream economics there has long been an insistence on formalistic mathematical modelling and to some economic methodologists this has forced economists to abandon realism and substitute axiomatics for real world relevance according to this critique the deductivist orientation has been the principal reason behind the difficulty mainstream economics has had in understanding explaining and predicting what occurs in modern economies yet it has also granted mainstream economics much of its discursive power at least so long as no one begins asking difficult questions about the veracity of and justification for the assumptions upon which the deductivist foundation is erected the sort of formal analytical and axiomatic deductive mathematical modelling that constitutes the core of mainstream economics is difficult to reconcile with a real world ontology it is also why so many critics find mainstream economic analysis palpably and utterly unrealistic and irrelevant although there has been a clearly discernible increase in and focus upon empirical economics in recent decades the results in these research fields have not fundamentally challenged the main deductivist direction of mainstream economics they are still largely framed and interpreted within the core axiomatic assumptions of individualism instrumentalism and equilibrium that underpin even the new mainstream economics although perhaps a sign of an increasing yet highly path dependent theoretical pluralism mainstream economics remains from a methodological point of view principally a deductive project built upon a formalist foundation if macroeconomic theories and models are to confront reality there are obvious limits to what can be said rigorously in economics for although it is generally a sound aspiration to seek scientific claims that are both rigorous and precise the chosen level of precision and rigour must be relative to the subject matter studied an economics that is relevant to the world in which we live can never achieve the same degree of rigour and precision as logic mathematics or the natural sciences an example of a logically valid deductive inference wherever logic is used here it refers to deductive analytical logic may appear as follows premise 1 all chicago economists believe in the rational expectations hypothesis reh premise 2 bob is a chicago economist conclusion bob believes in reh in a hypothetico deductive reasoning hypothetico deductive confirmation in this case we would use the conclusion to test the law like hypothesis in premise 1 according to the hypothetico deductive model a hypothesis is confirmed by evidence if the evidence is deducible from the hypothesis if bob does not believe in reh we have gained some warranted reason for non acceptance of the hypothesis an obvious shortcoming here being that further information beyond that given in the explicit premises might have yielded a different conclusion the hypothetico deductive method if we treat the hypothesis as absolutely certain true we ought rather to speak of an axiomatic deductive method essentially means that we posit a hypothesis infer empirically testable propositions consequences from it test the propositions through observation or experiment depending on the testing results either find the hypothesis corroborated or falsified however in science we regularly employ a kind of practical argumentation where there is little room for applying the restricted logical formal transformations view of validity and inference most people would probably accept the following argument as valid reasoning even though from a strictly logical point of view it is non valid premise 1 bob is a chicago economist premise 2 the recorded proportion of keynesian chicago economists is zero conclusion so certainly bob is not a keynesian economist in science contrary to what one finds in most logic textbooks few argumentations are settled by showing that all xs are ys in scientific practice we instead present other than analytical explicit warrants and backings data experience evidence theories models for our inferences so long as we can show that our deductions or inferences are justifiable and have well backed warrants other scientists will attend to us that our scientific deductions or inferences are logical non entailments simply is not a problem to think otherwise is to commit the fallacy of misapplying formal analytical logic categories to areas where they are irrelevant or simply beside the point scientific arguments are not analytical arguments where validity is solely a question of formal properties scientific arguments are substantial arguments whether bob is a keynesian or not is not something we can decide based on the formal properties of statements propositions we must examine what he has actually written and said to see if the hypothesis that he is a keynesian is true or not in a deductive nomological explanation also known as a covering law explanation we would try to explain why bob believes in reh with the help of the two premises in this case actually giving an explanation with very little explanatory value these kinds of explanations both in their deterministic and statistic probabilistic versions rely heavily on deductive entailment from premises that are assumed to be true but they have precious little to say on where these assumed to be true premises originate the deductive logic of confirmation and explanation may work well provided they are used in deterministic closed models in mathematics the deductive axiomatic method has worked perfectly well but science is not mathematics conflating these two domains of knowledge has been one of the most fundamental errors made in the science of economics applying the deductive axiomatic method to real world systems immediately proves it to be excessively narrow and irrelevant both the confirmatory and explanatory variants of hypothetico deductive reasoning fail since there is no way one can relevantly analyse confirmation or explanation as a purely logical relation between hypothesis and evidence or between law like rules and explananda in science we argue and try to substantiate our beliefs and hypotheses with reliable evidence propositional and predicate deductive logic on the other hand is not about reliability but the validity of the conclusions given that the premises are true deduction and the inferences that accompany it is an example of explicative reasoning where the conclusions we draw are already contained within the premises deductive inferences are purely analytical and it is this truth preserving nature of deduction that distinguishes it from all other kinds of reasoning but this is also its limitation since truth in the deductive context does not refer to a real world ontology relating propositions only as true or false within a formal logic system and as an argument scheme deduction is entirely non ampliative the output of the analysis is nothing other than the input to give an economics example consider the following rather typical yet uninformative and tautological deductive inference premise 1 the firm seeks to maximise its profits premise 2 the firm maximises its profits when marginal cost equals marginal revenue conclusion the firm will operate its business at the equilibrium where marginal cost equals marginal revenue this is as empty as deductive nomological explanations of singular facts built upon simple generalisations premise 1 all humans are less than 20 feet tall premise 2 bob is a human conclusion bob is less than 20 feet tall although a logically valid inference this is scarcely an explanation since we would still probably wish to know why all humans are less than 20 feet tall deductive nomological explanations also often suffer from a sort of emptiness stemming from a lack of real causal connection between premises and conclusions premise 1 all humans who take birth control pills do not become pregnant premise 2 bob took birth control pills conclusion bob did not become pregnant most people would probably not consider this much of a real explanation learning new things about reality demands something other than a reasoning where the knowledge is already embedded in the premises these other kinds of reasoning induction and abduction may provide good but not conclusive reasons that is the price we must pay if we wish to have something substantial and interesting to say about the real world share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky var blev ni av ljuva drömmar 28 dec 2025 at 20 17 posted in varia comments off on var blev ni av ljuva drömmar share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky the real tasks of social science and regression analysis 26 dec 2025 at 11 41 posted in statistics econometrics comments off on the real tasks of social science and regression analysis after mastering the technicalities of regression analysis and econometrics students often feel as though they are masters of the universe i usually bring them back down to earth by assigning christopher achen s modern classic interpreting and using regression this tends to put them back on track helping them to understand that no increase in methodological sophistication alter the fundamental nature of the subject it remains a wondrous mixture of rigorous theory experienced judgment and inspired guesswork and that finally is its charm and in case they become too excited about having learned to navigate the intricacies of proper significance tests and p values i also ask them to reflect on achen s warning significance testing as a search for specification errors substitutes calculations for substantive thinking worse it channels energy toward the hopeless search for functionally correct specifications and diverts attention from the real tasks which are to formulate a manageable description of the data and to exclude competing ones share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky my habermasian perspective on multiculturalism 25 dec 2025 at 19 14 posted in politics society 4 comments when a liberal society faces the question of granting spe cial privileges immunities and political autonomy to one cultural group it cannot compromise on fundamental human rights furthermore those who understand liberal democracy as itself a way of life grounded in a distinct moral faith cannot in good conscience agree to allow schools or the government to suppress the democratic way of growth and transformation the democratic way conflicts with any rigid idea of or absolute right to cultural survival the democratic way means respect for and openness to all cultures but it also challenges all cultures to abandon those intellectual and moral values that are inconsistent with the ideals of freedom equality and the ongoing cooperative experimental search for truth and well being it is a creative method of transformation this is its deeper spiritual and revolutionary significance steven c rockefeller culture identity ethnicity gender and religiosity should never be accepted as a basis for intolerance in political and civic aspects in a modern democratic society people belonging to these different groups must be able to rely on society to protect them against the abuses of intolerance all citizens must have the freedom and right to question and leave their own group against those who do not accept this tolerance we must be intolerant in sweden we have long embraced multiculturalism if we mean by multiculturalism that there are several different cultures in our society this does not pose a problem then we are all multiculturalists however if we mean that cultural identity and affiliation also entail specific moral ethical and political rights and obligations then we are discussing something entirely different then we are talking about normative multiculturalism and accepting normative multiculturalism also means tolerating unacceptable intolerance as normative multiculturalism implies that the specific cultural groups rights may be given higher priority than the citizens universal human rights and thus indirectly become a defence for these groups potential intolerance in a normative multiculturalist society inst...