In his recent contributions on this blog (link, link), Daniel Little develops an interesting position advocating the legitimacy and “relative explanatory autonomy” of the meso-level, while maintaining a microfoundations requirement. I am grateful that Daniel invited me to comment on his views and I will try to do so in a concise way, discussing four issues:
- There are more than two levels of social explanation
- Levels of explanation are perspectival; neither absolute, nor unique
- Seeking for microfoundations and macrofoundations as good heuristics.
- Social scientific practice and plurality as objects of study.
UnderstandingSociety
Guest post by Jeroen Van Bouwel: On microfoundations and macrofoundations
Jeroen Van Bouwel | post-doctoral fellow at Ghent University and a visiting scholar in philosophy at Uppsala University
13 comments:
"Levels of explanation are perspectival"
Not when it comes to math…2+2 = 4 always.
The only alternative perspective is looking at it incorrectly, unless one is talking about a different base number system, in which case it is just a different "tape measure".
"Democritus discovered that Protagoras had tied the load himself with such perfect geometric accuracy that it revealed him to be a mathematic prodigy. He immediately took him into his own household and taught him philosophy."
Paul,
"Levels of explanation are perspectival"
this is perhaps an example of what happened when people were let in without first demonstrating their mathematical cognition skills....
this is perhaps an example of 'philosophy' without 'the math'.
rsp,
"Levels of explanation are perspectival"
Not when it comes to math…2+2 = 4 always.
Right, and here the subject is real rather than logical/mathematical. In logic and math, there are two truth values, 0 and 1 because logic and math deal with tautologies and contradictions. The truth value of descriptive proposition is empirical and lies between 0 and 1. Logic and math are certain, and science is always tentative wrt to future observation.
What Van Bouwel means regarding perspectival is different levels of observation (data, information). The two levels that most admit are the holistic or systemic and the individual or elemental. He is saying that there are other perspectives that may be informational, e.g., nested levels of sub-systems. In logic and math this is dealt with in set theory and system theory wrt to nesting and networks.
Tom,
How do you see this lining up with the assertion "we're out of money!" that we seem to be always up against?
iow it may be that the people who continue to assert this are coming from a 'perspective' where people think this is true...
And if we dont have the 'math' or logic to refute this false assertion, we just keep thinking this is true AND we can just ignore the MMT assertion that "we are NOT out of money" because we think the issue is "perspectival" and we can think that MMT is just coming from another perspective... and then discern no true contradiction here...
Logic/math seems to be key here.... if the person doesnt have this, then thru some sort of "philosophy only" approach, people can remain in the false...
My 2 cents... rsp,
Tom,
for instance I would say "we're out of money!" is false based on logic/math...
Perhaps those who would disagree are looking at it as "descriptive-empirical" and think the issue ends up somewhere between 0 and 1...
If so, then what we are really up against is figuring out how to get those people to somehow start to look at the issue logically vice empirically... figure out how to do that... once we get them to shift to the logical, then it may just fall right together for them...
Can you think of another case where humans were able to accomplish this "shift"?
iow is there a well known case where the advocates of a logical issue were somehow able to convince thru words, another cohort of humans that their perspective of empiricism was incorrect with success? I cant think of any off the top of my head, but there may be a precedent to look at out there...
rsp,
How do you see this lining up with the assertion "we're out of money!" that we seem to be always up against?
Just about no one understands monetary econ so it is not surprising that they reiterate the conventional viewpoint.
Moreover, Van Bouwel is also writing in Germany about the situation as he perceives it from the EZ perspective, where they are on a quasi-gold standard.
Can you think of another case where humans were able to accomplish this "shift"?
All the great conceptual revolutions in history involved a shift in framing, which is basically a perspectival shift.
The government as household analogy is as old as the term "economics." which comes from the Greek term for household management and which used to be called "home economics."
The shift is similar to the Copernican Revolution that convinced people that their eyes were lying when they saw the sun "rise" and "set."
Bill Mitchell has a post on changing the framing up today, linked to here at MNE.
"The government as household analogy is as old as the term "economics." which comes from the Greek term for household management and which used to be called "home economics."
I know the translation there but never realized that the Greek term itself could be a false metaphor!
WOW! rsp,
The ancients had no conception of economics or an economy in the modern sense. It really didn't arise until the advent of capitalism.
Online Etymological Dictionary
economy (n.)
1530s, "household management," from Latin oeconomia, from Greek oikonomia "household management, thrift," from oikonomos "manager, steward," from oikos "house" (cognate with Latin vicus "district," vicinus "near;" Old English wic "dwelling, village;" see villa) + nomos "managing," from nemein "manage" (see numismatics). The sense of "wealth and resources of a country" (short for political economy) is from 1650s.
'nomos' is 'law' not 'management' from what Ive read elsewhere...
"house-law"
Still the word "house" is in there and we always are fighting the "household" analogy... perhaps revealing...
maybe what we are taking about isnt really 'economics' per se....
rsp,
Nomos meant custom, convention, constitutional or arbitrary law in ancient Greek.
Philosophically, this concept was transferred first to regularities in nature (physis), and subsequently to ethics. Some philosophers (Plato) associated it further with divine law (theios nomos in Laws 716c). See F. E. Peters, Greek Philosophical Terms: A Historical Lexicon (1967). This concept was developed by the Stoics into their natural law doctrine.
The Christian Fathers (Augustine) combined the concepts of Biblical divine law as revelation and Greek natural law as reason into what became the natural law doctrine in Christian theology — reason illumined by revelation.
"Right, and here the subject is real rather than logical/mathematical." - Tom
Here, when we talk about economics (MMT) we are really talking about the money system, and the interaction between it and the economic system. We aren't really talking about economics.
So we need to define some goals re the economy and try to find some solution using the gas pedal…the money system.
We need to define the problem first.
MMT, above all, is based on the idea that there is no significant economic outcome without a money system (we would have a barter system, highly inefficient) so understanding that system is paramount.
There is no capitalism or capitalist outcome without some input from the money system.
So the money system leads the economy whereever it goes.
The economy cannot "suck" money out of the government. It follows that the money system "pushes".
Monetarists are trying to "push", kind of like alternating current, and book gains on the up-cycle, without wondering or worrying what happens on the down-cycle.
The problem is, in a real world, no society would be happy with a monetarism-sloshing outcome…so they pretend the fiscal agent doesn't do anything but take all the credit.
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