My main point is, the mathematics of probability and statistics exist because we need to justify our claims. My secondary point is that historically, there was an explicit moral dimension to the process of valuation that became obscured in the nineteenth century, at the same time as episteme came to dominate discourse.
"Is it robust knowledge or make believe?". I think the question is wrong. Firstly the dichotomy is false. It is not a choice between "robust knowledge" and "make believe" it is a problem of deciding on the best course of action in an uncertain, undependable, world.Magic, Maths, and Money — The Relationship between Science and Finance
Aristotle distinguished episteme, passive knowledge, from phronesis, active thinking and I think the issue pertinent to "Research, politics, media and impact" is robust thinking rather than robust knowledge. The experience of the Financial Crisis is that robust knowledge is not as sure as many would like to believe. Re-emphasising phronesis, with the aim of good, virtuous, living, might be worth considering. For example, most of the research in Financial Mathematics has been focused on establishing the "true" price of a contract, some of my work is about re-orientating the discipline to focus on the principles that make thinking robust, given that we cannot rely on certain knowledge in an uncertain world. For example, I argue that the origins of Financial Mathematics are in the synthesis of the virtues Faith, Hope and Charity (Caritas, Agape).
Is it robust knowledge or make believe? Evidence, uncertainty and the role of values.Tim Johnson | Lecturer in Financial Mathematics at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
5 comments:
I would point out that the word 'elpis' itself some would translate 'hope' while others would translate it 'expectation'...
So the two versions would become:
1 "faith, hope, charity"
or
2 "faith, expectation, love"
(pistis, elpis, agape)
The second translation is perhaps 'stronger'....
The forms of knowledge forms Tim points out perhaps can be compared to the results of obtaining knowledge via 'rote' vs obtaining via 'active thinking' in today's terms....
The 'rote' or episteme people would probably translate elpis as 'expectation' while the 'active thinking' or phronesis people would probably translate elpis as 'hope'...
The phronesis people "learn the hard way" imo... these are your 'libertarians' in secular politics and your 'disciple-makers' in the non-secular institutions in this camp, they are "learning the hard way"...
rsp,
Words don't have fixed meaning. They change over time. The meaning at the time of New Testament Greek was much different from classical Greek that preceded in by several centuries and where the context was different.
Plato and Aristotle used key terms differently, too. For example, Plato used phronesis to mean intellectual contemplation of the forms (eide), the highest knowledge, while Aristotle used it in Nichomachean Ethics to distinguish the moral wisdom about virtue (arete) from the theoretical wisdom (sophia) of metaphysics.
Different uses of the same terms distinguish different approaches to philosophy and theology. Assuming the terms to have the same meaning because of the identity of sign leads to confusion.
Tim Johnson is on to to something significant here but there is more subtlety to it than he has yet plumbed.
This is a chief difficulty with much economics in attempting to be both social and political philosophy and social science without really thinking things through. The result is bound to be superficial.
The great thinkers were aware of these subtleties and debated them from the beginning of our record of thought. Most contemporary economists are too dazzled by numbers to be subtle thinkers using words that combine quantity with quality.
As positive scientists they are under the illusion that mind is a mirror of reality to the degree that the subject can be isolated and removed as introducing "imperfections" like value judgment. The result is formalization of an ideological POV that is put forward as a true representation of reality, when it is inherently biased, like all POVs.
This mistakes the modern problem of liberalism. Liberalism makes space for pluralism. The search from the true picture of reality then becomes a distraction from the actual challenge of harmonizing the different POVs characteristic of a liberal society enough to fill the needs of society without conflict.
Even if it were possible to establish a "true" POV this would have to be done using criteria upon which different POVs agree. The only possible one is perception (science) and that abstracts from value. However, the fundamental issue is not so much "truth" as value. People are motivated by interest, and interest is bound up in value.
I would associate France more strongly with the Catholic "church" while the UK I would associate more strongly with the reformed "church"....
Catholics are into "free will" while Luther argued against "free will"...
So the French faith if we assume more weighted to the Catholic side, they naturally use 'hope'... which misses the "grace" or "unmerited favor" that Paul taught... So the French look to Peter (hope) while the Protestants look to Paul (expect)....
so this looks like it breaks along religious lines (to me) with the French "hoping" they end up being saved while the Protestants "expect" to be saved...
(FD I am in the "expect" camp under Paul)
rsp,
PS my further point that these religious beliefs seem to permeate the whole culture, including the nations general approach to economic policy and mathematical concepts...
rsp,
Tim Johnson is on to to something significant here but there is more subtlety to it than he has yet plumbed.
This is a chief difficulty with much economics in attempting to be both social and political philosophy and social science without really thinking things through. The result is bound to be superficial.
The great thinkers were aware of these subtleties and debated them from the beginning of our record of thought. Most contemporary economists are too dazzled by numbers to be subtle thinkers using words that combine quantity with quality.
Wow. This seems to me the big enchilada. It has been a source of puzzlement to me how the "Austrians" with their preoccupation with price don't follow it back to the Thomist notion of "just price" which is a much more subtle and complicated social construct than the crude English utilitarian framework that they did use. I'm thinking here of Austria as a Catholic country in which neo-Thomism was quite influential among the intelligentsia when the "Austrians" were in their formative years. One is also aware that due to political circumstances many of these people became emigres, so it is no big surprise that a Hayek, say, would become "more English than the English" in his economics. It is very little realized today that we have access to much more subtle and comprehensive ways of training and extending our thinking than what currently passes for "scientific method."
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