Eric Schliesser — Plato: incentives matter!

Because the image of philosopher-kings is so durable, it is easy to imagine that Plato's Socrates is naively over-confident about the virtue of experts. But as the quoted passage reveals, he is very explicit that incentives -- material ones and of honor -- matter even to would-be-philosophers and that even the (very rare) best souls can be corrupted.

Digressions&Impressions
Plato: incentives matter!
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Eric Schliesser — On Plato's System of Natural Liberty (and Adam Smith's True Religion)

Weekend reading.

The issue in The Republic is living a good life in a good society.

Digressions&Impressions
On Plato's System of Natural Liberty (and Adam Smith's True Religion)
Eric Schliesser | Professor of Political Science, University of Amsterdam’s (UvA) Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences

Noah Smith — What does it even mean to "believe" something?

Peter Dorman in the comments:
Jeez, Noah, you need a stiff shot of (later) Wittgenstein. Now.

Exactly.

I did my dissertation on Wittgenstein's notes that were published posthumously as On Certainty. While the term "belief" has many meanings in ordinary language given different contexts, the type of belief under discussion is absolute unshakeable conviction in an assumption that is not grounded on publicly available criteria, without which there is no agreement outside that POV that the assertion is actually knowledge. See Plato on belief or opinion (doxa) v. knowledge (episteme).

Wittgenstein elucidates the logic of justification in ordinary language in contrast with formal languages where truth is deductive, being based on axioms or postulates. Wittgenstein's elucidations show how ordinary language description occurs through the lens of one's language, which is reflective of a worldview. I have been calling this a POV. Wittgenstein elucidates this using the Gestalt figure of a duck-rabbit, which can be seen as a rabbit from one POV and as a duck from another. We can conceive of two parties arguing over whether it is really a duck or a rabbit.

Certain propositions function as norms and criteria to delineate the boundary of one's worldview (POV). For example, functioning as normative they test admission and exclusion with respect to the POV.

While appearing to be descriptive propositions based on form and content, their function shows that they are not descriptive propositions in that they are not falsiable. This is, their position in the worldview privileges them from error. Their function is to assess other items in terms of inclusion or exclusion, truth and falsity.

Mises apriori method is a good example of this in economics and no evidence one adduces will falsify the priors for true believers since they are held to be "synthetic a priori" in Kant's sense. Same with religious dogmas and articles of faith. The invisible hand plays a similar normative role in conventional economics based on the neoliberal POV. But if one looks deeply enough into any POV, one will discover the boundary conditions.

We are all ideologues to one degree or another, because ordinary language use involves imposition of a POV in that there are no absolute criteria to ground general agreement. When there is general agreement, it is usually because we are talking to others who share that POV, which Wittgenstein calls "a form of life". But some POVs are more empirically based than other, hence, more "scientific." But that too involves the presumption that empirical criteria are paramount and that is in the final analysis a preference — pragmatically justified perhaps, but not known to be true in any absolute sense.

This is a quick summary and any explanation of Wittgenstein is bound to be wrong because he chose the method he did because the subject matter is ineffable. One has to see how the logic actually works since logic cannot describe itself without becoming involved in nonsense. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and, "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky" should be read by adults as nonsense in this sense. Lewis Carroll (Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) was a logician playing with logic.

Noahpinion
What does it even mean to "believe" something?
Noah Smith | Assistant Professor of Finance, Stony Brook University

Tao Jonesing — Capitalism Isn't a Failure, It's a Lie

I view everything that Popper has written as highly suspect due to his role as a founding father of neoliberalism. My views of neoliberalism have morphed over time. While I still abhor it, I no longer view it as a repudiation of classical liberalism and finally accept it for what Popper, Hayek, Friedman and Mises described it to be: the intellectual and moral successor to classical liberalism merely stripped of its communist fiction. That is, neoliberalism is everything classical liberalism was designed to be without the alleged "flaw" of collectivism that gave rise to socialism, communism and fascism.

Neoliberalism, known in the US as "libertarianism," is not anti-State. Indeed, Popper, Hayek, Friedman and Mises were all Statists, only their perfect state does not serve the collective, it only keeps the collective in check. The purpose of the neoliberal State is to control the collective from which it draws its power so as to benefit the true elite. The collective serves the neoliberal State, not the other way around.

Capitalism Isn't a Failure, It's a Lie
Tao Jonesing

Good post, with which I generally agree. But I disagree with the modern interpretation of Plato about the guardians. Plato was talking about rule by the truly wise, not an elite that acquires status by power, wealth, or privilege.

But this post explains the whining of the elite about how disadvantaged they are becoming, based on their belief that their privileged status is deserved.