File spoon-archives/marxism2.archive/marxism2_1996/96-04-19.143, message 34


From: LeoCasey-AT-aol.com
Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 23:04:41 -0400
Subject: Re: More on Modernism, Reason and Myth


In a message dated 96-04-09 20:48:05 EDT, you write:

Justin:
---------
Leo wants me to concede he may have a  point in his critique of modernist
notions of logic and reason. I don't understand what the critique is, so
I'll pass on the concession.

Leo:
------
Not really. I thought you might concede that I am not launching an attack
upon logic and reason in general, as you originally asserted, just a critique
of a particular conception of it. That does not require you to agree with my
critique, any more than my recognition of how your position is different from
rational choice requires me to agree with it. It just helps dialogue when we
don't impute arguments to each other which are not the ones being made. 

Justin:
---------
In sweeping analogy and what not into logic Leo extends "logic" far beyond
what any contempory philosopher would. Logic in modern philosophy constitutes
a number of mathematical theories, most fundamentally the predicate calculus,
concerned with theorems about deductively valid arguments. Analogy has no
place it. Nor is there any such thing as "inductive" logic, despite the best
attempts of the logical positivism to
articulate one in rigorous terms. There are Bayseans who think that
scientific reasoning can be explicated in terms of probablity theory, but the
view has not gained wide acceptance.

That said, scientific reasoning includes a lot more than logic. Apart from
some corners of the exact sciences it remains inductive, which isn't
suprising, since logic can only give you what's already in your premises
while science purports to tell us things about the world we didn't know
before. Contrary to what Rahul says, the use of analogy is essential to the
sciences, even the exact ones. See Mary Hesse's wonderful Models and
Anoglies in Science. (She was my old grad school advisor at Cambridge). Of
course the scientifiuc use of analogies is very different from the old
Humanist approach that Rahul rightly says was squelched in the Enlightenment.
It's controlled by its value in producing empirically testible hypothesis,
for one.

Leo:
------
If I am not mistaken, Justin is saying that I use the term 'logic' too
broadly, as synonymous with reasoning in general, and this is not the way it
is used within academic philosophy, but he concurs with my substantive point
that inductive arguments and analogies are essential parts of reasoning. He
knows that field a great deal better than I (I was trained in a political
science department as a political theorist), and I accept his account of the
technical use of the term. I can't help wondering, however, of the utility of
work in such a narrowly framed conception of logic; it sounds an awful lot
like (if I may be forgiven an analogy which can not be empirically tested)
the much maligned lit crit papers on the feminine phallus.

Leo
 


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