Practical Philosophy » Resources on Political, Economical and Ethical philosophy » 2/12/2018 2:44 pm |
Re: Hayekian social theory: I read an interesting article on Röpke and Hayek as "neo-distributists". Here's the citation: Corrin, Jay P. "The Neo-Distributism of Friedrich A. Hayek and Wilhelm Röpke." Thought: Fordham University Quarterly 63, no. 4 (1988): 397-412. DOI: 10.5840/thought198863429 (If anyone wants a copy, send me a private message.)
Practical Philosophy » Resources on Political, Economical and Ethical philosophy » 2/07/2018 3:43 pm |
I'll also mention that Ed has written some articles on economics and political philosophy. Here are the ones I believe are most revelant:
"Reply to Walter Block" Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. 22, no. 1 (2010)
"Classical Natural Law Theory, Property Rights, and Taxation" Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 27, no. 1 (2010)
"Personal Identity and Self-Ownership" Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 22, no. 2 (2005)
"There is No Such Thing as an Unjust Initial Acquisition" Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 22, no. 1 (2005)
"Self-Ownership, Abortion, and the Rights of Children" Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. 18, no. 3 (2004)
"Hayek on Tradition" Journal of Libertarian Studies, vol. 17, no. 1 (2003)
"Taxation, Forced Labor, and Theft: Reply to Edwards" The Independent Review, vol. 6, no. 2 (2001)
"Taxation, Forced Labor, and Theft" The Independent Review, vol. 5, no. 2 (2000)
"Hayek, Social Justice, and the Market: Reply to Johnston" Critical Review, vol. 12, no. 3 (1998)
"Hayek on Social Justice: Reply to Lukes and Johnston" Critical Review, vol. 11, no. 4 (1997)
Practical Philosophy » Resources on Political, Economical and Ethical philosophy » 2/07/2018 3:35 pm |
nojoum wrote:
I just need enough information so that I can understand which economic policy I should support. Or if there is a presidential election, I would know if he is just making baseless claims and so on. Anything that can help me to be a responsible citizen is welcome. I dont mind if it is university or college text book. I will read it.
You need to read Mueller's Redeeming Economics, followed by a steady diet of Fr. James V. Schall.
Practical Philosophy » Resources on Political, Economical and Ethical philosophy » 2/07/2018 3:31 pm |
UGADawg wrote:
I'm an economist. I think the best introduction to the subject for the interested layman is Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics, which is now in it's 5th edition I believe. This is of course assuming you don't want to read through a college level principles textbook. If you're interested in anything beyond a broad introduction I can make other recommendations.
I agree with UGADawg that you should go for an introductory text, thought I'd suggest Faustino Ballve's Essentials of Economics or Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson. They are much shorter, though Sowell will give you a much more comprehensive view of the field.
Authors you should consider reading include Wilhelm Röpke, Jacques Rueff, Heinrich Pesch, and Philip Henry Wicksteed. The first three were committed Catholics, the last an accomplished medieval scholar who wrote some seminal works in 20th century economic theory.
Though I could go on, I'll end this post by mentioning two authors that should interest the Thomists on this forum.
Jennifer Roback Morse is an economist who has focused her efforts in recent years on defending the traditional understanding of the family against modern social ills. Her book Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a Village (Ruth Institute Books, 2008) argues that economic liberalism can only be sustained via the inculcation of virtue through traditional family structures. John D. Mueller is an economist who now defends what he calls "neo-scholastic" economics, which is a modern synthesis of Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. I strongly recommend his book Redeeming Economics: Rediscovering the Missing Element (ISI Books, 2014), as well as his many articles.
Practical Philosophy » Ethics of Taxation » 6/09/2017 8:18 pm |
Have you ever looked at the Journal of Markets and Morality? It has some articles on taxation in the Christian intellectual tradition. Heck, here's one: "The Ethical Basis for Taxation in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas". There's also a good deal of material in Chaufen's book Faith and Liberty (Lexington Books, 2003).
While I cannot give you a specific answer to this claim (I've seen many on the blog-o-sphere), I think Thomists would say that man is a political animal, and thus needs government. The purpose of taxes, then, is to support the public functions of government.
Theoretical Philosophy » A Question on Molinist Categories and Reformed Critiques of Molinism » 3/17/2017 5:26 pm |
(1) Guess I need to make a little more time to read Molina, then.
(2) True, Plantinga does hold to the Reformed confessions, but he's not well accepted among Reformed theologians (especially presuppositionalists like J White and K S Oliphint).
I believe the objections I have in mind are those concerning God's general knowledge of counterfacutals. The arguments I come across most often is that the Molinist distinction between God's knowledge of contingent things and counterfactuals are really the same kind of knowledge. James White has put the charge this way: If God is the creator, wouldn't he already know what his creatures would do in any sort of circumstance? (This leads to the basic distinction of essentials and contingencies.)
Here's Paul Helm on the Reformed/Calvinistic perspective ( ):
Since the Reformed held that all that occurs is unconditionally decreed by God and that men and women are responsible for their actions, they saw no need for a third kind of divine knowledge, a middle knowledge, which depended upon God foreseeing what possible people would freely do in certain circumstances. The Reformed interpreted the Keilah incident differently. God did not simply see what Saul would do; He ordained that Saul would come down if David remained. He ordained that David would depart from Keilah upon hearing what Saul would do. And He ordained that Saul would change his mind.Not only is middle knowledge unnecessary to an all-knowing, all-decreeing God, but the Molinists’ conception of free will makes it impossible for God to exercise providential control over his creation. Why? Because men and women would be free to resist His decree. God can only bring to pass the actions of free agents via his middle knowledge of what they would freely do if…[size=100]Further, given the Molinist view of freedom, it is impossible for God to bring about the conversion of any p
Theoretical Philosophy » A Question on Molinist Categories and Reformed Critiques of Molinism » 3/10/2017 7:14 pm |
The Craig-White presentations present the categories of God's knowledge as such:
1. God's knowledge of himself
2. God's knowledge of potentials
3. God's knowledge of created things
My questions -
(1) Isn't the Molinist distinction between created things and potential "worlds" simply the application of the act-potency distinction to God's knowledge of creatures?
.
(2) Are the Reformed objectors to Molinism creating a problem for themselves when they reject the idea of middle knowledge? Is there any way to account for God's knowledge of potentials without accepting Molinism?
Cheers
Religion » David Bentley Hart and his critics on Christianity and capitalism » 2/10/2017 3:48 am |
Jeremy Taylor wrote:
My own (very brief) view, as a distributist, is that, on the one hand, Hart sometimes goes too far (and he doesn't seem to differentiate enough between options like distributism compared to run of the mill democratic socialism or social democracy, which latter are often as bad as the corporate-capitalism he critiques). On the other hand, I have long been suspicious of those, like the people at the Acton Institute, who seem to think Adam Smith and Bastiat were disciples, and Mises, Hayek, and Friedman Church Fathers; people who think that traditional Christianity and classical liberalism, globalised corporate-capitalis, or even modern libertarianism, are uncomplicatedly compatible.
Much agreed, thought I lean towards the Acton Institute view. (I find J. Madison much more agreeable to the Christian tradition than K. Marx or H. Minsky.)
My main concerns with Hart are such:
(1) There is only one quote in his article "Christ's Rubble". Very little engagement with the authors he's criticizing.
For those of you who have read Feser on Hart, this is closely tied to Feser's concerns. Hart is only able to gallop between different positions because he treats them in such loosey goosey terms. (If he actually quoted who he was criticizing, Hart would have a much harder time critiquing his opponents.)
(2) As an economics major who is studying business cycle theory and American economic history, my first question is: WHICH capitalism? Agrarian capitalism (Jefferson)? Capitalism as the engine of modern finance (Hamilton)? The money manager capitalism of the 20th century (H. Minsky)? Again, Hart is very loosey goosey in describing his opponents, making it virtually impossible to show his critiques correct or false.
As to the relation betwix Christianity and capitalism, I highly recommend the following articles and books:
"The Return of Natural Law Economics":
"
Theoretical Philosophy » An Aristotelian Philosophy of Mathematics » 2/10/2017 3:23 am |
Reading through Redeeming Economics yet again. Thought this quote might generate some good discussion (p. 375n13):
Economics is (and has been since Aristotle) a mathematical as well as moral discipline. But Alfred Marshall once gave another economist this excellent advice: “(1) Use mathematics as a shorthand language, rather than an engine of inquiry. (2) Keep to them till you have done. (3) Translate into English. (4) Then illustrate by examples that are important in real life. (5) Burn the mathematics.” In other words, mathematics cannot say any more than can be said in English. “Twice two equals four” means the same as “2 x 2 = 4.” But the math does serve some very useful purposes: checking whether a theory is logically complete, discovering its implicit assumptions, and quantifying and testing its predictions. Once you realize this, math loses any mystique and becomes no more exciting (though it remains no less necessary) than proper spelling and grammar. The practicing economist is a man of simple pleasures, like Charles Dickens’s Mr. Micawber: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” Or rather, for the practicing economist: four unknowns, four equations, result happiness. Four unknowns, three equations, result misery. As an empirical practitioner, I began to suspect that most of the misery in modern economics results from the simple error of starting with more unknown variables than explanatory equations. All varieties of modern neoclassical economics have no more than three kinds of equations to explain the four essential facets of human economic decisions. Each missing equation or explanation forces economists either to resort to circular logic (thus making their descriptions unverifiable) or else to replace missing variables with assumptions (and thus to prescribe and falsify rather than desc
Theoretical Philosophy » But, but Thomists don't ever interact with other traditions. . . » 1/05/2017 5:28 pm |
iwpoe wrote:
Well, I've seen a lot of different things and I can kind of get the idea. While I have seen a lot of Thomist and Catholic interaction with phenomenology and Heidegger sometimes one wonders why one spent time on Heidegger if Thomas was going to win by default..
The only excellent case I can think of is Edith Stein, who studied under Husserl and alongside Heidegger before translating one of Aquinas' works at the suggestion of Fr. Erich Przywara.