Hi Brad,
I'm afraid my mental powers are insufficient to understand what the
Habermas quote is saying. However, I think I can understand what you wrote:
<<<<
I would argue that economics is a *voluntative* science, by which I mean
that we can reduce human beings to objects of economic prediction if we
choose to do that to them.
>>>>
I don't believe that economics can ever be used for prediction because it
is not at the scientific "level" (in the sense I described in a previous
post) by which a sufficient number of variables could be controlled. It
would need deeper levels of science -- such as anthropology, then
biogenetics, and then neurophysiology before one could do so. A neurologist
who inserted two microelectrodes into the pain and pleasure centres of your
hypothalamus could control, and therefore predict, your behaviour totally.
But economics is at a scientific level in which notions such as freewill,
or even perversity, have validity. It's fairly squishy. Newton's Laws of
Motion are quite usable for almost everything that happens on earth, and
even in the solar system, but would be quite squishy when used to control a
spacecraft on its way to Sirius. A deeper level of science (Relativity) is
required for that.
Keith
<<<<
(Habermas, "Knowledge and Human Interests", 1968/1971, p. 310):
The systematic sciences of social action, that
is economics, sociology... have the goal, as do the
empirical-analytic sciences, of producing nomological
knowledge. A critical social science, however,
will not remain satisfied with this. It is concerned...
to determine when theoretical statements grasp
invariant regularities of social action as such and when
they express ideologically frozen relations of
dependence that can in principle be transformed. To the
extent that this is the case, the critique of
ideology, as well, moreover, as psychoanalysis,
take into account that information about lawlike
connections sets off a process of reflection in
the consciousness of those whom the laws are about.
Thus the level of unreflected consciousness,
which is one of the initial conditions of such laws, can
be transformed. Of course, to this end a critically
mediated knowledge of laws cannot through
reflection alone render a law itself inoperative,
but it can render it inapplicable.
>>>>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------
Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
________________________________________________________________________
