"Jim Devine" <[email protected]> wrote:
> To my mind, the key question is whether or not people need theory at all. > That is, > do we need metaphors to add order to our understandings of the empirical > world? > A "theory" is really nothing but a specific kind of metaphor (a word I'm > using to stand > in for all mental imagery). For those of us who try to think like scientists > (even though > that isn't fully possible), theorizing involves efforts to create a metaphor > that is more > internally consistent (in terms of logic) and more consistent with perceived > empirical > reality than other available metaphors are. Theory is necessary to make good decisions, but the choice seems to be between informal and formal theories. Theories strip out the irrelevant to make reality manageable. > As far as I can tell, Ian (a.k.a. Eubulides) uses the word "metaphor" as if > it's a bad thing. > But without metaphors, people cannot think. That is, without metaphors, life > is > the "blooming, buzzing confusion" perceived by an infant (to quote William > James, likely out of context). The word "metaphor" usually involves making an analogy which may give imprecise results. It is better to use the concept of "model" where precise factors can be postulated. For instance, Marx uses the model of (capital, land, labor) for capitalism. > But what about the "theory of value"? Maybe the theory can be described in > terms of a > meta-metaphor. And when we talk about a "labor theory of value," we have to > remember > that it can only be understood in the context of _competing_ theories of > value. So we > have to mention the dominant theory of value in economics. This is that the > "value" of > something is its (quantified) utility to individuals who buy it. That value > would be truly > revealed in practice if we lived in a system of perfect markets, but (in > theory) the current > set of prices is a reasonable approximation of the underlying set of values, > at least in > the U.S. The meta-metaphor is the vision that we are all atomized > individuals[*] who > nteract with each other only via markets. We are all buyers and sellers. > In this context, what is the (Marxian) "labor theory of value"? I'm not going > to write > about the actual theory (since that's another debate). What's important here > is the > meta-metaphor, i.e., the vision that even though we are individuals we are > also all > part of a unified society. Further, to allow society to survive and even > grow, labor must > be done. Some or all individuals must contribute labor to society as a whole. > In > the current form of society, some people are workers and others not. A theory of value is needed to make numerical predictions which can be verified. For instance, nutrition theory assigns calories to various foodstuffs and how animal burns those calories can determine weight gain. -- Ron
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