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The Improprieties of the Pretense of Knowledge . by Daniel Klein dklein@gmu.edu A presentation at the Cato Institute March 29, 2012. Propriety i. The equal-equal relationship The superior-inferior relationship.
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The Improprieties of the Pretense of Knowledge by Daniel Klein dklein@gmu.edu A presentation at the Cato Institute March 29, 2012
The equal-equal relationship The superior-inferior relationship
“Frankness and openness conciliate confidence. We trust the man who seems willing to trust us. We see clearly, we think, the road by which he means to conduct us, and we abandon ourselves with pleasure to his guidance and direction. …”
“The great pleasure of conversation and society, besides, arises from a certain correspondence of sentiments and opinions, from a certain harmony of minds, which like so many musical instruments coincide and keep time with one another. But this most delightful harmony cannot be obtained unless there is a free communication of sentiments and opinions.”
“In the courts of princes,in the drawing-rooms of the great, where success and preferment depend, not upon the esteem of intelligent and well informed equals, but upon the fanciful and foolish favour of ignorant, presumptuous, and proud superiors; flattery and falsehood too often prevail …”
Knowledge entails … information interpretation judgment
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary Education,n.That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.
Alfred Marshall “But the more I studied economic science, the smaller appeared the knowledge which I had of it, in proportion to the knowledge that I needed; and now, at the end of nearly half a century of almost exclusive study of it, I am conscious of more ignorance of it than I was at the beginning of the study.”
The becoming virtues “The general rules of almost all the virtues, the general rules which determine what are the offices of prudence, of charity, of generosity, of gratitude, of friendship, are in many respects loose and inaccurate, admit of many exceptions, and require so many modifications, that it is scarce possible to regulate our conduct entirely by a regard to them.”
One virtue is grammatical “There is, however, one virtue of which the general rules determine with the greatest exactness every external action which it requires. This virtue is justice. The rules of justice are accurate in the highest degree … [T]he whole nature and circumstances of the action prescribed, are all of them precisely fixt and determined.”
Commutative justice: “abstaining from what is another’s” The becoming virtues: making “the becoming use of what is our own” (as well as holding particular objects in proper value or esteem)
Commutative justice: “the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice” Beneficence: “the ornament which embellishes … the building”
Smith on casuistry “It is the end of casuistry to prescribe rules for the conduct of a good man. By observing all the rules of … casuistry … we should be entitled to considerable praise by the exact and scrupulous delicacy of our behaviour.”
on books of casuistry “That frivolous accuracy which they attempted to introduce into subjects which do not admit of it, almost necessarily betrayed them into those dangerous errors [such as chicaning with our consciences and evading the most essential articles of our duty], and at the same time rendered their works dry and disagreeable.”
