Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

MathOverMeth t1_j41b1xt wrote

Before you read any further, do you know of anyone who's proposed a system of philosophy or political philosophy that assumes its own incorrectness? Many acknowledge the need for change, yet they systematically resist change. I propose a system that welcomes and encourages it. A purely academic pursuit to see where a logical democracy could take us. If anyone has done anything like this, I want to see it!

The iterative process for improvement needs to be refined, but I do have some barebones ideas. I mentioned it would be democratic, so that's why I'm on this subreddit. If someone has a proposed amendment, they would formally submit their argument. The author of the original rule (or some sort of anonymous official) would then respond, and a philosophical debate would commence. The debate would be unlike today's democratic debates, and more like a game of correspondence chess. Several days could go by to ensure a proper philosophical response. After some time, voters could read the transcripts and choose a side. Ideally, votes are cast by independent and anonymous individuals, hopefully certified in logic in some way, but voting is meant to be accessible. It's clear this could all blow up way too fast, meaning an always growing queue time, but amendments would still happen, and I would be very curious to see the direction the system would head In.

In undergrad, I took some early modern philosophy where we studied descartes, leibniz, hume, etc. They were all about bootstrapping their own system of everything. I don't know what contemporary philosophy looks like, but I’m guessing that metaphysics going out of style means today's work doesn't have as much of a systematic structure. I could be very wrong on that. As a math major I found these systems very compelling in theory, and as a life goal, I want to write my own system of everything…

I know that my system would be just as good a starting point as any. If people think this is a cool idea, I think existing systems that are good starting points and a better rule structure should be proposed. Maybe a starting point is this rule set? The US constitution?? This is way way bigger than me and I don’t know where else it could go down

2

oryxmath t1_j41mqx0 wrote

"a system of philosophy or political philosophy that assumes its own incorrectness"

I don't know if anything like that does or could exist, but public choice theory comes to mind as a system of reasoning about politics (which is not the same as a political philosophy!) that assumes that political actors are self-interested.

Regarding your iterative democracy

It is an interesting idea, but think about the things it has in common with contemporary representative democracy, and how poorly some of that stuff tends to work out in practice. Most laws and regulations are subject to notice and comment periods and subject to progressive amendment prior to becoming law. The idea being that interested parties can submit analyses and proposed revisions so that the law ends up better than it otherwise would. But what happens in practice is the "logic of collective action" comes into play: concentrate benefits, diffuse costs. This is how you end up with these laws that start as "No factory may emit xyz noxious chemicals into the water supply" and end up as "No factory may emit xyz noxious chemicals into the water supply unless it is a factory that processes potatoes": Frito-Lay (or whoever) has a big incentive to spend resources proposing and pushing for that amendment, and when it comes time for that politician to be accountable to voters they can point out that "I fought for environmental regulations that protect America's farmers!". The people who bear the cost of that amendment do so incrementally, almost invisibly on the individual voter basis. So they don't have a strong enough incentive to put together an interest group that counters Frito-Lay in this made up example.

Now I know that is not quite what you are proposing, but to me the most critical part of "assuming its own incorrectness" is for your proposal to take into account the fact that people are not going to behave like Plato's philosopher kings in practice. So how do you account for interest groups, collective action problems, self-interested political actors, etc.?

2

MathOverMeth t1_j41qpsk wrote

Thank you for your reply! I would assume incorrectness because that is my own personal philosophy. I view my own paradigm as something that is incorrect due to a number of things: a lack of information, flawed reasoning, lack of universal truth, etc. Also, people disagree with philosophy literally all the time, but most systems don't go through such a revision process. If someone disagrees strongly enough, they will release their own revised version of the older work.

Like I said, this would be purely academic. I'm not too worried about how things play out in practice. It should not be too political, that way all voting remains individual and anonymous. I don't know what the subject of the system would be, it could be anything, but my initial thought would be to pursue philosophical truth (whatever that means, but not real world stuff). The project is a lot less about the state of the text and more about the direction it heads in. Over time, I think it might demonstrate how incompatible logic is with this world. It feels like open source philosophy to me and I love it.

edit: a friend just told me about Nomic, a game invented by philosopher Peter Suber in 1982

1

hacktheself t1_j457fl3 wrote

my typical method is assuming any conclusions or theory is likely in error until demonstrated otherwise.

as an example, based on first principles, observation, and a little industry knowledge, i developed a theory regarding journalists falling into two camps: access journos who cultivate access, and ignored journos who seek veracity.

i thought it was just a tight until someone pointed me to the herman-chomsky propaganda model, a work i haven’t read (thank you multiple TBIs), where this is a component of it.

1