CBThe laws of physics are formulated with plenty of exceptions. Take the >first law of Newton and Galilei as presented by Einstein below. The clause >"removed sufficiently far from other bodies" is a ceteris paribus clause >and implies exceptions to the law ( i.e. when the body is not removed >sufficiently from other bodies there is an exception).
Justin: Not the same thing. If you factor in the gravitational attraction of other bodies, you can (with difficulty, the many-body problem is very challenging), predict the path of the body affected as precisely as you like. With physics, the sources of deviation are few in kind, well understood, and rigorously accountable for. ^^^^^^^ CB: It is the same thing as an "exception". It is an exception to the general law. I named about four others with exceptions. ^^^^^^ Social systems by contrast are open. We don't know even what kinds of things might count as disturbances. ^^^^^ CB: This is overstatement. We do know some of the kinds of thing that might count as disturbances. And the "ideal type" models, freed from disturbances, are of unclear status. The best ideal type we have of that sort is the rational actor model underlying game theory and neoclassical economics. Even there the terms are disputed. With the rational actor minimax or maximin or what? ^^^^^^^ I repeat that I am not, as a social scientist, gripped with physics envy. I do not think that physics is better as science merely because it is more precise. I also agree that the differences between the natural and the social sciences are differences in degree rather than kind. This was the thesis of my doctoral dissertation. That doesn't mean that there are no differences. ^^^^^^ CB: Well I can agree with most of this. We started out arguing over whether social science has lawlike generalizations. It does. And we don't have dis them because they are not all around as precise as those in physics. More specifically, the law of value is a theoretically and practically useful generalization, and it makes our understanding of capitalist exploitation more precise than your falling back to just "exploitation". I'D LIKE TO HEAR YOUR RESPONSE TO THIS CRITICISM OF YOUR IDEA THAT WE ONLY NEED EXPLOITATION NOT VALUE THEORY. More on your papers as I read through them.
