Summary:
# 24 May 2024 What we offer is a direction and end point. It will be a long road to get there, but every step in this direction helps us get towards it. It is not a windy road, but straight. To adopt this direction requires more than change of theory or practice; it is a change of heart (attitude and mindset), which automatically change theory and practice.
# 14 May 2024 To change==== the economy from the Harm it does to the Good it could do, we must:
Summary: Assess with wisdom, using Dooyeweerd's idea and suite of aspects to maintain broad view that both understands things and guides us.
Multiple challenges! This calls for wisdom and humility. Wisdom and humility in both the practice and the theory of economics. We believe that always being sensitive to all aspects might make wisdom more possible - though never guaranteed. [See RLDG discussion 19.]
Wisdom is sensitive to both the detail and context of individual cases, and also what is generally so, across diverse cases and contexts (both general and specific knowledge). The opposite of wisdom is to ignore either individual detail or general understanding, to divorce understanding from normative action, and to reduce the diversity of meaning to single aspects (reductionism). We must beware the single-aspect comparison (e.g. comfort better than pain) because there are always other aspects. (Most religious traditions place importance on wisdom, and can offer much useful insight about it.)
Dooyeweerd's philosophy suits all three, helping us clarify the diverse, detailed meaningfulness of each case, how it operates, which norms are upheld and which are being ignored. His idea of aspects inherently covers both the general and the detail, enables both understanding and normative guidance together. His suite of aspects offer a good, soundly-based and practical conceptual tool to analyse and understand diversity in coherence so we remain sensitive to all aspects.
It was suggested in the RLDG discussions that assessment should be of outcomes rather than costs. (Too often, policy is driven by cost rather than expected or actual outcomes; it is, after all, Good that we wish to contribute, not just lower costs.) Assessing outcomes, however, tends to emphasise the immediate, measurable and visible, and overlook the long-term, the non-measurable and the hidden, such as of attitudes. So, as discussed in Chapter 6, assessing aspectual functioning is preferred. By treating outcomes as repercussions of aspectual functioning, we can give equal weight to outcomes of ethical, pistic and aesthetic functioning, for example, which tend to be hidden and those of planetary physical and biotic functioning, which are slower to manifest themselves. It helps us integrate attitudes into our thinking.
(x In the Jewish Scriptures, wisdom is of ultimate importance; it could be seen as taking responsible account of all aspects of life and the future [===].)
# 27 July 2023 If Dooyeweerd happens to be wrong, this does not nullify all that we have argued in this Rethink. What we say might still be correct or at least useful. Dooyeweerd has been only a conceptual tool to help us think. # 15 March 2023 # have § here where we discuss how to generate papers from this source material. » academic material » for xns » for environmentalists » for business people » for government » for media: discussions and then news etc. » etc. #. academic papers: this is a paradigm, a framework, into which extant ideas may fit but be critiqued, reconceived and broadened. so literature on those extant ideas and how to enrich and redirect them. especially how to bring in overlooked aspects. and how to link them together in new ways. new things that could especially be brought in » unpaid » mindset-attitude » GHU » a multi-aspectual view. And environmental things and questioning economic growth etc. could be brought in in a way that can fit rather than be adversarial, because of our aspectual # xn econ » tries to see if from God's perspective, r.t. current situation in economics; e.g. questions what we understand by poverty » asks what is the Creational mandate for economics? » recognises fallenness and has a way to deal with it » emphasises heart attitude, as God does » judgement is not on what you are (entities, e.g. whether kings or slaves) but on what you do (functioning) and esp the heart attitude underlying this ---- # *** Notes of walk on 230124 for list of things to include in Conclusion: » Summary » Its aim: an integrative body of basic material; real and ideal together. Not just react to specific issues. » How it fits recent and conventional thought, and integrates them » How it makes use of Dooyeweerd » How it fits Christian and other religious and secular perspectives » List, discuss and argue its USPs » What's Next: This is a basic body of knowledge from which material may be written or used for a variety of readerships » How to write such articles etc. And how to undertake research projects. And how to put it into practice. » spell out its urgency » Challenge: "If you can find a better one, use it. Until then, why not use this? Do you have any excuse for not using this?" # --- From ze21. # discuss how our interpretation of Dooyeweerd is influenced by our preferences, background and maybe even desires, and others might not agree. Some read and discuss Dooyeweerd philosophically from within Dooyeweerd's own genre====ideas, presupposing what he presupposed and winkling out problems and trying to solve them (e.g. whether Dooyeweerd's 15 aspects should be altered, e.g. Seerveld, de Raadt; e.g. problems in Dooyeweerd's transcendental critique of theoretical thought; e.g. Dooyeweerd's idea of ground-motives; and especially Dooyeweerd's idea of the supratemporal human ego). Some read Dooyeweerd philosophically but in the context of other philosophy. Some use part of Dooyeweerd's ideas to support their own particular viewpoint on various topics (e.g. de la Sienra's support for neoclassical economics over against the heterodox economics of Goudzwaard; van Til's adoption of presuppositionalism in desire to fight 'the world' from a Christian perspective). We have adopted Dooyeweerd as appliers rather than philosophers, and from an everyday perspective, to help us understand more clearly the complexity of real world of economics, which includes not only the detail but also the macro and global economics and the hidden roots of economics theory and practice. This is why, though we have been able to adopt a broad, holistic perspective while at the same time considering the detail.
# discussion our interpretation of Christian perspective. likewise.
--- earlier collected ideas. # review strong points, e.g. as discussed in ze21, and USPs, as discussed in xn.rethink or elsewhere. » jc: shared langage and practical solution. » cm: beadth scope of discussiion, but we have collectively avoided simply generalising. e.g. keynote speech, e.g. carney. v broad, but in generalities. this group has , avoiding reductionism, being structured. NO: idea of broadening out topic of economics actually a v strong point. » cm: by using Dooyeweerd, unfamliar backgd, that fwk ontology, on hature of being human and society, provide a great fwk. never found any other fwk in heterodox econ. » cm: yet we have an authority within that; diffnt btw xn greens from pagan greens; authority, responsibility. » NO: » appeal to occam razor: pistic and ethical functioning offer more frugal==== explanations than trying purely by economics theory. # discuss weaknesses. » AH: environmentally, not sure we have done anything unique re existing literature. » DW: would be helpful to distinguish more between what econ says as a science and way econ is talked about in educated discussions in media. [===== either say so or go for one or other] # USPs, what this offers. # Close: Curse on those who use the multi-aspectual nature of this Rethink to excuse their selfishness and idolatry. Blessing on those who use it genuinely to contribute to Multi-aspectual Good.
Updated: 7 February 2023 from walk 230224. 14 May 2024 Must From To.