Andrew. Questions.

[Janice in NJ]

Hi Andrew,

 

OK. I finally finished your lecture Analytical Learning.

 

I still don't know what your thesis was. What were you arguing?

 

At one point you said that the "Mothers of America were set up to lose our confidence." When? How? Are you saying that we lost our confidence when education was pulled away from the humanities and into the world of data and statistics? Because there are plenty of us who are very comfortable in both worlds. And we are encouraging others that it is very possible to self-educate until they feel that same confidence.

 

In your talk, you seem to be pivoting on Descartes and his discourse. You say that Descartes began with the first principle of “Cogito ergo sum†in order to “begin with doubt rather than faith."

 

That analysis misses the point of the work and misguides folks regarding the debate surrounding his work.

 

Descartes is in the process of reductionism in order to arrive at a first principle that can be used to prove the existence of God.

 

It is easy to google the proof in order to get at the essence without reading the work if you don't want to take the time. In any case, Descartes was not trying to begin with doubt. Quite the contrary.

 

Was the work a piece of reverse engineering? Or a failed attempt at Euclidian geometry? What did he intend v. what did he do? The debate continues. But that initial statement was not a blatant exaltation of man over God. From what I have learned, that analysis misses the point of the work entirely.

 

Once you understand what he was trying to do, the work itself generates much to debate and discuss. There is MUCH wisdom to be gained in studying this work and its effect. The simplest lesson being this: “Sometimes your work can be used contrary to your intentions. (Or was it?) Is that your responsibility? Will God hold you accountable?â€

 

Oh – one more thing. (A throw-back to an old conversation.) Arithmetic is to phonics what mathematics is to reading. Geometry is the first true step toward mathematics. It begins with the idea that “A point is that which has no part.†There begins the life of the analytical mind. Some kids learn to read when they are three; most can read by the time they are eight. Most kids begin to ponder something that exists that has “no part†in ninth grade – or at least they should. Yes, chronologically it takes longer to get there. But it’s important to get there. Adding columns of numbers is phonics. Yes, it is a necessary warm-up, but it’s an insult to those of us who are analytically trained to suggest that we spend all of our time trying to reduce the universe to a set of vowel and consonant sounds.

 

We too are trying to see life and meaning through a veil of chaos. We begin by pondering something that exists that can not be pulled into the physical world. It can only be modeled with imperfection.

 

From what I can tell, you seem to be arguing that the analytical-minded person should submit himself to some normative conventions. Perhaps. I suspect it would depend on whether or not the normative conventions were developed by folks who understood the power of the analytical mind to reveal the hand of God at work in the earth during this time and place.

 

This debate about the role of education has been going on for a long time. It would be so much more interesting if the folks who majored in the humanities in college would self-educate in math and science. You told all of us who majored in STEM programs that we had to self-educate in the humanities in order to teach our kids. We've done it. Have you done the same? Is it possible that kids who have been trained analytically can make the switch but kids who haven't can't?

 

Peace,

Janice

 

Enjoy your little people

Enjoy your journey

[Sebastian (a lady)]

:lurk5:

 

I was contemplating the balance between language and numbers while at the gym this morning (listening to a SWB lecture while lifting weights).

[Spy Car]

:lurk5:

[Colleen in NS]

Is it possible that kids who have been trained analytically can make the switch but kids who haven't can't?

 

:lurk5: for a response to the entire OP.

 

About what I quoted - I was thinking about this the other day, in light of some other thread I'd read about STEM vs. humanities. I believe the answer is that kids who have been trained to think analytically can switch back and forth.

[Colleen in NS]

:bigear:

[Ester Maria]

:lurk5:

[Colleen in NS]

:lurk5:

[Mommyfaithe]

:bigear::bigear:

 

I have been trying to self educate in mathematics for the last few years. I am toying with the idea of AoPS for ME! I just think mathematics is beautiful and I want a piece of it...does that make sense?? I would love to be able to bring mathematics to my table the way I bring Lit tom the couch! Unfortunately, my training and education was lacking from the beginning in math....think NYC schools in the 70's ....new math.....and then thinking I stunk at math, taking the business track made the most sense....OY!!!!!!

 

 

So, while we wait for Mr. kern's response.....can you share where a Mom like me can begin to delve into mathematics??

 

Faithe

Edited March 28, 2012 by Mommyfaithe

[mo2]

:lurk5: Me too.

[Halcyon]

:bigear:

[momma2three]

:bigear::bigear:

 

I have been trying to self educate in mathematics for the last few years. I am toying with the idea of AoPS for ME! I just think mathematics is beautiful and I want a piece of it...does that make sense?? I would love to be able to bring mathematics to my table the way I bring Lit tom the couch! Unfortunately, my training and education was lacking from the beginning in math....think NYC schools in the 70's ....new math.....and then thinking I stunk at math, taking the business track made the most sense....OY!!!!!!

 

 

So, while we wait for Mr. kern's response.....can you share where a Mom like me can begin to delve into mathematics??

 

Faithe

 

This is me exactly. I'm trying to work through Khan Academy. I have to admit that I haven't gotten very far! But it's such an amazing resource.

[Mommyfaithe]

 

 

 

 

From what I can tell, you seem to be arguing that the analytical-minded person should submit himself to some normative conventions. Perhaps. I suspect it would depend on whether or not the normative conventions were developed by folks who understood the power of the analytical mind to reveal the hand of God at work in the earth during this time and place.

 

This debate about the role of education has been going on for a long time. It would be so much more interesting if the folks who majored in the humanities in college would self-educate in math and science. You told all of us who majored in STEM programs that we had to self-educate in the humanities in order to teach our kids. We've done it. Have you done the same? Is it possible that kids who have been trained analytically can make the switch but kids who haven't can't?

 

Peace,

Janice

 

Enjoy your little people

Enjoy your journey

 

Janice, I wonder if such is so :confused:.....I really try to give my kids a strong math education, trying to overcome my shortcomings....and not letting them see me sweat. We can certainly ask ourselves how well we do making the switch. Me, not so good...at least according to my evaluation. I can get them through high school level math, due to self teaching, but only one of my older children LOVES math. The others barely tolerate it....and that breaks my heart every bit as much as if one of them hated to read, or study art, or listen to music....

 

Oh, off to do some more thinking....and maybe you can chime in on how you analytical Moms become adept at teaching lit and the humanities...and transfer a love of such onto your kids. It seems to me reading beautiful picture books, then working up to the reading and studying of the Great Books is such a natural progression, whereas breaking out the arithmetic book and ending writing proofs....well, is not. ( for me and mine anyway.....sigh)

[shann]

I haven't listened in any of Andrew's lectures yet so pardon my ignorance, but did he explicitly say that math and science are not a part of the beauty and truth I keep hearing so much about? Because it seems obvious and natural that they would be! Hopefully I'll have time tomorrow to listen to the lecture.

 

For the mom's wanting to learn more about math, I have become a total math nerd lately! I'm obsesses actually lol. I have Liping Ma's book Knowing and teaching elementary math. It really opened my mind to teaching an understanding of math and not just procedure. I also just got Arithmetic for Parents, and the Elementary Mathematics for Teacher set, both from Singapore. I am currently teaching myself with AoPS, starting all the way back at Pre-Algebra. I hope to be more than ready by the time dd reaches middle school math. In general math is taught so poorly in PS, I am preparing to blow her mind :lol:

Edited March 28, 2012 by shann

[CourtneySue]

I have listened to several of Kern's lectures and he puts math in a very high place. In fact his line has always stuck with me:

 

"You don't hate math, what you hate is not understanding it. If you truly understood it, it would fill your soul with joy."

 

How beautiful is that!!

[Bluegoat]

In your talk, you seem to be pivoting on Descartes and his discourse. You say that Descartes began with the first principle of “Cogito ergo sum†in order to “begin with doubt rather than faith."

 

That analysis misses the point of the work and misguides folks regarding the debate surrounding his work.

 

Descartes is in the process of reductionism in order to arrive at a first principle that can be used to prove the existence of God.

 

It is easy to google the proof in order to get at the essence without reading the work if you don't want to take the time. In any case, Descartes was not trying to begin with doubt. Quite the contrary.

 

Was the work a piece of reverse engineering? Or a failed attempt at Euclidian geometry? What did he intend v. what did he do? The debate continues. But that initial statement was not a blatant exaltation of man over God. From what I have learned, that analysis misses the point of the work entirely.

 

I'm not sure that saying that Descartes begins with doubt does miss the point. Yes, he is looking for a rock-solid first principle, but he is doing it in an entirely different way than earlier philosophers did, and that is very significant. To doubt everything until he finds something impossible to doubt is a very different process than to believe so that one may understand. It isn't an accident that he feels the need to start from that position, so different from the medieval or even Renaissance approach.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

:bigear::bigear:

 

I have been trying to self educate in mathematics for the last few years. I am toying with the idea of AoPS for ME! I just think mathematics is beautiful and I want a piece of it...does that make sense?? I would love to be able to bring mathematics to my table the way I bring Lit tom the couch! Unfortunately, my training and education was lacking from the beginning in math....think NYC schools in the 70's ....new math.....and then thinking I stunk at math, taking the business track made the most sense....OY!!!!!!

 

 

So, while we wait for Mr. kern's response.....can you share where a Mom like me can begin to delve into mathematics??

 

Faithe

 

Depending on what your basis for starting is, I would either suggest the Danica McKellar books (starting with Math Doesn't Suck) or the Art of Problem Solving books.

 

I did pretty well in math in high school, but the AoPS algebra book has opened my eyes to how much I didn't understand or understood once but didn't retain.

[TGHEALTHYMOM]

I went to a dear friend's house last evening to get a Jacob's Algebra book set and she also bestowed Jacob's Geometry set upon me. I had only asked to buy the Algebra, and since she is a Director of CC, her younger children will have to use Saxon. She blessed me immensely! No charge.

 

I asked her how her trip was to the CC : Teaching The Quadrivium last month. She told me how she did enjoy it. Also, she recommended the book "Mathematics: Is God Silent?"

by James Nickel. He was one of the speakers this year.

I am unsure if the event will be available on DVD, and will check because I did want to go. My health would not allow me to go this year.

 

VP has the above book and other higher math videos and books I would suggest checking out.

 

Art Reed has dvd's for Saxon higher math. Lial and Chalkdust also have cd-rom's or dvd's to help teach. I am checking to see what will work best for us and it may take a little time. I had never heard of anything but Saxon and a few other programs.

 

:bigear:

Edited March 28, 2012 by TGHEALTHYMOM

[OrdinaryTime]

I'm not sure that saying that Descartes begins with doubt does miss the point. Yes, he is looking for a rock-solid first principle, but he is doing it in an entirely different way than earlier philosophers did, and that is very significant. To doubt everything until he finds something impossible to doubt is a very different process than to believe so that one may understand. It isn't an accident that he feels the need to start from that position, so different from the medieval or even Renaissance approach.

 

:iagree: Without having listened to the lecture yet, I don't see a problem with saying Descartes begins with doubt. Descartes essentially began a new method of philosophy that uses doubt to find a point where there is no longer room for doubt, a philosophical technique aptly called Cartesian doubt. I don't know the context of Mr. Kern's discussion of Descartes, but to say he starts with doubt seems fairly accurate.

[Janice in NJ]

You say, "Descartes essentially began a new method of philosophy that uses doubt to find a point where there is no longer room for doubt.."

 

Based on what you know about Descartes and his work, would you agree with the following assessment of his stated intentions in the work and the debate surrounding his text?

 

Quoting Kern:

 

Renee Descartes said "I think, therefore I am." He resolved to begin with doubt rather than with faith, and instead of confessing, he invented modern philosophy. He concluded by beginning with doubt that I as an individual and only I as an individual can determine certainty and precision and truth, and that if something is not precise and certain, then it's not really knowable. He exalted himself to a point where he as an individual was the authority over his own thinking. He withdrew himself from human community and exalted himself above it. It was a thought experiment for him; the trouble is that the Western World bought into it and made it their model to a large extent. This is the beginning of the self-delusion that characterizes Western Civilization from that point forward.

 

This anecdote supports this conclusion of Kern: The analytical mind has brought great shame on itself by making itself ultimate.

 

(I do not believe that Kern's lecture ever mentions anything about Descartes's goal: to prove the existence of God. There is no discussion about the notion that Descartes used doubt to arrive at an irrefutable first principle.)

 

Would you agree or disagree with Kern's assessment of the work of Descartes and the role that it plays in history and philosophy?

Edited March 28, 2012 by Janice in NJ

[OrdinaryTime]

You say, "Descartes essentially began a new method of philosophy that uses doubt to find a point where there is no longer room for doubt.."

 

Based on what you know about Descartes and his work, would you agree with the following assessment of his stated intentions in the work and the debate surrounding his text?

 

Renee Descartes said "I think, therefore I am." He resolved to begin with doubt rather than with faith, and instead of confessing, he invented modern philosophy. He concluded by beginning with doubt that I as an individual and only I as an individual can determine certainty and precision and truth, and that if something is not precise and certain, then it's not really knowable. He exalted himself to a point where he as an individual was the authority over his own thinking. He withdrew himself from human community and exalted himself above it. It was a thought experiment for him; the trouble is that the Western World bought into it and made it their model to a large extent. This is the beginning of the self-delusion that characterizes Western Civilization from that point forward.

 

This anecdote supports this conclusion: The analytical mind has brought great shame on itself by making itself ultimate.

 

(I do not believe that Kern's lecture ever mentions anything about Descartes's goal: to prove the existence of God. There is no discussion about the notion that Descartes used doubt to arrive as an irrefutable first principle.)

 

Would you agree or disagree with Kern's assessment of the work of Descartes and the role that it plays in history and philosophy?

 

I am not a philosopher, and it's been over ten years since I've read any Descartes (and I was by no means an expert then!) so take my opinions with a very large grain of salt.:tongue_smilie:

 

I would both agree and disagree with this brief assessment. I would not impute Descartes' intentions the way Mr. Kern seems to do, that he sought to exalt man over God, or the individual over community, or the pure rationality over every other mode of knowing. Having read no biographical work on Descartes, I take him at his word that he was seeking a new proof for the existence of God. However, do I think his new system of methodological doubt that ended in placing an individual's mind as the basis for any discussion of certainty result in some of the effects that Mr. Kern describes (at least as I understand him)? Yes, I do. Descartes method of skepticism, and his underlying assumptions, were a radical depature from the previous course of Western philosophy. It is man - his rational capacity alone - that provides the foundation of certainty now. I think the placing of "analytical mind" as the sole path to truth, leaving no room for discovering reality in sense experience, is a mistaken premise and does lead to an imbalance in one's approach to philosophy. So I agree with Mr. Kern there.

 

I've had some epic toddler meltdowns while writing this so I hope it makes some kind of sense!

[Andrew Kern]

My apologies for the delay. I just saw this thread and thank Colleen for pointing me to it.

 

Allow me to answer within the original comment from Janice:

 

Hi Andrew,

 

OK. I finally finished your lecture Analytical Learning.

 

I still don't know what your thesis was. What were you arguing?

 

At one point you said that the "Mothers of America were set up to lose our confidence." When? How? Are you saying that we lost our confidence when education was pulled away from the humanities and into the world of data and statistics?

 

>> No, I'm saying that when normative questions were replaced by analytical questions as ultimate, even if only in the popular mind, people started feeling dependent on experts. I see one of the key moments in this development as the late 1800's when Thorndike presumed to prove that we don't have faculties.

 

The point here is that the American mother was increasingly convinced that she couldn't raise her children without expert advice. Urbanization, broken traditions, broken communities, and lots of other forces combined to attack them. A parallel development takes place on the American farm, when they are convinced that they need a college education to run a farm. In the 70's and 80's many of those people lost their farms.

 

I love math and science and I want children to learn them. That is not my argument at all.

 

You said:

 

In your talk, you seem to be pivoting on Descartes and his discourse. You say that Descartes began with the first principle of “Cogito ergo sum†in order to “begin with doubt rather than faith."

 

In any case, Descartes was not trying to begin with doubt. Quite the contrary.

 

>> His words were: "I resolved to begin with doubt."

 

You said:

 

Was the work a piece of reverse engineering? Or a failed attempt at Euclidian geometry? What did he intend v. what did he do? The debate continues. But that initial statement was not a blatant exaltation of man over God. From what I have learned, that analysis misses the point of the work entirely.

 

>> I don't want to argue that Descartes was deliberately, consciously putting man over God. I do contend that the inner logic of his method was inadequate to the task he set himself. To attempt to prove the existence of God analytically reduces God, and that is precisely what the Enlightenment did. I am an atheist too if it means I don't believe in the God the Enlightenment thinkers and their followers created and then denied.

 

Descartes developed a valuable method for certain activities, but not one adequate to theology or philosophy - or even ethics. It seems obvious to me that he was trying to lay a new foundation for doing philosophy. If he was not, that is how it was taken.

 

In that case, Descartes laid a flawed foundation on which much of early modern thought went wrong.

 

You said:

 

Once you understand what he was trying to do, the work itself generates much to debate and discuss. There is MUCH wisdom to be gained in studying this work and its effect. The simplest lesson being this: “Sometimes your work can be used contrary to your intentions. (Or was it?) Is that your responsibility? Will God hold you accountable?â€

 

>> Agreed. The work of Descartes is part of the furniture of the western mind and I have always enjoyed reading it. He has a freshness of style and a directness that is very appealing. I don't blame him at all for approaching things as he did when you see what was going on around him.

 

But I have seen how people have built on his ideas a faulty pedagogy. I am not trying to attack any individuals so much as to capture something of the flow of how we became so analytical instead of normative.

 

If you want to read something on this that is much more insightful and well-educated than my thoughts, read David Hicks Norms and Nobility. He saw things very clearly.

 

You said:

 

Oh – one more thing. (A throw-back to an old conversation.) Arithmetic is to phonics what mathematics is to reading. Geometry is the first true step toward mathematics. It begins with the idea that “A point is that which has no part.†There begins the life of the analytical mind.

 

>>Beautiful. And may I add that the analytical mind is a great blessing to us all. I hope to see its renewal in the years to come. But when it rises above the normative mind it blocks the springs of its own survival. It is my love for the analytical that compels me to put it in its place.

 

You said:

 

Some kids learn to read when they are three; most can read by the time they are eight. Most kids begin to ponder something that exists that has “no part†in ninth grade – or at least they should. Yes, chronologically it takes longer to get there. But it’s important to get there. Adding columns of numbers is phonics. Yes, it is a necessary warm-up, but it’s an insult to those of us who are analytically trained to suggest that we spend all of our time trying to reduce the universe to a set of vowel and consonant sounds.

 

We too are trying to see life and meaning through a veil of chaos. We begin by pondering something that exists that can not be pulled into the physical world. It can only be modeled with imperfection.

 

>> I am happy to rejoice in this, though I hate to think that you thought I was trying to suggest that you are reducing the universe to a set of vowel and consonant sounds. I am sorry to have been so unclear.

 

 

You said:

 

From what I can tell, you seem to be arguing that the analytical-minded person should submit himself to some normative conventions.

 

>> Norms, certainly. But you do submit yourself to them, so I don't think that's a big issue.

 

You said:

 

Perhaps. I suspect it would depend on whether or not the normative conventions were developed by folks who understood the power of the analytical mind to reveal the hand of God at work in the earth during this time and place.

 

>> Absolutely. If the conventions were derived by the ignorant we would all be in trouble. I'm more concerned with norms than I am with conventions, and these norms are drawn from reality, the nature of things, the law of nature if you like, not from people's preferences. People are accountable to them and if they come up with false norms they are accountable for that. Man is not the measure of all things.

 

Truly, I believe we are close friends on these matters. I do not mean to speak out against analysis, but against the unfettered use of analysis against reality. The analytical mind is a great gift, one that each of us has in varying degrees. But the normative mind is universal and it is the one that enables us to live in community, to love each other, to worship, etc. The analytical can help us with all those things, but it won't discover them on its own.

 

You said:

 

This debate about the role of education has been going on for a long time. It would be so much more interesting if the folks who majored in the humanities in college would self-educate in math and science. You told all of us who majored in STEM programs that we had to self-educate in the humanities in order to teach our kids.

 

>> I'm not sure what you are referring to when you say I told you to self-educate in the humanities. To begin with, I understand the humanities in the classical tradition, where they are grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

 

This is Cicero's list when he coined the term humanitas in the first century BC. I see the humanities as including the maths. I see the maths as essential to realizing our full human potential. When I was a child I was all over math and science (my favorite class ever was 12th grade chemistry in which my teacher gave a bumper sticker that said It's a Amino world without chemists for getting the highest score on a test - I got another one that said "Heisenberg may have slept here."). I personally love math and science, but more importantly I see its immense value in cultivating the humanity of our students.

 

I think it was a great mistake to alter the humanities to exclude the maths.

 

I believe we are on the same side of this discussion. We might have some details to resolve, but one of them won't be whether math and science are enormously important.

 

You said:

 

We've done it. Have you done the same? Is it possible that kids who have been trained analytically can make the switch but kids who haven't can't?

 

>> I continue to do what I can.

 

As for your second question, it really depends. A lot of people spend so much time on the analytical side that they lose their capacity to see the world as a whole or they exaggerate the power of analysis and think it can answer every question. I think Hume and Berkeley pretty well shut that path down. Sometimes analysts want to apply analysis to everything, failing to see the limitations of the method.

 

And that points to the context of what I am saying about analysis: American education, which is the domain in which most of my work is done and almost all of my research takes place, is governed by abstract analysis when what we need is norms and nobility.

 

If you are going to change the American school, you have to give statistics to prove that your change will work. But the home school mom rose up in the 70's and 80's and said, not based on data analysis, but on intuition, poetic knowledge, faith, and courage, I can do this better.

 

Now we have the data. But the analysis follows.

 

Peace,

Janice

 

I embrace your offer of peace and hope that you will continue to teach me.

 

Andrew

 

 

[Andrew Kern]

You say, "Descartes essentially began a new method of philosophy that uses doubt to find a point where there is no longer room for doubt.."

 

Based on what you know about Descartes and his work, would you agree with the following assessment of his stated intentions in the work and the debate surrounding his text?

 

Quoting Kern:

 

Renee Descartes said "I think, therefore I am." He resolved to begin with doubt rather than with faith, and instead of confessing, he invented modern philosophy. He concluded by beginning with doubt that I as an individual and only I as an individual can determine certainty and precision and truth, and that if something is not precise and certain, then it's not really knowable. He exalted himself to a point where he as an individual was the authority over his own thinking. He withdrew himself from human community and exalted himself above it. It was a thought experiment for him; the trouble is that the Western World bought into it and made it their model to a large extent. This is the beginning of the self-delusion that characterizes Western Civilization from that point forward.

 

This anecdote supports this conclusion of Kern: The analytical mind has brought great shame on itself by making itself ultimate.

 

(I do not believe that Kern's lecture ever mentions anything about Descartes's goal: to prove the existence of God. There is no discussion about the notion that Descartes used doubt to arrive at an irrefutable first principle.)

 

Would you agree or disagree with Kern's assessment of the work of Descartes and the role that it plays in history and philosophy?

 

I do, though I'd probably qualify my statement that he "invented" modern philosophy. I'd probably blame Occam (or Ockham if you prefer) for that.

 

I do feel a need to insist strongly that I am saying nothing about his intentions whatsoever. I am describing his work and its effects. I also point out that for him it was a thought experiment.

 

It was a thought experiment that was fundamentally flawed - and that the west embraced.

 

To attempt to prove the existence of God analytically is to ask for serious trouble. He did it and he brought it. This says nothing about his adult character or his motives.

 

Note that St. Augustine did a very similar thought experiment, but when he reached his "cogito" moment he did not say "ergo sum" but "veritas est."

 

The difference is not subtle.

 

May I add to that the analytical mind has indeed brought shame on itself by making itself ultimate. So has the humanistic mind. So has any other mind that makes itself ultimate. The truth is ultimate, never the mind. No method is adequate to the truth, which is why I am so happy to embrace ignorance. It's amazingly revealing.

 

Thank you so much for engaging me on this discussion. I wish we could talk over beer and cigars (but I don't like many beers and don't smoke very well.)

[NASDAQ]

Ooh, good. I listened to Analytical Learning and I admit, it's got me flummoxed. Maybe you can help me too.

 

Burke -- You give a long quotation from Burke and then go from that to the decline of virtue. Do you think that that is what Burke was talking about? I quite like Burke, but I understood that passage to be about the transition from, essentially, late feudalism to early capitalism. Further, he seemed to be talking about the dignity accorded to rank and custom, not the inherent dignity of every human being.

 

You set up analytic in opposition to normative. Is this your taxonomy or someone else's? I have always heard analytic set against synthetic.

 

Is it your position that we could undo the changes Burke discusses by teaching our children at home in a certain way? I don't think that Burke considered these changes undoable. Or would we create a person who was in important ways like the pre-French Revolution person?

 

I didn't understand the Murray Rothbard business. Rothbard's objections to statistics were three-fold: they cost the government money to collect, the government forced private industry to spend money collecting them, and having such statistics invited social planning of a type that Rothbard as a libertarian objected to. I can't see how that could be drafted into a criticism of analysis in general or even statistics in general.

[Andrew Kern]

Only time for a brief reply right now so let me clarify something I seem to have confused:

 

I don't oppose analytical to normative. I see normative as above the analytical in a rightly ordered curriculum/mind/soul/community.

 

This taxonomy is used by David Hicks in Norms and Nobility and I believe you will see it in HI Marrou's Education in Antiquity as well.

 

I'll do my best to reply on Burke later. Rothbard illustrates the point that analysis in the wrong hands and not guided by normative principles is dangerous. He's not an important part of my argument.