Neoliberal epistemology drew on Poincaré’s conventionalism to attack socialist rationalism
Evidence
His portrayal of socialism as a scientific fallacy originated in his early epistemological works in which he rejected the validity of all opodictic truths. Following Henri Poincaré, Rougier proposed that a scientific proposition, instead of being either a rational truth a priori, or an empirical truth a posteriori, could be a “hypothesis” or an “optional convention” picked for reasons of practical or theoretical convenience and tacitly accepted as such by the scientific community. Poincaré’s geometrical conventionalism, once extended to all disciplines, pointed to a “third way” which preserved the possibility of scientific objectivity while acknowledging the artificiality of reasoning and truth. — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 62
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Hayek/Popper epistemology and the broader positivist foundations of early neoliberal thought; also links to Popper’s critique of historicism in this same volume’s intellectual orbit. — connects to: Anti-rationalist epistemology links respect for tradition with market advocacy — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 284; Neoliberalism is fundamentally an epistemological project, not merely a political or economic one — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 900; Early neoliberalism drew on mathematical conventionalism, not naturalism or empiricism — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 52 (+8 more)
- DEFINE: Clarifies ‘conventionalism’ as the Poincaré-derived doctrine that scientific truths are optional conventions accepted by scientific communities.
- QUESTION: How exactly did Rougier’s conventionalist epistemology translate into a critique of socialism as specifically ‘unscientific’? The mechanism here is sketched, not fully demonstrated.
Broader Connections
- Early neoliberalism framed egalitarian socialism as a fallacy traceable to revolutionary rationalism
#corroborates(0.82) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 63 - Neoliberalism fused philosophy of science and political economy against totalitarianism
#expands(0.80) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 53 - Early neoliberalism emerged partly from a critique of laissez-faire and naturalist philosophies of history
#corroborates(0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 379 - Early neoliberal philosophers aligned with the right wing of logical empiricism
#expands(0.72) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 63