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Answer to Dykes on Popper

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Who is Dykes, and what does he have to do with Objectivist epistemology? I scanned it a bit, I don't see any particular use of or criticism of Objectivist epistemology. I mean, you are making a new thread, so presumably there is some reason you're posting this here? I read the article before though that you were criticizing, but it was a while ago, so I don't know what it is you want to talk about exactly.

Edited by Eiuol
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Dykes is one of the people who tried to criticize Popper's epistemology. Objectivists commonly cite him when challenged. If you can offer any better piece arguing with Popper, let's hear it. If there's nothing better, then Objectivist epistemology is refuted by Popper's.

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Dykes is one of the people who tried to criticize Popper's epistemology. Objectivists commonly cite him when challenged. If you can offer any better piece arguing with Popper, let's hear it. If there's nothing better, then Objectivist epistemology is refuted by Popper's.

Makes sense to me.  Hard to refute such reasoning.

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Dykes is one of the people who tried to criticize Popper's epistemology. Objectivists commonly cite him when challenged. If you can offer any better piece arguing with Popper, let's hear it. If there's nothing better, then Objectivist epistemology is refuted by Popper's.

 

 

OK.  Let's take the first criticism.  That's all I can handle.

 

"The first problem with this article is the first paragraph. It contains no substance at all about Popper’s positions and instead consists of appeals to authority."  

 

This is an incorrect identification of what the appeal to authority means.  Since his first sentence is incorrect, curi's conclusion is wrong.  No need to go any further.  (Nor do I have an interest to go further.)

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Who is Dykes, and what does he have to do with Objectivist epistemology?

Dykes is a long time Objectivist who isn’t associated with ARI, so he gets the silent treatment from that quarter, but is fairly well known otherwise. He posts on OL and SLOP occasionally. Good guy, IMO.

  

"The first problem with this article is the first paragraph. It contains no substance at all about Popper’s positions and instead consists of appeals to authority."  

Dykes’ opening paragraph is concerned with establishing that Popper is an important enough figure to merit discussion. There’s no ‘argument’ there, yet this writer spends his opening attacking it as something fallacious. This critique is so stupid I can't help tuning out; I’m not bothering to continue. May as well read Jim Valliant.
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Just read the whole thing.... This "answer" to Dykes consists mostly of a non-essentialist criticising an essentialist for essentiizing Popper's position and then declaring because he (Alan) quotes the non-essential, Dykes has been refuted....

Notice I used two different senses of "essential" above? This is something Alan doesnt do well:

Alan quotes Dykes:

"Popper’s problem was of course that the theory of evolution is just about as inductive as one can get, yet he wanted us to believe that induction is a myth. He found no way out of this impasse, and in the end decided that the only solution was to evade the issue: “I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme” [uNQ 168]."

And replies hilariously:

"The theory of biological evolution is not inductive. It contradicts induction. Biological evolution proceeds by the production of variations on current genes and selection among them just as human knowledge creation proceeds by producing variations on current knowledge and selecting among those variations. Bioligical evolution does not consist of animals or plants somehow condensing observations into genes, which would have to be the case if biological evolution was inductive"

Lol, Alan here takes Dykes criticism that Popper has stolen the concept induction by embracing an inductively formed theory, as a claim that evolution itself, the metaphysical process, is inductive!

Anyway, I might essentialize the errors throughout the paper tonight and post it.

Edited by Plasmatic
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Dykes is one of the people who tried to criticize Popper's epistemology. Objectivists commonly cite him when challenged. If you can offer any better piece arguing with Popper, let's hear it. If there's nothing better, then Objectivist epistemology is refuted by Popper's.

You seem to be saying that unless someone argues against Popper directly and successfully, then any other proposed epistemology must be worse. At least, you actually haven't criticized Rand's epistemology on this forum, "Popper hasn't been disproven to my satisfaction, therefore I am right" doesn't cut it as an argument. If you want to establish which is better, then you'd also need to say what specifically about Objectivist epistemology is wrong and is improved by Popper. Arguing against induction in general (and the kinds of induction you usually talk about I agree are indeed bad) is not even addressing Objectivist epistemology except through guilt by association, which is not a good argument.

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FYI: Objectivist intellectual Bo Dragsdahl gave a 5-hour series of lectures in 2003 at ARI's summer conference titled "Karl Popper's Assault on Science."  I own the recordings of this on CD, and I highly recommend them. Unfortunately it looks like the recordings are not on sale any more, but I would guess that eventually the ARI eStore will sell digital downloads of it.

 

Fred Seiler

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Dykes is a long time Objectivist who isn’t associated with ARI, so he gets the silent treatment from that quarter, but is fairly well known otherwise. He posts on OL and SLOP occasionally. Good guy, IMO.

  

Dykes’ opening paragraph is concerned with establishing that Popper is an important enough figure to merit discussion. There’s no ‘argument’ there, yet this writer spends his opening attacking it as something fallacious. This critique is so stupid I can't help tuning out; I’m not bothering to continue. May as well read Jim Valliant.

 

I'm not sure why quotes are not being reproduced accurately, but your attribution to me of "The first problem with this article is the first paragraph. It contains no substance at all about Popper’s positions and instead consists of appeals to authority"  is incorrect.

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Popper contradicts Rand on some points (and gives some arguments). Unless Popper is refuted then Rand can't be fully right. Two contradictory things can't both be true.

Let me understand this.  If I say "Reason is not volitional," I have contradicted Rand.  Unless I am refuted, Rand can't be fully right.  Two contradictory things can't both be true.  

 

Curi, after flooding at least two Forums with your nonsense, don't you think it's time to quit?

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"Then let's hear what is contradicted."  Induction, among other things. Haven't you been paying attention?

Um, you haven't argued against Rand's sense of induction. As in you've never really dealt with assertions that have been made in Objectivist literature about induction and concept formation. Once, you posted some Peikoff quotes. That's good, and we talked about that. I talked about why I think you were mis-reading Peikoff. The topic wasn't induction, though. One of these days I'll post on induction, I just don't have the motivation to do that right now.

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