Mikee
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Posts posted by Mikee
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I have yet to see a reason why Popper's logical negativism should be taken seriously and Curi hasn't explained what Popper's theory of concepts is. A lot of talk and vagueness
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"You get rid of all your prejudices and biases and empty your mind and then you read the answers straight FROM the observation data."
I see you repeat Popper's bad scholarship on this issue. The rest of your post is an exaggeration of the role that criticism plays.
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"if you see 3 apples on a table, that rules out the table being empty. The evidence can be used (via some thinking and ideas) to rule something out. Not only that, it rules out all numbers of apples besides 3 being on the table. So you can conclude the one remaining possibility: there are 3 apples on the table." Curi
recognizing nothing else is there does not require a systematic ruling out of the particular existents that are absent. Broad abstractions such as "all" and "anything" cover all that is substantive, omitting every particular and specific measure, and requiring only that the referents possess existence. From this we can grasp the opposite concepts that are "nothing", "none" and "non-existence" without the itemization process proposed.
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I think nicholas Dykes illustrated some similarities at the end of his critique of Popper
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Popper said that repetitive induction doesn't work while other rationalists have called it an outright logical fallacy. Also there seems to be an over-emphasis on the importance of criticism at the expense of creation and analysis, or of observation and experiment and that comes dangerously close to both scholasticism and skepticism as well as to the fashionable view that all research is just discussion. After all, negative truths are more plentiful and thus cheaper than positive ones.
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Mikee,
as I understand Popper, he only criticizes enumerative induction, but doesn't appear to know or consider the theories of induction upheld by the likes of Bacon, Herschel, or Whewell.
I think you should study Popper a bit more before making claims like this. For example, if you look in the Name Index in Conjectures and Refutations, you could find out that Popper does know about, consider, and answer Bacon.
Also, if this is the standard of argument, where did Rand appear to know about or consider Popper's theories? But actually, serious question, if Popper is mistaken and Objectivism is better, then why are there no Objectivist refutations of Popper with reasonable quality? (I've read several attempts (like Dykes and Locke), but none of the authors actually understood Popper's positions. They kept attributing non-Popperian ideas to Popper and then arguing with those.)
As far as I can tell, Popper does not understand Bacon
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As to number one, Popper overturned more standard doctrines than Rand did. He overturned induction! Induction is a standard doctrine which Rand accepted, but Popper went further. And Popperian epistemology cannot compromise on this. If it accepted induction, it would immediately have to throw out 80% of its content (not all directly, but there'd be many implications and ramifications). You could still learn some things here and there, but, big picture, Popper would be wrong.
However, let's be careful about what induction is. Your statement is ambiguous and could be read as an incomplete version of Popper's epistemology. (A common thing I've run into in debates, btw, is that people trying to rescue induction from criticism change it to the point that they are advocating some subset of Popperian epistemology, without contradicting him, except they still want to call it "induction". You haven't done that yet but it's something to watch out for.)
A big issue is how we generalize ideas. Induction traditionally says we generalize data sets to theories. It's trying to get knowledge directly from observation data. That does not work. What you talk about is different because the raw observation data gets mentally processed. The input to the generalizing is not raw anymore, it's been considered, interpreted, improved, etc... So far this is actually disagreeing with a lot of thinking about induction.
Also, Popper has nothing against general concepts. General principles or theories are great. We should try to get them. The issue is how we get them. Not directly from data! And also not by "generalizing" which is too vague. Rather, the way to get general concepts is to guess them (using creative, imaginative thinking), not to infer them from anything. If "generalizing" refers to any kind of inferring general theories from less general theories, then that would be along inductive lines and Popper-incompatible, and refuted by Popper (because, among other things, whatever your are inferring from, it's always logical compatible with infinitely many more general conclusions. so there is a big problem of how to select a conclusion. to begin with that would have to be specified). (And I think that this is the kind of thing you meant, though it didn't specify it, so I'm not sure.)
OK Back to Popper's approach: we can guess ideas that are more general than we have now. That's unproblematic as far as it goes (it's possible to do). The standard objection is that the guesses will be arbitrary, not knowledge. The solution to that is to use criticism to refute all arbitrary guesses, or any other kind of bad guess.
That might sound inconvenient but, like Rand says, you can automate a lot of your thinking so it becomes lightning fast to deal with many cases. (And if someone disagrees, and you want to have a critical discussion, then you can slow down and consider it more carefully. But most of the time there is no problem, and no need to slow down.)
So these Popperian guesses get a status of "not refuted, so far". They are fallible, conjectural knowledge. This raises many potential questions: is that good enough? is better possible? if we could do better, how exactly would it work and what would it be like? (Another standard claim of induction is that ideas created by induction have a high status. They are better than conjectural knowledge. I don't think claims like this hold up under scrutiny.) But I'll stop here for now.
(As a minor note, I normally prefer the term "idea" over "theory". It doesn't especially matter, except that sometimes people attach some special status or authority to the term "theory" as opposed to merely an "idea". I do not intend that.)
What induction supports the idea one would have to throw out 80%?
Popper overturned induction by enumeration. Rand did not subscribe to enumeration
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Popper wants "scientific method" to mean whatever scientists do and then turns around and says that scientists form conjectures and ignores all the integrations that make any conjecture possible.
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I don't see how conjectures and refutations are a strength of his epistemology or criticizing enumerative induction and then telling us that induction is a myth is supposed to be a strength. That second one is a serious shortcoming of his epistemology.
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Popper believed that there was no logic to concept-formation, and that such a logical reason would be a myth, for the same reasons as induction formation is. He saw the tie between concepts and induction, and denied that there was any logical sense to it. He also didn't understand nor accept higher levels of inductive theory like Baconian Induction or even Arsistotle and so he thinks he's left with conjectures which are tentative and shaky. Interestingly enough, Francis Bacon never took up the essentials out there vs no essentials debate.
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as I understand Popper, he only criticizes enumerative induction, but doesn't appear to know or consider the theories of induction upheld by the likes of Bacon, Herschel, or Whewell. Those three employed not only enumerative inference, but also analogical and eliminative reasoning as part and parcel of the method of induction, and therefore of discovering causes. Popper didn't even think forming concepts was a logical process: he believed it was fine and well when by the concept "dog," we meant dogs in the relation of some spatial-temporal relationship, such as the dogs in Battery Park, and ultimately on the earth (an "individual concept"), but we could not form a concept that applied to *any* such thing with the characteristics specified, with no space or time related limitations (this, he called a "universal concept"). There are also the Kantian and Humean influences to contend with.
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speaking of a threat to the USA, where does stealth jihad fit into this? is it even a legitimate thing?
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i think its a question of whose more consistent and the so-called "moderates" are just inconsistent about their religion. I don't think they're the tail that wags the dogs.
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what about genetically modified seeds? I don't think Monsanto can patent the sequence of nucleotides itself but I imagine the method of inserting the sequence into the seed's DNA might be (or is already). So I guess my broad question is: should the genes be patentable?
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here is stephan's arguments against IP, if anyone is interested: http://c4sif.org/resources/
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Remember kids, investigating hurt feelings on the Internet is more important than dealing with domestic terrorism.
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the extremist interpretations highlight the broader point that Islam is a motivator of a vast range of actions, including attempts to destroy the enemies of Muslims in holy war. It also shows that mysticism allows the religious follower to play out his actions with all cards "wild."
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Martial law has been declared in the USA many, many times. It was not, however, declared in Boston or its environs. Stay grounded.
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hmm, I'm not sure I see the logic behind the so-called market anarchy position. sounds quite similar like anarcho-capitalism
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I think some differentiate themselves rather well: http://www.ayubhamid.com/q-a-a/609-sufism-vs-salafismwahabism
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Here is a link to a critique of Rand's theory of IP rights: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1117269
My Philosophy
in Metaphysics and Epistemology
Posted
criticism presupposes creation. the over-emphasis on criticism is not warranted.