False Dichotomies, Package Deals, and Karl Popper

[curi]

Karl Popper is often misunderstood because he says the debates for several major philosophy issues involve a false dichotomy. The question is misconceived; both sides are wrong; a new way is needed.

 

(Whether there are exactly two standard positions, or actually more in some cases, doesn't affect my point.)

 

Popper's epistemology is the most innovative epistemology of note. By that I mean it changes more from prior epistemology than any of its rivals do. It's the most different. That makes it harder to understand.

 

(Also, to be clear, Popper personally is not important. Like all philosophers, different people have read his books and interpreted him to be saying a variety of different things. I am interested here only in what I regard as the correct, best interpretation. This includes refinements by David Deutsch and myself.)

 

What commonly happens is Popper (or a Popperian, or a person advocating a Popperian idea, whatever) says a particular epistemology idea is mistaken and tries to explain why. Then people usually interpret Popper as being on the other side of the dichotomy from them, because he's disagreeing with them. "If he says I'm wrong, he must be on the opposing side from me!" That's an easy conclusion to reach when you don't fully understand the point being made. But actually Popper is taking neither of the standard sides.

 

It's hard conceiving of a new way of looking at an issue. That's harder than understanding that someone has an opposing position which you've heard before and have arguments about. The standard opponent is within your framework, which is easier to deal with.

 

Look at it another way. For many issues, there are two sides which disagree but also have some points of agreement. For example, they agree on what the right question or dichotomy is, but give opposing answers to it. When popper says that not only is their answer wrong, but also their question is wrong, Popper is disagreeing with them more than their opponents do! So he could be misunderstood as an even more disagreeable version of their opponents, even though he isn't.

 

 

This is relevant to Objectivism because Objectivists have misunderstood Popper, and their criticisms of Popper rely on misunderstanding his positions. There aren't any Objectivist refutations of the Popperian ideas I'm advocating. (Nor are there Objectivist answers to Popper's actual criticisms of some Objectivist positions, like induction).

 

Popperian epistemology does not contradict all of Objectivist epistemology. There are many points in common, such as valuing clarity and accepting the possibility of humans attaining objective knowledge. But there are some major points of disagreement such as induction and self-evident axioms. Objectivists have the opportunity to learn something, and should be happy about that (just as, for example, Popperians could and should learn a lot from Objectivist morality and politics).

 

 

Let's look at some example issues where there is a false dichotomy which Popper rejects: certainty and proof, induction, justification, support.

 

Take certainty or proof: there is a false dichotomy between having certainty and not having knowledge. There is an assumption, shared by both sides, that certainty is a requirement of knowledge. Popperian epistemology rejects that package deal, and offers a new way: a non-authoritarian, fallibilist way to gain objective knowledge.

 

Take induction: the two main positions both center around the problem of induction. One position is that we can solve the problem of induction (some claim they already did solve it, some expect it to be solved any decade now). Another position is that the lack of solution to the problem of induction presents a big problem for epistemology. The popperian position is that it's the wrong problem, the wrong question. Popper instead raised a different better question and solved it.

 

Take justification: there is a false dichotomy between "yes we can justify our beliefs/ideas/knowledge" and "no we can't, justification fails due to regress [and several other arguments], therefore knowledge is impossible". The Popperian view is that both of these positions are wrong. They both agree on an incorrect concept of what justification is and why we need it. They package justification together with knowledge.

 

Take support: consider the idea that we can support our beliefs with evidence and arguments. Some people say we can't, therefore our beliefs are irrational. Some people say we can, and it makes our beliefs rational. Both sides have accepted that we need to support our beliefs with evidence and argument for them to be rational. Popper disagrees with both standard sides. He says we don't have to support our beliefs with evidence and argument for them to be rational; that isn't actually how you get rational knowledge; but there is a different way of getting rational knowledge.

 

There is a package deal combining rationality and support. And it creates a false dichotomy where either you have both rationality and support, or neither.

 

 

Popperian epistemology is a complex subject requiring study to understand well. I cannot cover it all here. I'm going to talk about one example in more detail to give you a sample.

 

Do we have to support our beliefs with evidence and arguments for them to be rational? Pretty much everyone agrees the answer is "yes". That includes both people who think we can do this and thereby get rational knowledge, and also people who think that our inability to do this prevents us from getting rational knowledge (skeptics).

 

The Popperian view is that rationality is not about support. It is achieved by a different method. Rational ideas are ideas which are open to criticism. If there's no way to improve an idea, it's stuck, it's bad, it's irrational. If it's open to improvement via criticism – if it's open to reform, refinement, error correction – then it is rational.

 

Whether ideas are open to error correction does not depend on how much support they have. That is not the issue. (And actually, sometimes when people say, "I've proved my case with all this supporting evidence," it can indicate they are not open to criticism.)

 

Think, for a moment, about what we want to accomplish in epistemology. For example: we want to sort out good ideas from bad ideas. We want to improve our ideas. We want to get knowledge – ideas that are connected to reality and effective in reality.

 

Trying to support ideas was a false goal. It's not really what we wanted. It was a way of getting something else. It had indirect value. It's important to identify this gap and separate the concepts. We can reject support but still find a different method to get the useful stuff support was intended to achieve.

 

Supporting ideas is meant to sort out good ideas from bad ideas. The ones with more support are good. This method does not work. One unsolved problem with it is to define exactly when, why and how much any given idea supports any other ideas. A second problem is whether a less supported idea could be the best one. If it can, what does it really matter that it's less supported?

 

However, a different method of sorting out good ideas does work: criticism. Ideas which are not refuted by criticism are sorted out from those which are refuted by criticism. (These critical classifications are always open to revision in the future as we learn more.)

[DonAthos]

Do we have to support our beliefs with evidence and arguments for them to be rational? Pretty much everyone agrees the answer is "yes". That includes both people who think we can do this and thereby get rational knowledge, and also people who think that our inability to do this prevents us from getting rational knowledge (skeptics).

The Popperian view is that rationality is not about support. It is achieved by a different method. Rational ideas are ideas which are open to criticism. If there's no way to improve an idea, it's stuck, it's bad, it's irrational. If it's open to improvement via criticism – if it's open to reform, refinement, error correction – then it is rational.

 

I have no more familiarity with Popper or his views than having read your post here, so all of my comments need to be understood with my gross ignorance on the subject considered, but...

I wonder what the standard for "improvement" would be, or how we would assess what constitutes an "error" that needs correction, if we dismiss such support (i.e. "evidence and arguments"). For you say...

 

...we want to sort out good ideas from bad ideas. We want to improve our ideas. We want to get knowledge – ideas that are connected to reality and effective in reality.

 

And this is so. But then we need some means of assessing whether an idea is connected to reality -- whether it is "effective" -- don't we? And it seems to me that this is precisely where "evidence and arguments" are required.

 

We can reject support but still find a different method to get the useful stuff support was intended to achieve.

 

And now I find myself worried, because I'm holding in my mind that when you say "reject support," you mean rejecting "evidence and arguments" (per se; obviously any given position entails rejecting certain evidence as being compelling or pertinent or decisive and certain arguments as being faulty or incomplete, and etc).

So... it seems to me that you're suggesting that there are ways of 1) coming to ideas 2) assessing these ideas as being rational or otherwise (in that they are open to criticism) 3) recognizing that an idea, which is rational in that it is open to criticism, is either good or bad in that it is or is not "connected to reality and effective in reality"; "useful" 4) improving upon that idea ("reform, refinement, error correction")

and yet doing all of this without "evidence and argument," but by some "different method."

The methods apart from evidence and argument that I typically think of are various forms of revelation or whim. So, in trying to imagine what this might look like, I picture a man who decides that some idea (perhaps Popperian epistemology, as presented) is either irrational in itself, or rational but not "connected" or "effective in reality," and "improves" it by inserting himself as Grand High Poobah of deciding what is true or false. Based on what? Some method, to be determined.

If someone were to question the support for such a thing, I suppose he would reject such a call by its nature. I just don't see how we are supposed to approach this in any reasonable way (including for the purposes of criticism and improvement) without recourse to "support."

 

Supporting ideas is meant to sort out good ideas from bad ideas. The ones with more support are good. This method does not work. One unsolved problem with it is to define exactly when, why and how much any given idea supports any other ideas. A second problem is whether a less supported idea could be the best one. If it can, what does it really matter that it's less supported?

 

However, a different method of sorting out good ideas does work: criticism. Ideas which are not refuted by criticism are sorted out from those which are refuted by criticism. (These critical classifications are always open to revision in the future as we learn more.)

 

We would have to get into it much further and probably far longer to get to the bottom of some of these issues. I am not yet convinced that what you mean by "criticism" is wholly unpalatable to me "as an Objectivist."

But let's start here: I agree that you and I could consider some idea to be "the best supported idea" when that idea is false or some other idea "poorly supported" at a given point in time, though it turns out to be true. (I imagine a belief in the geocentric theory of the universe, as I type this.) But when I approach epistemology, or philosophy more generally, I come from the point of view of the individual, as in -- what is the individual to do?

So in a case where we have two competing ideas, one judged to be better supported than the other, would you have us adopt as our own (for the purpose of action, let's say) any idea other than that which we deem to have the best support?

[curi]

A Popperian idea is that while support doesn't work (there are many problems, some well known, that'd be a separate topic to get into), evidence and arguments can both be used in a "negative" capacity, rather than a "positive" or "supporting" capacity. You can refute ideas which contradict evidence. You can refute ideas with critical arguments. This rules out and sorts out bad ideas. But it does not establish the status or authority or justification of good ideas -- but that's not needed and actually an authoritarian mistake.

 

Combining "support" and "evidence and argument" would be a package deal that should be separated out.

 

I agree with you that whim and revelation are no good.

 

 I am not yet convinced that what you mean by "criticism" is wholly unpalatable to me "as an Objectivist."

 

I don't think that "criticism" or critical thinking is unpalatable to Objectivism, either. I actually think Objectivism and Popper have a lot in common.

 

[...] what is the individual to do?

So in a case where we have two competing ideas, one judged to be better supported than the other, would you have us adopt as our own (for the purpose of action, let's say) any idea other than that which we deem to have the best support?

 

The individual is to act on the best ideas he has at the time he acts. I think we agree on that narrow point.

 

But which ones should he act on, if he knows several ideas with a not-yet-resolved conflict? My answer here, I think, is actually less compromising or soft than Objectivism.

 

Conflicts and contradictions must be resolved to act rationally. You need to create a situation where you have one single idea which is not refuted (by criticism), which you think is right *without conflict*, and act on that. (So to answer you directly: no don't adopt one with less support either. never judge by amount of support. resolve the contradiction!)

 

If you have two ideas, which conflict, and you don't have a criticism of either one, then to judge by status ("more" support) is irrational. If this "more support" does not imply any criticisms -- if it doesn't tell you anything wrong with the less supported idea -- then it's no good as a way of choosing between ideas and really just amounts to judging by authority, not your own (critical) thinking. (On the other hand if in some case "more support" is for some reason which could be phrased as a criticism, then we're largely on the same page with different terminology, different emphasis, different perspective, but fundamentally the key thing is the same. But I think the "more support" camp uses it in *both cases* -- both when it could and could not be translated to a rational criticism.)

 

If two competing ideas contradict, rational thinking must address the contradiction, not ignore it. Saying one idea has more support than the other does not address the contradiction.

 

Criticism does resolve contradictions. In a contradiction, we know at most one of the ideas involved can be true. If we criticize all but one idea -- point out mistakes with them -- then (to the best of our knowledge) those criticized ideas are false, and the remaining idea may be true. The difficulty is resolved.

 

There are some techniques for how this is always possible to resolve contradictions in the way of action (if you know the techniques, and use them rationally). And it can be done fast enough for scenarios with time pressure. I won't go into them immediately because I think it'd be too much information when we may well disagree about something I already said above. For what it's worth, I know this is a lot and I'm working on writing some more explanations. I wanted to give, in this reply, something of an outline of my position to clarify and see what you think of it.

[Mikee]

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.

Edited July 5, 2013 by Mikee

[Plasmatic]

The identification of a "negative" result is a POSITIVE process.

[curi]

No. Our view is that thinking is ultimately done by guesses and criticism (evolution). You can guess that a particular thing is criticized, and see if you have any criticisms of that or not. So you can judge criticism in a critical way.

[dream_weaver]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to state that "You guess your view is that what you guess is thinking is ultimately done by guessing and criticism", although you would still have to guess at what guessing and criticism are?

Edited July 5, 2013 by dream_weaver

[curi]

Wouldn't it be more accurate to state that "You guess your view is that what you guess is thinking is ultimately done by guessing and criticism", although you would still have to guess at what guessing and criticism are?

 

I'm not sure if you're trying to present a regress problem or something else. Could you clarify?

 

If it's a regress problem, could you clarify what you think the solution is for positive approaches and why it won't work for a negative approach?

[Plasmatic]

Not a regress problem but a stolen concept problem.

[dream_weaver]

Interesting, regress had not occurred to me initially.

As to the solution for a positive approach to identification, ITOE and OPAR both delve into it rather extensively.

Trying to identify why a negative approach won't work, is at its essence, a negative approach.

 

While studying what does not work may be benificial is some instances, studying what does work is only benificial in the instances it does work, which, incidently,makes it benificial in all instances.

[curi]

Not a regress problem but a stolen concept problem.

 

Which concept is stolen? Which higher level concept uses but denies which lower level concept?

 

 

As to the solution for a positive approach to identification, ITOE and OPAR both delve into it rather extensively.

 

ITOE does not even attempt to answer Popper's criticisms of positive approaches, refute Popper's negative approach, or solve the problem of induction (or related problems like how positive support could possibly work). We must be miscommunicating somehow.

[dream_weaver]

I wasn't aware that ITOE was written with that vein in mind. It's main thrust is unraveling concept formation, not refuting Popper. If you're interested in applying logic and the art of non-contradictory identification to Popper's negative approach or his criticisms of positive approaches, you would need to break it down to its premises and examine it in that light.

[Plasmatic]

But Popper dismisses the whole of concept formation in his dismissal of essentialism. This point alone makes every concept he uses a stolen one.... If he had taken it up he would have to find that EVERY concept is the result of a generalization. ( concept as in a unity, proper names aside)

Edited July 5, 2013 by Plasmatic

[Plasmatic]

Not vouching for everthing here but :

http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/philn/philn065.htm

Is pretty good.

[Eiuol]

Nothing is wrong with criticism per se, although you state there is a method to go about doing it. I really don't know what you are referring to. It's not a use of evidence, or any justification, or argument, or support, or proof, so what is it? If all you mean is finding contradictions, okay. That's fine. But it seems like that's all that Popper's epistemology is! That's pre-Socratic thought, where you come up with an idea, then people complain about what's wrong. If there is a contradiction, the idea is refuted. Rinse and repeat. This isn't *bad* to do, but it seems rather weak if you don't do anything else. I rather see it like people saying what's wrong with the political status of the US, yet say nothing about how to improve the political status. The whole process is inefficient, albeit useful if you incorporate more methods.

Another position is that the lack of solution to the problem of induction presents a big problem for epistemology.

Yeah, it is a problem. Fair enough that it's possible the question is wrong. Aren't you saying that the only method that does any good is criticism, though? It doesn't *fail* per se, but it's inefficient. Epistemology is about how to think *effectively* as well as acquire knowledge. The truth is, induction "under development" is doing a far better job than sticking with *only* criticism. The theory of evolution for instance was largely inductive, no? Yeah, it wasn't perfect, modifications have continued, but it was based on evidence, and support, and even some induction even if it was perhaps imperfect and flawed. Criticism can pick out minor flaws, that's good, I just don't understand how the theory of evolution has been so important and useful if you're saying that the very methods Darwin used should not work well. Can you use an example of your choosing of a case in reality where criticism on its own has been useful? I'd prefer you to use evolution as an example, but there might be a field of science you're familiar with.

Again, I'm not saying criticism is wrong to do. Not using anything else in addition to criticism seems short-sighted and won't *help* discover new ideas.

[curi]

Darwin used the critical method. You're only assuming otherwise because you disagree about epistemology. We each interpret it according to our epistemology. It's not evidence against either one.

 

Criticism does use evidence and argument, I don't know why you're trying to throw them out.

[Eiuol]

Darwin used the critical method. You're only assuming otherwise because you disagree about epistemology. We each interpret it according to our epistemology. It's not evidence against either one.

 

Explain then how Darwin used the critical method. (I'm gaining knowledge without criticism per se, but evidence. More seriously though, I want to understand what Popper means. )

 

I may have misread the bit about evidence, but you basically said evidence is optional.

 

"Popper disagrees with both standard sides. He says we don't have to support our beliefs with evidence and argument for them to be rational; that isn't actually how you get rational knowledge; but there is a different way of getting rational knowledge."

 

You gave me the impression you mean a method that does away with evidence; I can throw it out if I want.

[curi]

Not using evidence to support, and not using evidence, are different things. Evidence can be used in a critical role. If something contradicts the evidence, that is a problem with it.

 

This is one of the package deals of standard epistemology (packaging evidence with support). Some of these things are so prevalent that it's hard to communicate anything contrary to them and be understood.

 

I don't know a lot about the history of Darwin's discovery offhand. First of all I found an interesting quote, by Popper in Objective Knowledge, p 257

 

The reason why I feel I have to start with some comments on the theory of knowledge is that I disagree over it with almost everybody, except perhaps Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein.

 

But OK. First of all Charles Darwin's grandfather had an idea along the lines of evolution. He did not induce this from observations at the galapagos. Those came much later to test and potentially refute the idea of evolution.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Darwin

 

http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_2.htm

 

This second essay says the idea of evolution was invented long before Charles Darwin was born. Rather -- and this isn't just me but it's basically what the essay says -- he did research to test whether it was right or not.

 

So one thing going on is idea first, evidence second. This is a major Popperian point which is contrary to inductive concepts of learning where data comes first (including Objectivism which has percepts before concepts).

 

One reason ideas must always come before evidence is that there are infinitely many ways to (logically possibly) interpret evidence. For evidence to be useful, it must be interpreted with ideas about what is important and what is not important. Popper dramatized this in a lecture by telling the audience, "Observe!" and waiting. They were confused, they didn't know what to observe. You have to have ideas about what to observe before you can usefully observe.

 

You also need some sort of problem situation that helps determine which things are relevant. A problem situation is a term for a context with an extra emphasis on it having some problems one is interested in addressing. If you have some problems in mind, you can look for ways some evidence may be relevant to them. Without any problems to use evidence to help with, evidence is not useful.

 

The account of what happened at the link is pretty ambiguous and this is no surprise. The author isn't trying to provide evidence about the particular question we're interested in. So his evidence isn't too good for it. It doesn't clarify the key points of relevance to us, but not to him.

 

But you can still get a general idea of what happened. Darwin saw many many many things. He focused selectively on only a few particular things, such as finches. Why those? Because they posed some problems. What does it mean that they posed some problems? It means there was some incompatibility between them and some pre-existing ideas on the topic. That's why they stood out to Darwin: they had relevance to some issues he was already interested in. And that relevance is critical: it posed problems for some ideas, such as the idea that any given species (like "swan" or "finch") is just one type of thing, the same everywhere. By helping criticizing some common sense ideas, Darwin's observations helped make progress.

 

Another interesting note:

 

Nineteenth century critics of Darwin thought that he had misinterpreted the Galápagos finch data.  They said that God had created the 13 different species as they are and that no evolution in beak shape has ever occurred.  It was difficult to conclusively refute such counter arguments at that time.  However, extensive field research since the early 1970's has proven Darwin to be correct.

 

In other words, Darwin's evidence was inadequate to rule out mystical-religious views on the topic. It had limited power. It took critical, philosophical thinking to address those views (they have flaws, but incompatibility with the evidence is a flaw they can evade, so other types of criticism are needed). BTW the note there that later research proved Darwin correct is nonsense. No matter what research you do, mystic-religious views can be designed to be compatible with it, and have to be criticized as bad philosophy.

 

OK highlights: Darwin was interested in certain problems and ideas first. Then he selectively gathered some evidence relevant to them. And interpreted the evidence according to his ideas and context. And used it to help criticize and rule out some ideas (like that members of one species in different places are the same). This helped open the door for more bold conjectures to replace the refuted ideas.

[curi]

BTW there are many stories in the history of science, and if you research them they always turn out to be along Popperian lines. Einstein, Newton, Keppler, whoever. A notable one is Mendel.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel#Controversy

 

In short, Mendel doctored his evidence. How could someone who does the experiment wrong possibly make a great discovery? He wasn't learning from the experiment. He already had some ideas about genes.

[DonAthos]

A Popperian idea is that while support doesn't work (there are many problems, some well known, that'd be a separate topic to get into), evidence and arguments can both be used in a "negative" capacity, rather than a "positive" or "supporting" capacity. You can refute ideas which contradict evidence. You can refute ideas with critical arguments. This rules out and sorts out bad ideas. But it does not establish the status or authority or justification of good ideas -- but that's not needed and actually an authoritarian mistake.

Combining "support" and "evidence and argument" would be a package deal that should be separated out.

 

All right. I'm doing my best to understand, but I don't believe I'm there yet, so my replies might not be completely on point (or maybe even at all). I'll ask your patience.

So... let's say that we're investigating a murder -- detectives, searching for a Clue. And we discover Mr. Boddy dead in the library with a sizable gash in his head consistent with blunt trauma. Nearby there is a candlestick, covered in blood and tell-tale fingerprints in mustard.

Would it be consistent with the approach we're discussing to say that I as yet have no basis for claiming that the murderer was "Col. Mustard, with the candlestick, in the library." Not alone no basis for making an accusation or an arrest, but no basis for even preferring such a scenario, calling it "likely" or differentiating it from any other possible hypothesis? That, instead, we should go around to every other detective who can swear to knowledge of some suspect, weapon, or room, so that we can eliminate other possible scenarios/ideas ("criticize") until we are left with only one?

In real life, if I were a detective and came upon an apparent crime scene, with a dead man with a bullet in his head, and a person standing nearby holding a smoking gun, would you say that I have no reason to start towards drawing any "positive" conclusions as to the relationship between the man holding the gun and the dead man?

And what about something like a geometrical proof? Are the arguments of a proof for, I don't know... the Pythagorean theorem, insufficient to demonstrate the truth of that theorem? If I were presented the smaller two sides of a right triangle and asked to solve for the hypotenuse, should my preferred method be to guess what the answer might be, and then start ruling out numbers one at a time (in some unspecified way)?

I... cannot believe that any of these scenarios hits precisely at what we're discussing, yet these are what come to mind as I try to make sense of it. Maybe you can help me refine my understanding? (Or, if these scenarios are fair game, I would be very interested in how you answer them.)

 

The individual is to act on the best ideas he has at the time he acts. I think we agree on that narrow point.

 

But which ones should he act on, if he knows several ideas with a not-yet-resolved conflict? My answer here, I think, is actually less compromising or soft than Objectivism.

 

Conflicts and contradictions must be resolved to act rationally. You need to create a situation where you have one single idea which is not refuted (by criticism), which you think is right *without conflict*, and act on that. (So to answer you directly: no don't adopt one with less support either. never judge by amount of support. resolve the contradiction!)

 

If you have two ideas, which conflict, and you don't have a criticism of either one, then to judge by status ("more" support) is irrational. If this "more support" does not imply any criticisms -- if it doesn't tell you anything wrong with the less supported idea -- then it's no good as a way of choosing between ideas and really just amounts to judging by authority, not your own (critical) thinking. (On the other hand if in some case "more support" is for some reason which could be phrased as a criticism, then we're largely on the same page with different terminology, different emphasis, different perspective, but fundamentally the key thing is the same. But I think the "more support" camp uses it in *both cases* -- both when it could and could not be translated to a rational criticism.)

 

If two competing ideas contradict, rational thinking must address the contradiction, not ignore it. Saying one idea has more support than the other does not address the contradiction.

 

I'm... hesitant to offer agreement here when I fear I still don't quite understand every issue at play, the terminology involved, or how this will translate into actual scenarios. But I will say that I suspect there's some sense in what you're talking about here (though I don't know how Objectivism is soft, or compromises, with respect to contradiction, and I would like to see that demonstrated).

 

The final paragraph I agree with wholeheartedly; a rational man must attempt to resolve apparent contradictions among his beliefs, not merely select one belief (on any basis) to run with in the face of such a contradiction. In my opinion, that's precisely how so many people go so very wrong.

 

Criticism does resolve contradictions. In a contradiction, we know at most one of the ideas involved can be true. If we criticize all but one idea -- point out mistakes with them -- then (to the best of our knowledge) those criticized ideas are false, and the remaining idea may be true. The difficulty is resolved.

 

So obviously you're being careful in saying that "the remaining idea may be true" as opposed to "the remaining idea is true." But what do you think this difference amounts to, practically? To take a very bare example, allow me to assert that I am currently typing this message on a keyboard. Now... I'm not precisely sure how we would approach such an idea via "criticism" versus "support," but let's say we've done it in such a way as to satisfy you in that this is "the remaining idea." If I were to conclude that "it is true that I am typing this message on a keyboard," and you were to correct me, saying "it may be true that you're typing this message on a keyboard," what would that correction signify? What content would it contain? (And I'll trust that you'll speak to the spirit of my question, rather than suggestions like, since you're reading this at a later time than my posting, I'm no longer typing on my keyboard. )

 

The identification of a "negative" result is a POSITIVE process.

 

No. Our view is that thinking is ultimately done by guesses and criticism (evolution). You can guess that a particular thing is criticized, and see if you have any criticisms of that or not. So you can judge criticism in a critical way.

 

Do you think there's more here to explore? Do you believe that, even on the issue of what constitutes a "guess" or "positive" or "negative," that you have no tools other than making guesses and then criticizing them? On the subject of "guessing," are there any further distinctions you would make to describe your process?

This may not strike you as a particularly serious argument, but I have to say that I have experience at "guessing" things. (And I relate my knowledge of the idea of "guessing" to those experiences.) I also have experience at formulating hypotheses, and other similar experiences at what I would describe as being an "educated guess" (like when I play along with Jeopardy at home). And then it seems to me to be something else completely when I describe myself as typing on my keyboard, or solve for the hypotenuse of a triangle. I do not consider those to be "guesses" at all. But do you consider them to be the same phenomena?

[curi]

DonAthos,

 

All right. I'm doing my best to understand, but I don't believe I'm there yet, so my replies might not be completely on point (or maybe even at all). I'll ask your patience.

 

No worries. It is difficult to understand complicated philosophical ideas. Culture clash is difficult too. We have different perspectives. Thanks for trying.

 

Actually this kind of humble attitude and effort to learn is just the sort of thing Popperians appreciate. Popper strongly recommended it.

 

Would it be consistent with the approach we're discussing to say that I as yet have no basis for claiming that the murderer was "Col. Mustard, with the candlestick, in the library."

 

Popperians don't approach things in terms of having a (positive, supporting) "basis" for anything. But given what you say, you make a good guess at what happened. IRL I'd want to investigate more because murder accusations are very serious. But basically I agree with you: I haven't got any criticisms of suspecting Mustard, and I do have criticisms of rival ideas. What rival ideas? Stuff like proclaiming "I don't know, how can anyone know, why are you so certain all the time?" or "Anything could be true, let's investigate 10 arbitrary things" or "I don't want the responsibility of making a judgment, let's ask a bunch of other people their opinion to share the responsibility". Those would all be awful.

 

This may sound convoluted to you. However, if you get used to it, you may find the other (positive) way is what seems convoluted. How does one decide between approaches objectively? I think what really matters is that this approach works at all, while the positive approach doesn't. (Because of serious flaws. There are a lot. Example: being unable to address the issue of actually defining what things support what other things, and how much, for all things. Or put another way: what constitutes how much of a basis for what, for all cases? And what exactly does having more basis do/mean anyway?)

 

That, instead, we should go around to every other detective who can swear to knowledge of some suspect, weapon, or room, so that we can eliminate other possible scenarios/ideas ("criticize") until we are left with only one?

 

It sounds to me like you don't think we should go around and check other possibilities. In other words ... you see something wrong with doing so. In other words, you have a criticism of doing that?

 

And what about something like a geometrical proof? Are the arguments of a proof for, I don't know... the Pythagorean theorem, insufficient to demonstrate the truth of that theorem? If I were presented the smaller two sides of a right triangle and asked to solve for the hypotenuse, should my preferred method be to guess what the answer might be, and then start ruling out numbers one at a time (in some unspecified way)?

 

Rule out all other numbers/possibilities because they would contradict your math knowledge and you don't have any criticisms of your (relevant) math knowledge.

 

(though I don't know how Objectivism is soft, or compromises, with respect to contradiction, and I would like to see that demonstrated).

 

I'm currently writing an essay which covers this, so let's just wait for me to finish that.

 

So obviously you're being careful in saying that "the remaining idea may be true" as opposed to "the remaining idea is true." But what do you think this difference amounts to, practically?

 

Right, that phrasing was careful.

 

The difference amounts to being careful not to claim infallibility or omniscience, even ambiguously. Popperians are careful with that, it's our way, our emphasis. Objectivist epistemology always emphasizes that skepticism is false, and uses terminology and phrasings that are good at that. Popperians emphasize the other way -- we're fallible, error is common, people who think they have the truth are often mistaken, feeling sure and confident does not mean you are likely to be right, etc... Because of the clash of these choices of emphasis, many people on both sides think there is a much larger gap between the two epistemologies than their actually is.

 

(So the result is Popperians frequently accuse Objectivists of infallibilism, and Objectivists frequently accuse Popperians of skepticism, but neither claim is accurate. At least the accusations are not accurate about the better people on each side. Rand is not an infallibilist. I think some of the less good Objectivists are infallibilist sometimes. Maybe some less good Popperians are skeptics, I'm not really sure about that, but I do have other criticisms of them.)

 

If you're worried about acting in life, there isn't any difference. To the best of my knowledge, it is true. I will use it and act on it. I think saying it is "true" is defensible, because infallibility shouldn't be the standard of knowledge claims or truth claims.

 

Truth is too useful and common a word to use to refer to infallibility. When I want to speak about infallible truth I use phrases like "perfect truth", "final truth", "infallible truth", "The Truth" with caps, etc... You can qualify "truth" if you want infallibility, and use the fallible meaning as the default. (However it depends on your audience, some people are confused about this.)

 

If I were to conclude that "it is true that I am typing this message on a keyboard," and you were to correct me, saying "it may be true that you're typing this message on a keyboard," what would that correction signify?

 

I think your phrasing is ok, as long as you understand that there are some possible ways you could turn out to be mistaken and have to reconsider. (In other words, it’s a fallible truth claim. Or a contextual claim that doesn’t have omniscience as the standard, as Objectivism would call it). I think Rand would understand this, it’s no problem.

 

I think a lot of people wouldn’t understand it very well, so you would want to be cautious with some audiences.

 

Do you think there's more here to explore? Do you believe that, even on the issue of what constitutes a "guess" or "positive" or "negative," that you have no tools other than making guesses and then criticizing them? On the subject of "guessing," are there any further distinctions you would make to describe your process?

 

First, there is much more to explore. Popper wrote a bunch of long books! There's way more to say than I've posted. And he didn't know everything.

 

For the issue of how to guess, specifically, Popper did not say a lot. I think Rand's ideas about measurement omission and concept formation offer some help here. And there are many other ideas which offer some help here. Popper is focussed more on a higher level of abstraction! Another good example of useful information about how to guess is scientific method. A lot is known about how to come up with good hypotheses, what sort of approaches work well in science. As long as you treat these as fallible guidelines they are valuable.

 

Different ways of guessing are better and worse. It's an important issue to learn about and improve one's methods. But whatever you come up with is guidelines, not a required method. There's always some scope for some imagination, creativity, and varied methods of coming up with ideas.

 

What Popper says is things like: induction is a method that doesn't work, anything with authority doesn't work (and there's a lot of authority hidden in many places, some of which he points out), and no matter what methods you use it doesn't make the results true or probably true. It doesn't give them support or status or authority or justification. You have to evaluate them by whether you see anything wrong with them -- have a criticism -- not by their methods of creation. Once an idea is created and suggested, it must be judged on its content and not its source (method of creation being an issue of the source of the idea). Judging ideas by their source instead of content always actually means going by authority, whether people admit it or not. And no mixed approach is any good either (mixed like judge partly on the merits of the content, and partly on source).

 

As long as an "educated guess" is not deemed to have any special authority, and is judged on its merits just the same as any other idea, it's ok. You may well be right that your idea is pretty good, and that the wisdom of your method of creating it helped out. But your guessing methods don't ensure the idea is good, they don't provide anything solid. The ultimate test is criticism.

 

PS if you’re looking for more info about this, you might find the discussions here interesting: http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Dissent/

[Plasmatic]

Don, Popper in a nut shell rejected verificationism and devised falsification instead. This means simply that we can never confirm/justify something is true but we can, by trying to DISprove something "know" that it has vary degrees of "verisimilitude", or truth-likeness. Of course because of his Kantian and Hume derived premises, we can never know that we havent missed something somewhere, so we never stop trying to disprove our arbitrary, intuition derived theories because we posses, not a value based interest in persuing knowledge/ discovering identity, but a intrinsic curiosity.

Edited July 7, 2013 by Plasmatic

[Plasmatic]

Curi said:

"Judging ideas by their source instead of content always actually means going by authority, whether people admit it or not. And no mixed approach is any good either (mixed like judge partly on the merits of the content, and partly on source)."

And here you see the rejection of objectivity as such. The direct perception of reality as the foundational source to be conceptualized by a proper method is rejected as authoritarian.

From Debunking Popper:

"In Unended Quest Popper observed bluntly that "there is no such thing as an unprejudiced observation" [uNQ 51]. Although this appears to rule out the possibility of objectivity, that was not Popper's intention. Rather, again following Kant perhaps, he thought the basis for objectivity lay elsewhere: "the objectivity of scientific statements lies in the fact that they can be inter-subjectively tested" [LSCD 44]. He later restated this slightly differently: "it is the public character of science... which preserves the objectivity of science" [POH 155-6].

Unfortunately, these assertions do not bear the weight placed upon them. For if Popper's Kantian premise were true (i.e., if anticipatory theories are genetically incorporated into our sense organs and, therefore, there is no such thing as an unprejudiced observation) then senses would not cease to be prejudiced merely by being multiplied. The defective logic could hardly be more clear. One cannot offer as an universal affirmative proposition 'all human senses are prejudiced, i.e. subjective' then ask one's readers to accept that pooling the senses of many persons yields objectivity. If senses are subjective individually they are subjective collectively.18"

Edited July 7, 2013 by Plasmatic

[DonAthos]

Would it be consistent with the approach we're discussing to say that I as yet have no basis for claiming that the murderer was "Col. Mustard, with the candlestick, in the library."

 

Popperians don't approach things in terms of having a (positive, supporting) "basis" for anything. But given what you say, you make a good guess at what happened.

 

All right. So here is (potentially) a sticking point. When you describe my guess as being "good," I take that as implying that some guesses are better than others... And on what basis are we able to make this distinction? The only thing I can see are those things that I would otherwise describe as being "positive" or "supporting" for those guesses we would say are good.

It seems to me that, even as you say that you do not "approach things in terms of having a (positive, supporting) 'basis'," that this is precisely what you are doing when you describe my guess as "good" (as opposed to a guess that it was Miss Scarlet, on the HMS Bounty, with a bronzed pineapple).

Or, if you're not referring to the candlestick, the discovery of the body in the library, and the mustardy fingerprints -- as evidence (i.e. that which provides a "positive" basis for some particular "guess" as to what has happened) -- then what do you believe makes my guess "good"?

 

IRL I'd want to investigate more because murder accusations are very serious.

 

Agreed.

Actually, I chose Clue for my initial scenario, if you haven't already guessed, because the board game actually proceeds exactly how I currently understand your description of Popperian epistemology: you do not acquire positive support for any final accusation, but you eliminate other possibilities through contradiction. In the end, you are left with one possible suspect, weapon, and room, and it is on that basis that you make your accusation and win or lose (rather than on positive evidence).

 

But basically I agree with you: I haven't got any criticisms of suspecting Mustard, and I do have criticisms of rival ideas. What rival ideas? Stuff like proclaiming "I don't know, how can anyone know, why are you so certain all the time?" or "Anything could be true, let's investigate 10 arbitrary things" or "I don't want the responsibility of making a judgment, let's ask a bunch of other people their opinion to share the responsibility". Those would all be awful.

 

Yes. We can dismiss those options just as we can dismiss revelation and whim, as agreed upon earlier. But when it comes to forming a hypothesis (however early, however tentative) that Col. Mustard is the killer, as opposed to Mr. Green or Mrs. Peacock, it seems to me that I am operating more on the basis of drawing conclusions from the mustard fingerprints (in that they are presumed to point to the murderer) rather than contemplating Mrs. Peacock-as-murderer and finding some criticism of that theory.

 

This may sound convoluted to you. However, if you get used to it, you may find the other (positive) way is what seems convoluted. How does one decide between approaches objectively? I think what really matters is that this approach works at all, while the positive approach doesn't. (Because of serious flaws. There are a lot. Example: being unable to address the issue of actually defining what things support what other things, and how much, for all things. Or put another way: what constitutes how much of a basis for what, for all cases? And what exactly does having more basis do/mean anyway?)

 

So here might be our second sticking point.

When you mention "serious flaws" with a positive approach, I wonder... Are these flaws to do with finding a proper description of how such support functions, or are they critical that such support functions at all? Because... hmmm... consider walking. I was able to walk far before I had any understanding of the underlying physical or bio-mechanical processes involved (as, presumably, you were as well). I could field a baseball well before I could describe the mathematics that would be necessary to chart the ball's flight through the air. We would not say that, because I could not explain the mathematics or physics involved, they did not serve to function to allow me to walk or catch the ball.

Whether I'm able to explain to you "what constitutes how much of a basis for what, for all cases," to your satisfaction, or etc., does that make it improper for me to draw conclusions in the sorts of scenarios we're discussing, according to a positive approach? I would not hold a Little Leaguer accountable for developing a calculus before he was allowed to catch a pop fly.

 

That, instead, we should go around to every other detective who can swear to knowledge of some suspect, weapon, or room, so that we can eliminate other possible scenarios/ideas ("criticize") until we are left with only one?

 

It sounds to me like you don't think we should go around and check other possibilities. In other words ... you see something wrong with doing so. In other words, you have a criticism of doing that?

 

Ah, well, actually I'm not opposed to checking other possibilities (within some reasonable range). I've seen convoluted CSI episodes, and I'm open to the idea that Mustard is being framed. But... I guess that I find it too limiting to insist (as I imagine that your position ultimately demands) that we rely only upon a strategy of eliminating other scenarios through criticism, rather than taking these mustard fingerprints as evidence "for" something.

It remains a bit of an open question for me, whether Popperian epistemology seeks to describe what we already do, or what we ought to do (though when you speak of a person "deciding" between these approaches, it suggests the latter)... but I don't yet see any way around drawing a connection between mustard fingerprints and Col. Mustard -- which I would describe as being "positive" -- and I don't see how that isn't already the best approach available.

 

And what about something like a geometrical proof? Are the arguments of a proof for, I don't know... the Pythagorean theorem, insufficient to demonstrate the truth of that theorem? If I were presented the smaller two sides of a right triangle and asked to solve for the hypotenuse, should my preferred method be to guess what the answer might be, and then start ruling out numbers one at a time (in some unspecified way)?

 

Rule out all other numbers/possibilities because they would contradict your math knowledge and you don't have any criticisms of your (relevant) math knowledge.

 

Hmmm... but is that really how we do that? Or is it how you would instruct your child to approach such a problem?

I'm trying to approach this literally, and imagine the actual scenario playing out. My daughter, when she is at the proper age, will sit down to a right triangle with smaller sides of 3 and 4, and she'll be asked to find hypotenuse x. Now, on the one hand, she could "guess" a number and then see whether it "contradicts her math knowledge" (though this would seem to me to possibly beg the question of how that "math knowledge" is acquired in the first place, if not in some positive manner)... maybe her first guess is 5. Or maybe it isn't -- maybe it is 6 or 7 or 8 or 5.1 or 5.2 or 5.3, and she rules them out, one by one, until (hopefully) she guesses 5.

But I can't imagine any approach that would be better in this case than applying the Pythagorean theorem and arriving at a single answer -- not by criticizing all other potential numbers/solutions (and it seems to me that there could be quite a lot of those), but by the evidence and argument upon which the Pythagorean theorem is supported/"proved."

 

(though I don't know how Objectivism is soft, or compromises, with respect to contradiction, and I would like to see that demonstrated).

 

I'm currently writing an essay which covers this, so let's just wait for me to finish that.

 

Of course. I'll look forward to it.

 

So obviously you're being careful in saying that "the remaining idea may be true" as opposed to "the remaining idea is true." But what do you think this difference amounts to, practically?

 

Right, that phrasing was careful.

 

The difference amounts to being careful not to claim infallibility or omniscience, even ambiguously. Popperians are careful with that, it's our way, our emphasis. Objectivist epistemology always emphasizes that skepticism is false, and uses terminology and phrasings that are good at that. Popperians emphasize the other way -- we're fallible, error is common, people who think they have the truth are often mistaken, feeling sure and confident does not mean you are likely to be right, etc... Because of the clash of these choices of emphasis, many people on both sides think there is a much larger gap between the two epistemologies than their actually is.

 

(So the result is Popperians frequently accuse Objectivists of infallibilism, and Objectivists frequently accuse Popperians of skepticism, but neither claim is accurate. At least the accusations are not accurate about the better people on each side. Rand is not an infallibilist. I think some of the less good Objectivists are infallibilist sometimes. Maybe some less good Popperians are skeptics, I'm not really sure about that, but I do have other criticisms of them.)

 

If you're worried about acting in life, there isn't any difference. To the best of my knowledge, it is true.

 

Yes. "To the best of my knowledge, it is true." Or, in my shorthand, "it is true" , though I understand and am sympathetic your point about not accidentally laying claim to some sort of omniscience.

 

I will use it and act on it. I think saying it is "true" is defensible, because infallibility shouldn't be the standard of knowledge claims or truth claims.

 

Right. We're agreed.

 

Truth is too useful and common a word to use to refer to infallibility. When I want to speak about infallible truth I use phrases like "perfect truth", "final truth", "infallible truth", "The Truth" with caps, etc... You can qualify "truth" if you want infallibility, and use the fallible meaning as the default. (However it depends on your audience, some people are confused about this.)

 

I further agree that "it depends on your audience."

 

If I were to conclude that "it is true that I am typing this message on a keyboard," and you were to correct me, saying "it may be true that you're typing this message on a keyboard," what would that correction signify?

 

I think your phrasing is ok, as long as you understand that there are some possible ways you could turn out to be mistaken and have to reconsider. (In other words, it’s a fallible truth claim. Or a contextual claim that doesn’t have omniscience as the standard, as Objectivism would call it). I think Rand would understand this, it’s no problem.

 

I think a lot of people wouldn’t understand it very well, so you would want to be cautious with some audiences.

 

That's right -- there is a particular context to my claim that I'm typing on my keyboard, and my claim is (only) certain within that context. If tomorrow I found that I had... I don't know... lost my mind utterly a few weeks back, I might have to revisit this, insofar as I were able. But until I have good reason to entertain such a notion, I mostly likely won't. (Which might be a third sticking point? For how could I have "good reason" for anything?) It suffices for me to understand that knowledge and certainty are contextual.

 

Do you think there's more here to explore? Do you believe that, even on the issue of what constitutes a "guess" or "positive" or "negative," that you have no tools other than making guesses and then criticizing them? On the subject of "guessing," are there any further distinctions you would make to describe your process?

 

First, there is much more to explore. Popper wrote a bunch of long books! There's way more to say than I've posted. And he didn't know everything.

 

For the issue of how to guess, specifically, Popper did not say a lot. I think Rand's ideas about measurement omission and concept formation offer some help here. And there are many other ideas which offer some help here. Popper is focussed more on a higher level of abstraction! Another good example of useful information about how to guess is scientific method. A lot is known about how to come up with good hypotheses, what sort of approaches work well in science. As long as you treat these as fallible guidelines they are valuable.

 

Different ways of guessing are better and worse. It's an important issue to learn about and improve one's methods. But whatever you come up with is guidelines, not a required method. There's always some scope for some imagination, creativity, and varied methods of coming up with ideas.

 

Again, I fear extending myself too much when I don't believe I quite grasp all of the matters at play, but on "imagination" and "creativity," I don't see these as being bad things, or incompatible with my views on epistemology, or how I approach the actual matters of my life.

However, when we describe certain ways of "guessing" as being better or worse than another, 1) I believe that we're admitting to some positive characteristic of argument/evidence/support, and 2) at some point, I don't believe that "guessing" continues to be an appropriate description of how I come to a certain conclusion. Given a right triangle, with sides (in order of length) of 3, 4, and x, I am not "guessing" that x = 5. If you were to ask me to name the number you're thinking about right now, I would guess 5 (or five billion). I experience these two processes differently, and that seems to be an important distinction to maintain in our concepts and language. One is "guessing," the other is not.

 

What Popper says is things like: induction is a method that doesn't work, anything with authority doesn't work (and there's a lot of authority hidden in many places, some of which he points out), and no matter what methods you use it doesn't make the results true or probably true. It doesn't give them support or status or authority or justification. You have to evaluate them by whether you see anything wrong with them -- have a criticism -- not by their methods of creation. Once an idea is created and suggested, it must be judged on its content and not its source (method of creation being an issue of the source of the idea). Judging ideas by their source instead of content always actually means going by authority, whether people admit it or not. And no mixed approach is any good either (mixed like judge partly on the merits of the content, and partly on source).

 

So, it again seems to me like there are a lot of ideas at play here, and I'm not quite sure I understand them well enough to comment intelligently. However...

Suppose we are discussing an idea that "the planet Neptune exists." When you say that an idea "must be judged on its content and not its source," what does that mean here? If I were to see Neptune and lay claim to its existence on that basis, am I in error? For I agree that we must not judge an idea according to its source when it comes to a person (meaning: you are an "authority" on astronomy, thus I defer my own judgements to you)... but when it comes to evaluating a given idea, the "source" of that idea (whether it is based on experience, hearsay, dream-revelation, etc.) seems to matter quite a lot. Not alone for making determinations on the ideas that others present, but also upon those ideas I have myself.

If you were to make a claim that "the planet Neptune exists," and if I cannot make any determination on that on the basis of whether you've seen it (to the best of my knowledge), or whether I've seen it myself (which is all "evidence," which cannot be used to "support" anything, and also "authority"), then on what basis should I offer even tentative agreement to such a notion? That I cannot criticize it? But there are a million possible planets, all fictional, for which I would have equal "criticism" as the proposed Neptune. Were I to look through a telescope and see Neptune, you would yet say I have no reason thereupon to believe in it, as I must judge the planet's existence solely on its "content" and not its "source," which is my experience of it? But what "content" can a planet (or ultimately, anything) have apart from my experience of it? And if I were to dismiss some other proposed planet on the basis of a "contradiction," what could it possibly contradict except for the other experiences that I have had?

[Plasmatic]

Don said:

"Agreed.

Actually, I chose Clue for my initial scenario, if you haven't already guessed, because the board game actually proceeds exactly how I currently understand your description of Popperian epistemology: you do not acquire positive support for any final accusation, but you eliminate other possibilities through contradiction. In the end, you are left with one possible suspect, weapon, and room, and it is on that basis that you make your accusation and win or lose (rather than on positive evidence)."

Except for Popper you never "win" or stop looking for clues about that one persons guilt because it never more than conjecture.