From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Aug 04 2002 - 12:46:55 MDT
Technotranscendence writes
> >> My claim is that propositional knowledge is ultimately
> >> based on a non-propositional foundation. That foundation...
> >
> > This urge to seek foundations has three bad effects
> >
> > 1. it greatly increases the amount of bullshit
> > 2. it speaks to math-envy, or attempts to build
> > on axioms and to strive for Euclidean rigor
> > 3. it is characteristically unevolutionary
> >
> > By 1, I mean the literally endless propositionalizing, terminological
> > disputes, and creation of new theories.
>
> That's just part of life. Also, pancritical rationalism does not
> promise to end that -- or, at least, Popper, Bartley, Campbell, et al.
> don't seem to promise that. (If they do, I don't recall reading in
> their works where they, so please give me the references or your
> interpretation.
Why, no. You recall that I was the one who pointed out the wasted
verbiage making CR into PCR. The PCR reading I really like is its
explanations of phenomena in terms of evolutionary like processes.
Not the endless quibbling.
> The endless declaration of the death of
> philosophy or of postphilosophy seem a bit exaggerated, pretentious, and
> even lacking in perspective, don't you think?)
Oh yes. I don't object in principle to people's attempts to try
to set everything up on axiomatics, or to engage in a lot of hair-
splitting. I'm just (a) not interested in it and (b) don't think
it important.
> > Pan-Critical Rationalism (or whatever we want to call it)
> > rests on the idea of evolutionary epistemology, that we
> > come to know things by our brains making conjectures about
> > the nature of the outside world. Indeed, an organism itself
> > can be viewed as a conjecture, or a guess, made by its genes
> > in the same way that genetic algorithms operate by making
> > guesses.
>
> Ah, look at the assumptions here. First of all, how do you know of an
> outside world? How do you know conjectures match against it?
Because I have common sense, because I'm practiced getting results
from the outside world just like any auto mechanic, hair stylist,
farmer, detective, teacher, newspaper delivery boy, and finger-painting
five year old. The little kid tries some colors, gets some effects,
tries other things, gets yelled at.
Back in the 20th century it wasn't moronic to question the
existence of an "outside world" because people were saddled
with positivism and all sorts of other garbage. But I don't
think that it's productive now to ask "how do you know of an
outside world?". We have a whole web of belief, and while I
realize that you want to *base* some things on "sense
perception", that's not IMO a sensible way to go about it.
We should just start with a huge amount of interlocking
common knowledge from baby geology to naive astronomy, most
of which is available to every eight year old.
So forgive me if I get touchy when people remind me that
there are solipsists "out there"! 8-) I have all
these ancient scars from stupid discussions in the 70s.
> Without a _minimal_ foundation in sense perception, you
> have nothing for the conjecture and refutation method to
> work against. If you already admit to knowledge of it,
> _then_ you have a foundation -- granted, a nonpropositional
> one, but my argument all along is for a _nonpropositional_
> foundation.
Why does everything have to be so goddamn formal? (I'm sure
that I'm aiming at WAY MORE people than just you!) Where does
it get us? Who needs a foundation? I don't even want to
dignify what an eight year old knows as a "foundation",
because then someone will ask about how well founded that
foundation is, and on what it depends, and GRRRRRRRR
Pan Critical Rationalism rebuts justificationism and foundationism
Moreover, here is a nice list of what PCR does taken from the
interesting essay http://www.lns.cornell.edu/spr/2002-01/msg0038604.html
(that also relates to the Bayesianism that I'd like to know more
about in this context).
(1) There are no ultimate sources of knowledge. (Human Fallibility)
(2) All we can do is ask if an assertion is true in that it agrees
with the facts (Cp. Tarski's Correspondence Theory of Truth).
(3) Previously held beliefs that agreed with the facts continue to be
held by tradition.
(4) Anti-traditionalism is not important for its own sake -- in
principle. But all tradition is open to critical examination and may
be over thrown if found to be wrong.
(5) Knowledge cannot start from nothing (i.e., not from tabula rasa)
and knowledge cannot start from observation. The advancement of
knowledge comes from modification and correction of earlier knowledge
(the basis for traditional beliefs).
(6) Neither knowledge nor reason is beyond criticism (nor are they
sources of ultimate authority).
(7) Absolute precision is impossible. Definitions and meanings lead
to the fallacy of infinite regress, therefore cannot be important.
Clarity is achieved by understanding illustrative examples. (Ostensive
definitions, examples, etc.)
(8) Every solution creates new problems. This makes our knowledge
finite and our ignorance not only intractable but also infinite -- in
principle. (Fruitfulness)
(9) The above numbered theses are open to criticism (Bartley's
Pan-Critical Rationalism)
Well (continues Lee), I disagree with (5), and see no especial
utility in points (8) and (9). But I really like the spirit of
the whole, and that's why, to the extent of my limited knowledge,
I'm a fan of PCR.
> Instead, let's look for the genetic roots of all ideas --
> of all arguments. (By "genetic" here I mean that which gives rise to
> them -- not genetics in terms of DNA or anything like that. After all,
> DNA, etc. would then have to be taken as foundational -- a position I do
> not take.) This is akin to what David Saum calls "Rand's question."
> The question is, "What gives rise to this idea?" -- or "What
> necessitates it?" (I'm paraphrasing here.) What does this mean? Well,
> if I have an idea, such as "X is a Y," I have to have an idea of what an
> X is and what a Y is -- at least, some minimal conception. For
> instance, if I say "The sky is blue," the statement -- proposition, if
> you want to make it formal:) -- is meaningless if I don't know what
> "sky" and "blue" are. The statement depends on them having meanings --
> however vague or imprecise these might be.
Okay, so ideas have roots (there is a history of ideas, development, etc.),
and word usages build up, there is etymology, and words have meanings.
> Now, with pancritical rationalism, as I've said in my short article,
> pancritical rationalism presupposes a lot of logic and even sense
> perception. (If you deny sense perception -- and accepting it to me
> does not mean you're a naive realist -- then what does pancritical
> rationalism have to work on? At best, merely internal coherence, which
> works for theology, but not science or any philosophy worthy of the
> name.)
Your beef is with all this "presupposing", and I say nuts to that.
I'll go back to the eight year old. He's got a little apriori
knowledge IMO and, more importantly, has picked up a lot of
what's going on in the world, and what's true (along with
some stuff that's false.) I'm uninterested in whether or not
this "presupposes" anything. Sorry.
> > It has been said that "evolution explains everything", and
> > I consider that to be only a slight exaggeration.
>
> I consider that more than a slight one...:)
>
> Taking the genetic argument above, you need to even explain evolution.
> Evolution itself is not primary -- in either the ontological or
> epistemological senses of the word.
Perhaps here we have our basic disagreement: I don't think
it's wise to regard anything as "primary". And you do, eh?
Lee
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