Objectivist and Popperian Epistemology


curi

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We have practically zero a prior knowledge. Virtually everything we know is derived from experience.

No, no. You can't have one without the other!Peikoff put it simply: "Man's knowledge is not acquired by logic apart from experience or by experience apart from logic, but ~ by the application of logic to experience.All truths are the product of a logical identification of the facts of experience".Scientists need to breathe some "philosophical hot air".

Hold up. Are you saying that you believe in Kant's a priori/a posteriori divide?

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Well, Daniel...

I don't call support of "it might all be a dream" and of "who knows, we might be figments of a virtual reality" and of the opinion of a poster who bizarrely internally contradictorily claimed that he'd convinced himself that he might be a brain in vat and of Greg's saying that a person holding to an imaginal reality could just change the meaning of "proof" to avoid self-exclusion problems...signs of commitment to realist metaphysics. Looked to me like you were fine with dismissing realist metaphysics as long as the dismisser was someone negative toward Rand.

Ellen

I'm afraid that I don't understand how modus tollens requires a commitment to realist metaphysics of the kind that Ayn Rand speaks of. Could you carify/elaborate?

Samson,

I just saw your query a few minutes ago. My point about modus tollens is that the argument form makes no sense outside a realist framework by reference to which to check assertions for truth or falsity. I don't know why you use the description "realist metaphysics of the kind that Ayn Rand speaks of." That sounds like you think that there's some special feature specifically of Rand's idea of realist metaphysics, so I'll have to ask for elaboration in order to understand the question. :smile:

Ellen

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Well, Daniel...

I don't call support of "it might all be a dream" and of "who knows, we might be figments of a virtual reality" and of the opinion of a poster who bizarrely internally contradictorily claimed that he'd convinced himself that he might be a brain in vat and of Greg's saying that a person holding to an imaginal reality could just change the meaning of "proof" to avoid self-exclusion problems...signs of commitment to realist metaphysics. Looked to me like you were fine with dismissing realist metaphysics as long as the dismisser was someone negative toward Rand.

Ellen

I'm afraid that I don't understand how modus tollens requires a commitment to realist metaphysics of the kind that Ayn Rand speaks of. Could you carify/elaborate?

Samson,

I just saw your query a few minutes ago. My point about modus tollens is that the argument form makes no sense outside a realist framework by reference to which to check assertions for truth or falsity. I don't know why you use the description "realist metaphysics of the kind that Ayn Rand speaks of." That sounds like you think that there's some special feature specifically of Rand's idea of realist metaphysics, so I'll have to ask for elaboration in order to understand the question. :smile:

Ellen

I forget why I said "realist metaphysics of the kind Ayn Rand speaks of". Personal habit of explicitly referring to subjects in detail, I suppose. Your point is similar to the one made by another philosopher that was mentioned on ARCHN over the originality of Rand's arguments. It makes sense in that this how you form the concepts of true and false, but I don't see how how modus tollens requires the belief that reality just might be an illusion with a real reality behind it. In other words, it appears to me that falsification can be applied to the question of whether or not I'm dreaming at any given time. In dreams, I know that the idea of it being a dream never passes through my head, but I realize it was a dream when I wake up and the dream is shattered.

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"Experience, it should be noted, only reveals that two or more observations regarding the temporal sequence of two or more types of events can be ''neutrally" classfied as "repetition" or "nonrepetition." A neutral repetition only becomes a "positive" confirmation and a nonrepetition a "negative" falsification if, independent of what can actually be discovered by experience, it is assumed that there are constant causes which operate in time-invariant ways. If, contrary to this, it is assumed that causes in the course of time might operate sometimes this way and sometimes that way, then these repetitive or nonrepetitive occurrences simply are and remain neutrally registered experiences, completely independent of one another, and are not in any way logically related to each other as confirming or falsifying one another. There is one experience and then there is another, they are the same or they are different, but that is all there is to it; nothing else follows.

Thus, the prerequisite of being able to say ''falsify" or "confirm" is the constancy principle:

the conviction that observable phenomena are in principle determined by causes that are constant and time-invariant in the way they operate, and that in principle contingency plays no part in the way causes operate. Only if the constancy principle is assumed to be valid does it follow from any failure to reproduce a result that there is something wrong with an original hypothesis; and only then can a successful reproduction indeed be interpreted as a confirmation. For only if two (or more) events are indeed cause and effect and causes operate in a time-invariant way must it be concluded that the functional relationship to be observed between causally related variables must be the same in all actual instances, and that it this is not indeed the case, something must be at fault with the particular specification of causes.

Obviously now, this constancy principle is not itself based on or derived from experience. There is not only no observable link connecting events. Even if such a link existed, experience could not reveal whether or not it was time-invariant."

Hans-Hermann Hoppe: A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism

David Hume said the some thing much earlier and more clearly.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I should take time to note that Hoppe is a rather paradoxical "libertarian". Not only that, but he's a piss poor ethicist who believes his argumentation ethics are value-free. Oxymoronic much.

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As far as science-versus-philosophy is concerned, is that even a valid dichotomy?

I thought they were opposite and complimentary methods of inquiry. A scientist takes percepts, breaks them down and analyzes them in increasing detail; a philosopher takes percepts, omits the details and analyzes the "big picture" in increasing scope.

So if that's what distinguishes science from philosophy then science is impossible without philosophy and- I think that implies- wouldn't philosophy be impossible without some science?

For example: Rand wrote about abortion at times, which revolves around fetuses and zygotes; entities which are barely or completely impossible to know about without some detailed (scientific) inference. This means that those essay (s?) were based on a scientific framework, just as that framework required a rational epistemology.

I don't know if it's a valid generalization yet; something interesting to consider.

---

In any case, it doesn't seem accurate to even concieve of it in terms of "philosophers in general" versus "scientists in general" because the abstracted differences are fairly major.

The impact Kant has had is radically different from that of Aristotle or John Locke, and the impact of Thomas Edison is different than that of the Soviet scientist (don't remember his name) who was attempting to interbreed people with monkeys.

And then there are guys like Newton, who wrote about epistemology in the morning and formulated universal gravitation in the afternoon, who'll throw off everyone's scales altogether. :-P

So anyway, I don't think the question has even been framed properly.

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HD, welcome to OL.

Ragnar is my favorite member of the Atlas trinity.

I even registered my beautiful Irish Setter's pedigree as Ragnar Danneskold.

A...

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Tangential: isn't all energy ultimately kinetic?

No. In thermodynamics not all of the internal energy of a system is converted to work which involve a force acting though a distance.

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You're welcome! :-) And thank you, MSK and Selena.

And Selena: I wholeheartedly agree (obviously).

I actually watched Atlas Shrugged before I broke down and read it (I had to know who the Hell John Galt was!) and was very upset when I reached that part, that it hadn't been in part 2.

I mean, yeah, he isn't completely essential to it, but he's a freaking philosophical pirate! There is nothing cooler than that!

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But if kinetic energy is motion, and thermal energy is subatomic motion, then wouldn't it stand to reason?

What is the potential energy of a bad of rocks lifted up a thousand feet. Is the potential energy motion, or is it position within the gravitational field.

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  • 1 year later...

I understand that this is a forum, and if you want anyone to use it you need some basic quality standards. That means things like staying on topic and not having flamewars. I also understand that you own it and you can act on whim if you choose. I do not understand that ownership justifies irrationality or repeated off-topic flames.

If you expect special treatment in a discussion because you own the forum, think again.

If you're going to proceed in a rational manner, please go ahead. If not, please leave me alone.

Full of shit.

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Is curi "Elliott Temple" a dude or a dudette? Not that it matters, just Curi-ous.

He is the dark side of Shirley Temple in a leather dress and ______________so many choices...

il_570xN.371485601_37o1.jpg

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  • 7 months later...

According to Popper, a single pesky fact that contradicts a prediction, means one of the premises of the theory is false. Basically it is modus tolens and principle of logic first studied by Aristotle.

Ba'al Chatzaf

As Rand often said: Check your premises.

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Ayn Rand has the best moral philosophy ever invented. Karl Popper has the most important breakthrough in epistemology. Most Objectivists seem to think that Popper and Rand are incompatible, and Popper is an enemy of reason. They have not understood him. These lists are intended to help explain my motivation for integrating Rand and Popper, and also to help highlight many similarities they already have.
Points Popperian epistemology and Objectivist epistemology have in common. In Popperian epistemology I include additions and improvements by David Deutsch and myself:
- opposition to subjectivism and relativism
- fallibilism
- says that objective knowledge is attainable (in practice by fallible humans)
- realism: says reality is objective
...

My understanding of Popper is that, although he would like to show that objective knowledge is possible, he ends by saying that all of our theories are just the best approximation we currently have to reality, that they are contingent, that they can be superseded at any time, that certainty is impossible. Clearly, that is in opposition to Objectivism which requires the possibility of certainty.

I don't think either Popper or Rand solved the problem of knowledge (epistemology) --- how do we know things? --- but I can certainly see how the philosophies are incompatible.

Darrell

According to Popper, a single pesky fact that contradicts a prediction, means one of the premises of the theory is false. Basically it is modus tolens and principle of logic first studied by Aristotle.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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No finite number of corroborating observations will -prove- a theory with a universally quantified postulate is true. However one pesky contrary fact will prove theory false. Think of the pesky fact as David's sling and the Theory it falsifies as Goliath. One well placed stone and Goliath is dead. No finite set of corroborations will prove a theory true.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Hi Robert,

I don't think anyone is arguing with your statement, which is really Hume's statement. But, perhaps there are ways of knowing whether some universally quantified statements are true or not without simply logging more observations.

Do you think perpetual motion machines are possible?

Darrell

No I don't. Every observation made has shown energy is conserved (not created out of nothing) and that entropy increases (never decreases in the real world). So far the first and second laws of thermodynamics are the most solid physical laws we have. Einstein's theory of gravitation may one day be falsified and physics will survive. If the second law of thermodynamics is falsified we will have free energy and very little left in the way of physical science.

Empirically, thermodynamics is rock solid. However neither the First or Second law can be produced a priori. They reflect long and hard experience.

I cannot prove that perpetual motion is inherently contradictory but every fact any one knows about engines attest to the laws of thermodynamics.

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Humans are able to interpret photographs, movies, paintings, and even simple line drawings --- representations so distant from the physical world that it is hard to imagine how any active system would have any advantage interpreting them. It is clear to me that humans are able to interpret passively presented visual information, often even when it is noisy, blurry, band-limited, and contains jpeg artifacts.

Darrell

We have a few things going for us. 1. memory 2. the ability to infer and to form inductive guesses.

Computers have memory.

How does "the ability to infer and form inductive guesses" help? Or, what do you mean, in other words?

Darrell

Computers have storage. They can hold lots of bits. To get any use out of them a human programmer must write routines with which the computers do something useful with the bits they have in storage. It is programming (not storage per se) that delivers the value added by computers. Human memory is -a process- a way of associating things in storage. Without association recall would be paltry and trivial. Remembering is an active process with humans not a mere regurgitation of what is in storage.

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That doesn't sound like fallibilism to me.

Darrell

Indeed it is not. Here is an example. For many centuries very smart and reasonable people believed that heat was a substance or fluid that was contained in matter (in between the atoms, so to speak). This view of heat explained some phenomena (expansion of metals when heated, for example) but did not square with other phenomena. Eventually more careful study revealed that heat is the average kinetic energy of ensembles of matter.

The fluid theory was arrived at by sound reasoning and observation (in the context of the times) but it was -wrong-.

Reason, as such, is no guarantee of empirical or even theoretical correctness.

Ba'al Chatzaf

I'm not necessarily defending Peikoff. I just don't think that Objectivism and Popper's fallibilism are entirely compatible, which is where this thread started.

But, in defense of the Objectivist view, how do you know that "heat is the average kinetic energy of ensembles of matter"? And if you don't know that fact with certainty, how do you know that the earlier theory is incorrect?

Darrell

With this definition of temperature correct predictions are made about the behavior of gases, the directions of chemical reactions. Chemical thermodynamics is predicated on the assumption that temperature is proportional to the average molecular kinetic energy of a substance. No one has come up with a better definition and which also fits the facts. Heat is motion of some sort or another. The precise definition of heat is a transfer of energy that occurs because of temperature differences between bodies. In short temperature is the potential of energy transfer in the form of heat.

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My understanding of Popper is that, although he would like to show that objective knowledge is possible, he ends by saying that all of our theories are just the best approximation we currently have to reality, that they are contingent, that they can be superseded at any time, that certainty is impossible. Clearly, that is in opposition to Objectivism which requires the possibility of certainty.

Darrell

The reason why Popper asserted the above is because it is the case. Physical theories are necessarily based on incomplete knowledge. New Stuff is coming in from Out There continually. No matter how nice a physical theory one has, there is no guarantee that the fact which will refute it is NOT in its way in. We cannot our theories absolutely until the Last Fact is know. Yodah says do not your breath hold until know the Last Fact is, else blue turn you will.

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