Two Kinds of "Induction": Important similarities and trivial differences


Daniel Barnes

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Well, we may be over-simplifying. Objectivism isn't just a philosophy putatively for man, but a gigantic "No" to collectivism which was once all the intellectual and political rage murdering tens upon tens of millions even up to the Cambodian genocide thirty years ago. That is, her work, her philosophy, is also a weapon and many individuals use it to protect their work and happiness through moral justification unto today.

Brant,

I think you're touching on something there which is exceedingly important to why people who have adopted Objectivism tend to react as if to a threat to their lives at criticism of Rand as a philosopher. I'ts a pheonomenon I began noticing years ago with the Objectivists I knew in New York City. I'd sometimes find that even to criticize so much as a detail in her theories of art (which are far from central to her paen to the right to existence of the individual) would meet a defensiveness which I never encountered with the adherents of any other philosophy. I began to realize that people had engrained the idea of her system being so well integrated that to challenge any of it was to challenge all of it -- and that the individualism-extolling features were of such emotional importance to their lives -- they couldn't calmly assess the rest as a philosophy. But in fact it is not any threat to her "gigantic 'No" to collectivism" to say that there are a lot of errors in her workings out of her system. The clarion call remains an achievement, and I think will continue to be valued, whatever is found wrong in her other views.

Ellen

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Except Rand's jargon isn't Popper's terminology, or vice versa. They're saying different things not the same thing in different language, as MSK claims they are. See post immediately above.

Ellen

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The term "jargon" is a putdown.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Brant,

I think you're touching on something there which is exceedingly important to why people who have adopted Objectivism tend to react as if to a threat to their lives at criticism of Rand as a philosopher. I'ts a pheonomenon I began noticing years ago with the Objectivists I knew in New York City. I'd sometimes find that even to criticize so much as a detail in her theories of art (which are far from central to her paen to the right to existence of the individual) would meet a defensiveness which I never encountered with the adherents of any other philosophy. I began to realize that people had engrained the idea of her system being so well integrated that to challenge any of it was to challenge all of it -- and that the individualism-extolling features were of such emotional importance to their lives -- they couldn't calmly assess the rest as a philosophy. But in fact it is not any threat to her "gigantic 'No" to collectivism" to say that there are a lot of errors in her workings out of her system. The clarion call remains an achievement, and I think will continue to be valued, whatever is found wrong in her other views.

Ellen

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The answer is simple. For some O'ist, O'ism is a religion. There can be no other explanation for this hostile and irrational touchiness you describe. That also explains the O'ist hostility to the libertarians or is it the Libertarians. A Libertarian is as welcome at an O'ist Pow Wow as a Jew is at a Nazi rally in Munich.

This is why I have been savaged at some O'ist discussion sites. My approach, Reality Lite ™, which is just as well glued to the facts as Objectivism reeks of lightheartedness and failure to be Serious. Like the guards on the wall of the castle in the Monty Python movie, I fart in the general direction of metaphysics. That makes me one of the Bad Guys in some circles. I have even been called a Kantian, can you imagine that?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Well, we may be over-simplifying. Objectivism isn't just a philosophy putatively for man, but a gigantic "No" to collectivism which was once all the intellectual and political rage murdering tens upon tens of millions even up to the Cambodian genocide thirty years ago. That is, her work, her philosophy, is also a weapon and many individuals use it to protect their work and happiness through moral justification unto today.

Could you elaborate Brant, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'collectivism' here?

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For one thing, no, Popper isn't meaning simply "Middles Ages scholasticism" as the second method.

Really? Then why did he write the following? "This seems to suggest that any preoccupation with meaning tends to lead to that result which is so typical of Aristotelianism: scholasticism and mysticism."

For another thing, no, his second kind of defining method isn't "ostensive" definition.

I didn't claim it was. Indeed, I said he completely missed the boat because it wasn't.

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Merlin:
About the only thing that essay shows is that Popper was badly confused about definitions as I explained here

I responded to your post here.

DB:"Uh huh. And then how do you resolve disputes over the "true" meanings of words "ostensively"? To use the example from Popper's footnotes to that chapter, I say "puppy" and point to a young dog; you say "puppy" and point to an arrogant young man. Which one is the "true" definition? By what method do you decide?"

I didn't reply then due to lack of relevance. I might even answer them as you would. What's is Popper's answer?

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Daniel,

Ostensive definition is reserved for axiomatic concepts. Puppy is a higher-level concept. (The existence of puppy as an identifiable entity is ostensive. What puppy's features are is based on a series of identifications and integrations based on measurement/comparison to other things.)

Your entire argument in this instance is based on the stolen concept fallacy.

Bash ostensive definition if you wish, but at least get it right.

Michael

Not so. Consider children. They learn the meaning of all or most words ostensively.

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For one thing, no, Popper isn't meaning simply "Middles Ages scholasticism" as the second method.

Really? Then why did he write the following? "This seems to suggest that any preoccupation with meaning tends to lead to that result which is so typical of Aristotelianism: scholasticism and mysticism."

Maybe because the observation is accurate, and of much more of the history of philosophy than Middle Ages scholasticism. If you'd like to see a lovely example of the problem, there's one occuring live, years later than the Middle Ages, on this very site: See the Criticizing Objectivist Metaphysics thread. The sort of question posed, the reasoning about the concepts used, is modern scholasticism in action. His point about its tending to lead to mysticism is that after awhile, with the failure to resolve such disputes, the course of philosophy headed into modern-mystic variants.

For another thing, no, his second kind of defining method isn't "ostensive" definition.

I didn't claim it was. Indeed, I said he completely missed the boat because it wasn't.

I don't understand the comment, Merlin, unless -- this is just trying to figure out what you mean -- you're saying that really the only two kinds of definition are the Aristotelian kind of searching for the "right" definition which Rand employs, on the one hand, and ostensive definitions on the other. But if so, you're presuming that Rand's categorization and method are correct. He's saying that there is another method besides that, the method actually used in the hard sciences, where there isn't the concern with the "right" meanings of terms but instead with the correctness of the theories and formulae.

Ellen

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Edited by Ellen Stuttle
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Well, we may be over-simplifying. Objectivism isn't just a philosophy putatively for man, but a gigantic "No" to collectivism which was once all the intellectual and political rage murdering tens upon tens of millions even up to the Cambodian genocide thirty years ago. That is, her work, her philosophy, is also a weapon and many individuals use it to protect their work and happiness through moral justification unto today.

Could you elaborate Brant, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'collectivism' here?

If you tell me what you think collectivism is we can have a discussion off of that. That's a courtesy I am asking you to extend to me considering what this list is about and why whom is here for what.

--Brant

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If you tell me what you think collectivism is we can have a discussion off of that. That's a courtesy I am asking you to extend to me considering what this list is about and why whom is here for what.

Well, to be honest I had never heard the term before so all I can do is look it up. Here is one definition I got from Google;

"Collectivism is a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human interdependence and the importance of a collective, rather than the importance of separate individuals"

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If you tell me what you think collectivism is we can have a discussion off of that. That's a courtesy I am asking you to extend to me considering what this list is about and why whom is here for what.

Well, to be honest I had never heard the term before so all I can do is look it up. Here is one definition I got from Google;

"Collectivism is a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human interdependence and the importance of a collective, rather than the importance of separate individuals"

I have a slightly different definition: A collectivist system is one in which the individual is subordinated to the state or society. As Spock says half the time - the Good of the Many is greater than the Good of the One. The other half of the time he says it the other way around.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Merlin:

I didn't reply then due to lack of relevance.

It's one of the key points of Popper's argument. It's highly relevant, and here's why.

Recall Rand: :"The truth or falsehood of all of man's conclusions, inferences, thought, and knowledge rests on the truth or falsehood of his definitions."

That's a pretty big call. Everything's resting on the truth or falsehood of definitions. (One might also add "precision") Yet these are the very things are unable to establish about them. That's why I'm pressing those who think Rand's right in her adoption of this doctrine of essentialist definitions (it matters not if they apply metaphysically or epistemologically) to show me how they logically resolve disputes over which of the many shades of meaning of a word is the "true" one.

I might even answer them as you would.

My answer is that you can't do it. The idea, while superficially plausible, is a fallacy, and a particularly inconvenient one for Rand's epistemology.

What's is Popper's answer?

Popper's is the same. We would have to establish a mutual agreement as to meaning, otherwise conversation is impossible. If we insist on only using our own definitions, a la Rand, we will get nowhere. Thus the meanings of words must be social conventions* to be any use, other than in a private language. If your opponent absolutely insists on using their own esoteric definition of a term, you don't argue over it, but simply adopt it, point outing the difference in your posiion and of course the potential for confusion by this obscure use.

For example, if someone says "Saddam's Iraq is my definition of true democracy" then you reply "In that case, I am not a democrat!' :)

*Rand maligns this view, but seems to falsely imply that just because they are conventions, they cannot refer to something.

**BTW I also join with Ellen and DF in commending your essays on the topic of measurement.

Edited by Daniel Barnes
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That's why I'm pressing those who think Rand's right in her adoption of this doctrine of essentialist definitions (it matters not if they apply metaphysically or epistemologically) to show me how they logically resolve disputes over which of the many shades of meaning of a word is the "true" one.

Daniel,

With that way of putting it, you are going to run into troubles over the difference between the word and the concept in Rand's theory. For her, the word is a label affixed to the concept; what the definition defines is the nature of the referrents of the concept. Thus an example such as puppy=young dog versus puppy=callow youth doesn't get at what Rand is talking about. It's two different concepts referred to by the same word, the second by means of metaphorical extension. Where she would say you have to have a "true" definition is in how you define the type of creature meant by puppy, as in a canine. The example of "man" makes clear what she's talking about, with her discussion of arriving at the "one and only valid definition" within the context of all human knowledge to date.

Ellen

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Ellen:

With that way of putting it, you are going to run into troubles over the difference between the word and the concept in Rand's theory. For her, the word is a label affixed to the concept; what the definition defines is the nature of the referrents of the concept. Thus an example such as puppy=young dog versus puppy=callow youth doesn't get at what Rand is talking about. It's two different concepts referred to by the same word, the second by means of metaphorical extension.

But it amounts to the same thing. That's why I included the example of "democracy" as well as "puppy". But you could use "selfish" just as easily (and "puppy" holds if you wanted to press the point).

Her talk of "labels" just confuses issues. It strikes a superficially nominalist note in an otherwise straight up essentialist program. It's an example of what Greg Nyquist says: that one of the difficulties in criticising Rand's thinking is the complexity of its confusions. Bryan Register referred to Rand's epistemology as "a sophisticated nominalism". It's better described as confused essentialism.

Look, case in point, over at my site I criticised Rand's use of the word "sacrifice", contrasted it with the usual meaning of the word. One of her supporters replied that the problem was that the usual meaning was not the "actual" meaning!

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Look, case in point, over at my site I criticised Rand's use of the word "sacrifice", contrasted it with the usual meaning of the word. One of her supporters replied that the problem was that the usual meaning was not the "actual" meaning!

Yes, that was really funny, it almost sounds like a parody (but he was obviously serious).

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If you tell me what you think collectivism is we can have a discussion off of that. That's a courtesy I am asking you to extend to me considering what this list is about and why whom is here for what.

Well, to be honest I had never heard the term before so all I can do is look it up. Here is one definition I got from Google;

"Collectivism is a term used to describe any moral, political, or social outlook, that stresses human interdependence and the importance of a collective, rather than the importance of separate individuals"

I have a slightly different definition: A collectivist system is one in which the individual is subordinated to the state or society. As Spock says half the time - the Good of the Many is greater than the Good of the One. The other half of the time he says it the other way around.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Good God! Please read some Ayn Rand. I assume you know where you are GS. I don't mean to be rude or insulting, but this is like going to a pilots' discussion group and saying you don't know what the tailplane is.

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
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Good God! Please read some Ayn Rand. I assume you know where you are GS. I don't mean to be rude or insulting, but this is like going to a pilots' discussion group and saying you don't know what the tailplane is.

--Brant

Whatever.

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Good God! Please read some Ayn Rand. I assume you know where you are GS. I don't mean to be rude or insulting, but this is like going to a pilots' discussion group and saying you don't know what the tailplane is.

--Brant

Whatever.

Seriously. ITOE would certainly be appropriate reading for participating in discussions in this section (Objectivist Philoxophy > 2 - Epistemology).

If for no other reason, for insulation from the sort of reaction which someone in a Popper discussion forum would get if they proceeded to declare all sorts of failings they had discerned in Popper - based on isolated quotes from a few people and reading an article or two.

Did Rand make some snap judgments about philophers based on reading just a little they had written - apparently, yes, from the historical records we have. She was, frankly, a quick study, though fallible. But that she did it (and frequently is criticized for it) doesn't make it a suggested method for study.

Alfonso

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I can't comment on technical issues in epistemology. Do we need these issues?

Brant,

Who are the "we"? The issues are rather crucial to scientific epistemology; and the fate of the scientific approach to understanding the world, I very deeply believe, is rather crucial to what becomes of "civilization as we know it." But that's no reason for anyone who isn't interested in the issues to take an interest. I would strenuously object, however, were you to say that because you don't find the subject compelling, I therefore shouldn't and shouldn't talk about it. Not that you would say this. ;-) I'm merely pointing out the pitfall in asking what "we" need.

Ellen

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But just how important is the field of scientific epistemology to the actual practice of science? That is one question I've not seen addressed at all on any of these threads. Ever since the discovery of the modern scientific method, do philosophers really have anything to teach scientists that they don't already know?

Suppose we divide scientists into the following three groups:

1) Scientists who have extensively studied the writings of Ayn Rand on objectivist epistemology.

2) Scientists who have extensively studied the writings of Karl Popper on scientific methodology.

3) Scientists who have never read anything by either Rand or Popper.

Should we expect that, on average, the scientific methodology employed by scientists in these three groups should be any different? If so, what differences in scientific methodology practiced by scientists in each of these three groups should we expect to see?

Martin

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I can't comment on technical issues in epistemology. Do we need these issues?

Brant,

Who are the "we"? The issues are rather crucial to scientific epistemology; and the fate of the scientific approach to understanding the world, I very deeply believe, is rather crucial to what becomes of "civilization as we know it." But that's no reason for anyone who isn't interested in the issues to take an interest. I would strenuously object, however, were you to say that because you don't find the subject compelling, I therefore shouldn't and shouldn't talk about it. Not that you would say this. ;-) I'm merely pointing out the pitfall in asking what "we" need.

Ellen

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But just how important is the field of scientific epistemology to the actual practice of science? That is one question I've not seen addressed at all on any of these threads. Ever since the discovery of the modern scientific method, do philosophers really have anything to teach scientists that they don't already know?

Suppose we divide scientists into the following three groups:

1) Scientists who have extensively studied the writings of Ayn Rand on objectivist epistemology.

2) Scientists who have extensively studied the writings of Karl Popper on scientific methodology.

3) Scientists who have never read anything by either Rand or Popper.

Should we expect that, on average, the scientific methodology employed by scientists in these three groups should be any different? If so, what differences in scientific methodology practiced by scientists in each of these three groups should we expect to see?

Martin

You left out 4) Scientists who have been influenced by other scientists who have been influenced by 1 and/or 2.

You left out 5) Scientists who have been influenced by scientists who have been influeced by 4).

You left out 6) Scientists who have been ...

And of course you left out who influenced the philosophers.

--Brant

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I can't comment on technical issues in epistemology. Do we need these issues?

Brant,

Who are the "we"? The issues are rather crucial to scientific epistemology; and the fate of the scientific approach to understanding the world, I very deeply believe, is rather crucial to what becomes of "civilization as we know it." But that's no reason for anyone who isn't interested in the issues to take an interest. I would strenuously object, however, were you to say that because you don't find the subject compelling, I therefore shouldn't and shouldn't talk about it. Not that you would say this. ;-) I'm merely pointing out the pitfall in asking what "we" need.

Ellen

___

But just how important is the field of scientific epistemology to the actual practice of science? That is one question I've not seen addressed at all on any of these threads. Ever since the discovery of the modern scientific method, do philosophers really have anything to teach scientists that they don't already know?

Suppose we divide scientists into the following three groups:

1) Scientists who have extensively studied the writings of Ayn Rand on objectivist epistemology.

2) Scientists who have extensively studied the writings of Karl Popper on scientific methodology.

3) Scientists who have never read anything by either Rand or Popper.

Should we expect that, on average, the scientific methodology employed by scientists in these three groups should be any different? If so, what differences in scientific methodology practiced by scientists in each of these three groups should we expect to see?

Martin

You left out 4) Scientists who have been influenced by other scientists who have been influenced by 1 and/or 2.

You left out 5) Scientists who have been influenced by scientists who have been influeced by 4).

You left out 6) Scientists who have been ...

And of course you left out who influenced the philosophers.

--Brant

Any response to Martin's serious question? That is, how does epistemology actually effect scientific enquiry?

Alfonso

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Look, case in point, over at my site I criticised Rand's use of the word "sacrifice", contrasted it with the usual meaning of the word. One of her supporters replied that the problem was that the usual meaning was not the "actual" meaning!

Daniel,

I don't have time to write more than a brief comment about a difference between your and my views on Rand's theories which is being approached but I think not really hit on by your post #292. I think that there is a real difference between Rand and "nominalism," a difference which is more than "confused essentialism" -- and recall that Popper, as I understand his history, didn't end up thinking of himself as a "nominalist" either, judging from his self-description in the parts of Unended Quest I've read.

Things get confused between the "true" definition of a word and the real nature of the whatever being defined. I grant all the objections to the idea of the true definition of a word, and I grant that Objectivists get into such problems chronically. Re your "sacrifice" example, there was a famous debate which came to be called The Great Sacrifice War in the first months of Old Atlantis' existence. A list person (famous to anyone who was there) name of Ellen Moore insisted, just like the person in your "case in point," that the correct meaning of "sacrifice" is as Rand said and never mind that Rand's usage differs from most of the history of usage. (Btw, Roger Bissell and I first started sporadic correspondence over that debate; he was on the anti-Ellen Moore side.)

On the other hand, here's a famous historical case in point of issues of reality being involved in classification: the issue of what classification does a whale belong in, fish or mammal? The debate there wasn't over the meaning of a word; biologists knew what they meant by "fish" and "mammal." The debate was over, which is the whale? There's a long discussion in Moby Dick in which, after what I thought when I read the book were admirably intelligent considerings, Melville opts for categorizing the whale as a fish, despite mammal-like features. The debate was only settled on closer examination and the acquiring of more biological knowledge.

Now I think that what Rand is aiming for in her epistemology is the latter kind of issue, but that her effort goes astray for a couple (at least) reasons: because of her theory of what a concept is; because of her arguing that there's a correct definition not merely a correct categorization. Correct categorization the scientific approach shares.

Sorry to be hasty, and maybe unclear. Just wanted to get something in on this issue before personality charges resume, as seems to be threatened upon Michael's return.

Ellen

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Edited by Ellen Stuttle
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But just how important is the field of scientific epistemology to the actual practice of science?

Martin, I think that actual scientific espistemology is the core of the actual practice of science; it's even what makes science science. (I'm reminded of a question on an exam my first course in psychology. Haven't time to tell the details, but this was the basic answer, that it's the method which makes it science and the epistemology which makes it the method.)

That is one question I've not seen addressed at all on any of these threads. Ever since the discovery of the modern scientific method, do philosophers really have anything to teach scientists that they don't already know?

That I think is a different question. Scientists for the most part don't pay attention to philosophers because they've found philosophers for the most part clueless. This doesn't negate that they do have guidance of a methodology. (Sometimes they aren't good at describing said methodology when they write with a philosopher's hat on.)

Suppose we divide scientists into the following three groups:

1) Scientists who have extensively studied the writings of Ayn Rand on objectivist epistemology.

2) Scientists who have extensively studied the writings of Karl Popper on scientific methodology.

3) Scientists who have never read anything by either Rand or Popper.

Should we expect that, on average, the scientific methodology employed by scientists in these three groups should be any different? If so, what differences in scientific methodology practiced by scientists in each of these three groups should we expect to see?

I think you'd find an extremely small group of (1). I've met something like...6, 7...very few scientists who have extensively studied AR about anything, and all of those are persons who were attracted to Rand by her novels and kept studying (such as Larry). I've met quite a few who have read a fair amount of Popper. Popper is popular with scientists, since they feel he understands what they're doing. And, as I've indicated in an earlier post, the falsifiability criterion is pretty much taken as "of course" even by scientists who haven't read the sources in which the idea is presented.

As to differences in methodology, I don't suppose there's much of that, but there is difference in clarity when discussing what they're doing between those with some familiarity with Popper and those without. (Among the few scientists I know with any acquaintance with Rand, she either doesn't affect their actual method or interferes with it -- e.g., um, a certain theory of elementary waves. 'nuf said?)

Ellen

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