Popper Talk

[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael,

Someone's being listed in an acknowledgement section says nothing -- nada, zilch -- of itself as to what that person's opinion of the work is. For an example, one of which a great deal of fuss was made by some persons on SOLO, Allan Gotthelf is thanked in the acknowledgements to Chris Sciabarra's Russian Radical. Leonard Peikoff and The Estate are thanked for a prompt answer to a question. Yet Allan Gotthelf wanted that book not to be published; he's extremely critical of it. And do you suppose Leonard Peikoff looks on it favorably? Also, notice the wording you quoted:

Acknowledgements

Before beginning, the author would like to express his sincere thanks to David Conway, Anthony Flew, David Kelley, Tibor Machan and David Miller for valuable observations or criticisms which led to the reworking of many passages; to Kevin McFarlane and Brian Micklethwait for encouragement and practical help; and to The Estate of Karl Popper for kind permission to reproduce copyright material.

(My emphasis on Miller's name.)

There's nothing there to tell you what observations or criticisms any of the named persons made. For all one can know from that wording, David Miller (or any of the others) might have said the whole thing should be scrapped. Another possibility is that Miller corrected some factual statements about Popper's life, or the course of development of his ideas, or some other such detail. You're provided with no basis for concluding that David Miller approves of the essay. You'd only have a basis for concluding this is Miller had explicitly given an endorsement.

(Judging from the Miller essay which Daniel linked and which I read, it's clear that Miller would think that Dykes is way off base.)

Ellen

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Edited September 15, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

I did not say "endorsement." Channeling me is starting to become quite a past-time among some folks around here.

The original question from Daniel was: "Miller therefore thinks Dykes' essay has merit?"

Not really knowing what Miller thinks, I looked at what he did. According to Dykes, he personally provided to Dykes "valuable observations or criticisms." I may agree or disagree with Dykes, but I do not think he is a liar.

So I responded (to be master of the obvious): "Miller obviously thought the essay had enough merit to critique it..."

That is a far cry from saying he endorsed the ideas in it. Why do you folks have to make up stuff to criticize? Isn't there enough legitimate stuff out there?

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>I merely pointed out that his acts are not in alignment with what you claim he thinks about Dykes's essay.

What Ellen said.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

All right. Let's all agree.

Miller thinks Dykes essay has no merit at all. That's why he spent time drawing up a critique and sending it to Dykes.

If that makes sense to you, go for it. (This reminds me of arguing with Randroids.)

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>You were the one channeling Miller.

Actually reading a thinker, and being familiar with his thought enough to express a robust opinion is hardly "channelling." Please.

Why do you need to make this stuff up to criticize? Isn't there enough real stuff out there etc etc?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

And just for the record, I do not think:

David Conway's work needs a laugh track;

Anthony Flew's work needs a laugh track;

David Kelley's work needs a laugh track;

Tibor Machan's work needs a laugh track;

nor David Miller's work needs a laugh track.

I have no doubt all of these men contributed their best thoughts to Dykes's essay. I do not think they would have done so if it needed a laugh track.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

And just for the record, I do not think:

David Conway's work needs a laugh track;

Anthony Flew's work needs a laugh track;

David Kelley's work needs a laugh track;

Tibor Machan's work needs a laugh track;

nor David Miller's work needs a laugh track.

I have no doubt all of these men contributed their best thoughts to Dykes's essay. I do not think they would have done so if it needed a laugh track.

Look, you don't seem to know how the academic acknowledgement process works, Mike. Just admit it and move on.

[Ellen Stuttle]

All right. Let's all agree.

Miller thinks Dykes essay has no merit at all. That's why he spent time drawing up a critique and sending it to Dykes.

If that makes sense to you, go for it. (This reminds me of arguing with Randroids.)

Michael

Michael,

(1) I repeat, you can't tell from the wording in the acknowledgment how much time Miller spent on it. He might have done no more than answer a question. (It's characteristic in academic protocol to acknowledge anyone of whom one has so much as asked a question.)

(2) Drawing up of critiques of essays which the reviewer thinks have no merit is done often in the peer-review process. Indeed, if one is doing an assessment of an article for journal publication, this might need much more effort and time to explain one's reasoning if one thinks the article is bad than if one thinks it's good. For all you know Miller did a blistering critique of the essay, as a result of which Dykes made some (or no) changes. You can't tell from the acknowledgement wording whose remarks led to "the reworking of many passages." And even if specific things Miller said led to specific reworking(s), this still wouldn't entail that Miller would have been happy with the reworking(s).

(3) In short, you have no basis from the fact of the acknowledgment to conclude anything about the specifics of Miller's opinion. On the other hand, you do have a basis for concluding that Miller would think the essay is dreadful on the basis of Miller's opinions in regard to Popper stated elsewhere.

(4) Maybe the tooth problem is responsible for the really bizarre illogic in some of the things you've been saying lately. I've found when I've had surgery involving teeth (I've had periodontal surgery a few times), it's best not to get into arguments until the pain has stopped.

Ellen

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[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

It has nothing to do with the tooth problem. I happen to think all of these men involved, including Dykes and Popper, are serious men giving matters the very best they can. I do not think any of this merits laugh tracks and other crap like that.

This was what prompted my observation. To me, once a person responds to a request for an opinion, he thinks the effort had some merit. If I were to speculate, I would imagine that Miller thought Dykes made a serious, but flawed effort at critiquing Popper and this merited at least getting Popper's ideas stated correctly.

I DO NOT THINK that Miller thought Dykes needed a laugh track.

What on earth is wrong with that?

In fact, I find snarky remarks like that disrespectful for a work like Dykes made and it STRONGLY leans to a form of expression more suited to other environments where they consider that kind of rhetoric to be intelligent intellectual criticism. I don't.

I do admit that tooth pain makes me impatient with this kind of waste of time.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Daniel,

I'm confused as to whether Popper ended up thinking that science progresses closer to truth, or that there's no way to tell if it does. (I didn't fully follow the details of the Stanford Enc. discussion of the "verisimilitude" issue, will have to read that again.)

Btw, I received Objective Knowledge but haven't had time yet to start reading it in earnest.

Ellen

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[Daniel Barnes]

Mike:

>In fact, I find snarky remarks like that disrespectful for a work like Dykes made and it STRONGLY leans to a form of expression more suited to other environments where they consider that kind of rhetoric to be intelligent intellectual criticism. I don't.

Dykes' essay is crap. I hereby disrespect it to the utmost. For instance, his treatment of Popper's theory of objective knowledge is just embarrassing. To wit:

"Second, the idea of objective knowledge appears directly to contradict CR. If knowledge can exist objectively, it is not clear how it remains at the same time conjectural."

Here's his argument:

"The exercise of studying Popper, for instance, depends on the existence of a dozen or so world 3 objects - his books. Now, either those books exist and say what they say or they don't, there is simply no room for conjecture."

Uh, Nick. The books obviously, um, contain conjectures. Cue laugh track.

The rest of it is just as hopeless. I can't see where he makes a good point anywhere in the entire thing. Lazy, insincere, laughable. All these things. Maybe I should go thru and sort it out in detail sometime. Egregious as it is, It would still be worthwhile. What Jan Lester said in his well-deserved smackdown on Tibor Machan sums up Dykes just as nicely:

"As a critical rationalist, I welcome criticism. A serious response can help to elucidate matters even when that criticism mainly comprises superficial misreadings, misquotations, unsubstantiated assertions, ill-tempered ad hominems and elementary linguistic confusion that together amount to a professional disgrace. Thus I am happy to reply to Professor Machan's review of Escape from Leviathan."

Edited September 15, 2007 by Daniel Barnes

[Daniel Barnes]

Ellen:

>I'm confused as to whether Popper ended up thinking that science progresses closer to truth, or that there's no way to tell if it does. (I didn't fully follow the details of the Stanford Enc. discussion of the "verisimilitude" issue, will have to read that again.)

We only progress, or get closer to the truth by eliminating theories. Knowing the absolute truth is possible, but would require incredible luck as the number of possible theories is infinite. We are more likely to end up with something partial. Further, even if we had the unvarnished truth in our grasp, we would never quite know that it was such.

Popper's beloved theory of verismilitude hoped to improve the situation, but sadly it was a failure. He held out hopes that other theories might succeed however.

>Btw, I received Objective Knowledge but haven't had time yet to start reading it in earnest.

Once you read it, you will find it incredible that Dykes writes what he writes in discussion of it.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Thanks for the reply.

>Btw, I received Objective Knowledge but haven't had time yet to start reading it in earnest.

Once you read it, you will find it incredible that Dykes writes what he writes in discussion of it.

I already found the Dykes essay a case of "eyes rolled," just on internal grounds, when I read it when you posted a link to the original after Pross cribbed it. I won't be surprised if I find it still worse upon my acquiring more knowledge of the work critiqued.

Ellen

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[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Daniel,

Frankly I will have to read the thing in depth and come to my own conclusions, like I did with Popper's essay on definitions. I often find it hard to separate the ideas from vanity in these discussions. For example, in the essay on definitions, I ended up seeing that Popper and Rand criticized Aristotle for the same thing, yet they used different terminology. If you went solely by discussions back then, both on the CR side and the Objectivist one, it was impossible to discern this. Way too much vanity and way too few ideas.

Incidentally, I am no fan of Dykes. I remember on my first skim something strange jumped out at me, but I do not remember any longer what that was. I am sure I will remember when I go back to it. Your quote does not look very promising, but I need to read it in context. Sometimes in your discussions, you remove a phrase from context to bash it, attributing a different meaning than what was intended and bashing that instead of the real idea. I am not saying that is the case here. I am merely saying that I have to see for myself.

Your obvious starting point is that Popper is ALL and Rand is NOTHING. That's exaggerated, I know, but I find that perspective a bit too theory laden to trust for my own thinking.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

So long as you define "swan" as a type of bird, then this is a priori true (which means true without the need for experience to justify it).

Daniel,

Two questions:

1. "A priori true" means concept formation?

2. How can one define "bird" "without the need for experience to justify it"?

Since swans are birds this is trivially and tautologically true..

To deny it would imply a bird is not a bird, a clear contradiction

Bob,

Two questions:

1. "Trivially and tautologically true" means concept formation?

2. Concept formation is a part of logic?

Michael

No and No. Logic is about the validity of inferences and not how concepts are formed in the first place. To do logic you have to -assume- certain concepts. Logic deals with the question: is such and such an argument from premises P to conclusion C valid or not.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

I have a small difficulty with that rule if the concept is not valid in the first place. An invalid concept invalidates the premise it is used in. If you insist on running an invalid concept through the rules (using the "stolen concept" principle), then you have word games and not a cognitive tool.

Michael

[Daniel Barnes]

Ellen:

>I already found the Dykes essay a case of "eyes rolled,"

Incidentally, did you know that eye rolling is the most powerful sign of contempt in human body language? Apparently eye-rolling between couples is one of biggest predictors of divorce.

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

I have a small difficulty with that rule if the concept is not valid in the first place. An invalid concept invalidates the premise it is used in. If you insist on running an invalid concept through the rules (using the "stolen concept" principle), then you have word games and not a cognitive tool.

Michael

No. What you have is logic, the art/discipline of valid inference. As long as you stick with Rand's bogus definition of logic you will remain confused.

I ask you again. Who would you ask -- what is medicine? A novelist or a doctor? Who would you ask -- what is aviation? A novelist or a flier? Who would you ask -- what is warfare? A novelist or a soldier? Who would you ask -- what is logic? A novelist or a logician?

Do you want to know what logic is? Look it up on Wikipedia. The article is rather good.

Once you scrub Rand's bogus definition you will cease to be confused.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I ask you again. Who would you ask -- what is medicine? A novelist or a doctor? Who would you ask -- what is aviation? A novelist or a flier? Who would you ask -- what is warfare? A novelist or a soldier? Who would you ask -- what is logic? A novelist or a logician?

Bob,

I certainly would not call make-believe "medicine," "aviation," "war" or any other legitimate field, even if it used equipment that was similar but, of course, did not work. I would call it make-believe.

Do I understand you that in your definition of logic, reality doesn't matter?

Sorry. I prefer to stick to serious pursuits and definitions of logic where reality does matter. I want something more than a game. I ain't against playing games at times. However, I do not want "game" to be an essential definition of a primary cognitive tool that I use in my own life. It's a value judgment.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Bob,

I have a small difficulty with that rule if the concept is not valid in the first place. An invalid concept invalidates the premise it is used in. If you insist on running an invalid concept through the rules (using the "stolen concept" principle), then you have word games and not a cognitive tool.

Michael

No. What you have is logic, the art/discipline of valid inference. As long as you stick with Rand's bogus definition of logic you will remain confused.

I ask you again. Who would you ask -- what is medicine? A novelist or a doctor? Who would you ask -- what is aviation? A novelist or a flier? Who would you ask -- what is warfare? A novelist or a soldier? Who would you ask -- what is logic? A novelist or a logician?

Do you want to know what logic is? Look it up on Wikipedia. The article is rather good.

Once you scrub Rand's bogus definition you will cease to be confused.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Appeal to the man and appeal to authority.

--Brant

Edited September 15, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[BaalChatzaf]

x

Appeal to the man and appeal to authority.

--Brant

The authority of expertise and competence. Talk to people who get paid to do logic and find out what logic is. Talk to the people who have made blockbuster contributions to the field like Frege, Tarski or Goedel.

Rand's definition of logic is wrong. In the one hundred and fifty years (give or take) since George Boole initiated the modern era of logic (logic as a formal and mathematical discipline) logic has been the discipline/art of valid inference. That is a century and a half of solid progress in the field, well beyond the point reached by Aristotle.

Would you say asking Thomas Edison what an incandescent lamp is, is a mere appeal to authority? Invoking the creators and shakers is no mere appeal to authority. It is asking the people who MADE the field, what it is they are doing.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[tjohnson]

Do I understand you that in your definition of logic, reality doesn't matter?

Sorry. I prefer to stick to serious pursuits and definitions of logic where reality does matter. I want something more than a game. I ain't against playing games at times. However, I do not want "game" to be an essential definition of a primary cognitive tool that I use in my own life. It's a value judgment.

Michael

Micheal, what did you do before you found O'ism, did you have no "logic"? What has O'ism enabled you to figure out that you couldn't before?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Micheal, what did you do before you found O'ism, did you have no "logic"? What has O'ism enabled you to figure out that you couldn't before?

GS,

That's a pretty tall order and it also has a flavor of "I was lost but now I'm found." Objectivism is nothing more than philosophical principles based on reason and a heroic vision of man. I subscribe to both. I had this bent before I "found Objectivism." I was glad to see that I was not alone. (I was enormously relieved, also.)

I was a teenager and Rand was an adult when I first read her, so obviously I had many technical things to learn, but my basic attitude has not changed ever since I can remember. Even when I have royally screwed up, it was always these two points that brought me out of it.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Bob,

I have a small difficulty with that rule if the concept is not valid in the first place. An invalid concept invalidates the premise it is used in. If you insist on running an invalid concept through the rules (using the "stolen concept" principle), then you have word games and not a cognitive tool.

Michael

Michael:

(1) "Valid" in logic doesn't mean true; it means correct inference. One can reason validly from a false premise.

(2) What does "valid concept" mean?

(3) You aren't correctly using Rand's idea of "stolen concept." Recting from memory (i.e., without looking up the exact wording of the definition), this consists of using a concept while ignoring its genetic roots. (Look it up?)

Ellen

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[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen:

>I already found the Dykes essay a case of "eyes rolled,"

Incidentally, did you know that eye rolling is the most powerful sign of contempt in human body language? Apparently eye-rolling between couples is one of biggest predictors of divorce.

Amusing, Daniel, but I doubt the accuracy. Just who decrees whether eye rolling or, say, sticking out one's tongue, or, say, the finger gesture, or, say, some other posture or gesture is THE most powerful sign of contempt? As to "biggest predictors of divorce," based on what studies by whom in what context, blah, blah? ("Scientists say"? My eyes roll when I read such usages.)

Ellen

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