The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics

[Ellen Stuttle]

So arguing over the meanings of words still seems not only unimportant, but about as useful as insisting that one should properly use only screwdrivers on nuts, not spanners.

The issue isn't arguing over "the meanings of words" -- as if there were some correct meaning of *a word* writ in Heaven or somewhere, which is how I think you think of it. The issue is each party attempting to understand what the other is talking about. You each need to know what the other is *referring to* by the words used in order to establish this. And in cases where you can't easily tell by contexts of word usage, you need to ask "What do you mean by X word?" to find out. You talk as if you believe that one party's asking the other, "What do you mean by X word?" would present an impediment to the discussants' getting anywhere with mutual comprehension. That's what I gather is the "lesson" you've drawn from Popper. I agree with George in finding this LaLaLandish -- as if you're saying, the only way two people can have a productive conversation is if neither bothers to ascertain what the other's words reference. The ideal of communication, I suppose, would then be two people who speak different languages and understand not one word of each others' speech?

Ellen

Edited August 17, 2010 by Ellen Stuttle

[Daniel Barnes]

It is Popper's version of why he wouldn't vote for a woman president.

...if Rand had considered that her earliest and most enduring insight, which she alluded to regularly in most of she wrote, which she expanded upon in several places in her most important works, with titles like "Once More Against A Woman President", and which towards the end of her life she claimed was the single view which differentiated her most from all other philosophers.

In other words, it isn't.

Or maybe Popper was just a La-la land looney tune that Really Serious Philosophers need not trouble with.

Edited August 17, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Daniel Barnes]

The ideal of communication, I suppose, would then be two people who speak different languages and understand not one word of each others' speech?

I have no idea how you have managed to conclude, after all this time, that I am endorsing exactly what I condemn, but you have.

Perhaps I should blame myself for my presentation of Popper. But then apparently you've read at least Chapter 7 in UQ, so I find it difficult to imagine even then how you could think this is what Popper's criticism entails.

I am slightly dumbstruck. Which makes a change...;-)

[Ellen Stuttle]

Daniel,

Are you or are you not saying that two discussants are wasting time when they try to find out what the other *means* by terms being used? I don't know how else to interpret numerous of your replies to George back through the last about 40 posts. You seem to me to think that if the parties to a discussion expend effort trying to find out what the other party is referring to by terminology which is resulting in real or apparent disagreement, this amounts to arguing over the meaning of words, and it's non-productive. Don't bother telling me what you *mean* by your language, is the message I keep getting from you. Now, if that is your message, then a conversation between people who don't understand each other's language and speak to each other unconcerned to know each other's meaning would represent the ideal.

I'm trying to make clear to you by using an extreme example the absurdity of the view that people could communicate productively if they aren't concerned to know what each other's words are referencing.

Ellen

[Daniel Barnes]

The development of thought since Aristotle could, I think, be summed up by saying that every discipline, as long as it used the Aristotelian method of definition, has remained arrested in a state of empty verbiage and barren scholasticism, and that the degree to which the various sciences have been able to make any progress depended on the degree to which they have been able to get rid of this essentialist method. (This is why so much of our 'social science' still belongs to the Middle Ages.) The discussion of this method will have to be a little abstract, owing to the fact that the problem has been so thoroughly muddled by Plato and Aristotle, whose influence has given rise to such deep-rooted prejudices that the prospect of dispelling them does not seem very bright.

- Karl Popper, Two Kinds of Definition.

What Karl said.

Of course, the reason Objectivism has produced so little and progressed hardly at all in last century since Atlas Shrugged is all due to a few tactical errors and Nathaniel Branden. Oh, Leonard Peikoff too. Other than that, it all works just fine.

Edited August 17, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Daniel Barnes]

Daniel,

Are you or are you not saying that two discussants are wasting time when they try to find out what the other *means* by terms being used? I don't know how else to interpret numerous of your replies to George back through the last about 40 posts. You seem to me to think that if the parties to a discussion expend effort trying to find out what the other party is referring to by terminology which is resulting in real or apparent disagreement, this amounts to arguing over the meaning of words, and it's non-productive. Don't bother telling me what you *mean* by your language, is the message I keep getting from you. Now, if that is your message, then a conversation between people who don't understand each other's language and speak to each other unconcerned to know each other's meaning would represent the ideal.

I'm trying to make clear to you by using an extreme example the absurdity of the view that people could communicate productively if they aren't concerned to know what each other's words are referencing.

Ellen

At this late stage, I suggest you simply look at the chart you've already posted, and re-read the chapter in question in UQ. Somehow I seem to have portrayed Popper's approach as something so incredibly bizarre that Very Serious People could never possibly take it seriously.

This is despite the fact that Popper did, all his life. But he was probably just in La-la land.

Edited August 17, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Xray]

Or can you name some 'unlimited concretes' the concept denoted by the word "hesitation" stands for?

I hesitate getting into this silly debate. There's a concrete. I hesitate spelling it out in any more detail for someone who is likely purposefully being obtuse. There's another.

Two of your above propositions contain the audiovisual symbol "hesitate", but by concretes Rand did not mean the countless sentences in which a word can show up. But I suppose your remarks were meant to be sarcastic anyway. ;)

By "concretes", Rand referred to actual entities, which then as 'units' become members of a class. In the case of e. g. "table", the audiovisual symbol (the "word") denotes a class that stands for an unlimited number of concrete objects bearing certain similarities.

Rand was of the opinion that

"Every word we use (with the exception of proper names) is a symbol that denotes a concept, i. e. that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a certain kind." (ITOE, p. 10).

But what may work for tables does not work for abstract terms. That was my point.

I hesitate spelling it out in any more detail for someone who is likely purposefully being obtuse.

Who is being purposefully obtuse?

Dragonfly, in # 690:

Oh no, not again that nonsense about stolen concepts...

Ah, the "stolen concept"! That's my Randian pet term - a real personal favorite.

Each time I read about the stolen concept, it makes me want to write an Objectivist science fiction thriller with the title "The Mystery of the Stolen Concept".

The Subjectivists stole it of course (who else - Dr. Pritchett & Co are at it again!), this time acting on the orders of "CT" (= Context-Dropper), who is the Contextually Evil Supervillain fighting the Objectivist benevolent universe. ;)

Edited August 17, 2010 by Xray

[merjet]

By "concretes", Rand referred to actual entities, which then as 'units' become members of a class.

Yes and no. She didn't define "concrete", but used a typical dictionary meaning, e.g. referring to a particular; specific, not general or abstract (source).

If you believe she used concrete to refer only to entities, you are dead wrong. To wit:

This process of conceptual identification (of subsuming a new concrete under an appropriate concept) is learned as one learns to speak, and it becomes automatic in the case of existents given in perceptual awareness, such as "man," "table," "blue," "length," etc. (ITOE2, 28).

A moral code is a set of abstract principles; to practice it, an individual must translate it into the appropriate concretes—he must choose the particular goals and values which he is to pursue. (ITOE2, 33).

Above the level of conceptualized sensations and metaphysical axioms, every concept requires a verbal definition. Paradoxically enough, it is the simplest concepts that most people find it hardest to define—the concepts of the perceptual concretes with which they deal daily, such as "table," "house," "man," "walking," "tall," "number," etc. (ITOE2, 49).

An existent is a concrete. "Existent" is a very convenient term in that it subsumes entities and attributes and actions and even mental events (ITOE2, 241).

Blue, length, particular goals and values, tall, actions, and mental events are not entities.

[sjw]

Xray, if Rand meant what you got out of ITOE from your careless and unimaginative reading, then it certainly would be a very absurd book, I will grant you that much.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Bad idea. Popper doesn't use "concept" and "theory" interchangeably. In his chart on pg. 19 (or thereabouts, if in a different edition than I have), he uses "designations," "terms" and "concepts" interchangeably -- which differs from Rand, for

I was doing it for the sake of argument, actually. I am quite aware of the difference, as anyone who has seen that chart is. It's just that as you'd equated definitions, and I presumed, perhaps wrongly, the concepts behind them, with hypotheses (which Popper uses interchangeably with theories), this would be ok with you for now.

You presumed very wrongly. No, I don't think that *concepts* are hypotheses. I'm basically in synch with Rand on what concepts are -- though I have quibbles over, guess what, her definition. Definitions are provisional for Rand (and for me). Their function is to compress our best information about a given concept in our current context of knowledge and situate that concept in our total hierarchy of concepts. They can change with the growth of our knowledge. A (properly formed) concept remains the same concept. The definition points to the concept, uniquely. But it isn't itself the concept, and it by no means exhausts the concept. Rand is very, very clear on that point.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Daniel,

Are you or are you not saying that two discussants are wasting time when they try to find out what the other *means* by terms being used? I don't know how else to interpret numerous of your replies to George back through the last about 40 posts. You seem to me to think that if the parties to a discussion expend effort trying to find out what the other party is referring to by terminology which is resulting in real or apparent disagreement, this amounts to arguing over the meaning of words, and it's non-productive. Don't bother telling me what you *mean* by your language, is the message I keep getting from you. Now, if that is your message, then a conversation between people who don't understand each other's language and speak to each other unconcerned to know each other's meaning would represent the ideal.

I'm trying to make clear to you by using an extreme example the absurdity of the view that people could communicate productively if they aren't concerned to know what each other's words are referencing.

Ellen

At this late stage, I suggest you simply look at the chart you've already posted, and re-read the chapter in question in UQ. Somehow I seem to have portrayed Popper's approach as something so incredibly bizarre that Very Serious People could never possibly take it seriously.

This is despite the fact that Popper did, all his life. But he was probably just in La-la land.

Daniel, I'm asking you a question, not Popper. Frankly, I have my doubts that Popper would be exactly pleased by the way you've portrayed his approach, but he isn't here to ask. On the other hand, I don't know why it would be difficult for you to answer this question, which I'll repeat:

Are you or are you not saying that two discussants are wasting time when they try to find out what the other *means* by terms being used?

(Here's a pertinent example just from your and my exchange illustrating why I think finding out what respective parties mean by a term is a good idea. I doubt that you'd have gone off on a wild goose chase substituting "concept" for "theory" as you did in the post I answered above if you hadn't presumed -- and that despite evidence from my posts to the contrary -- that I equate "concept" and "definition.")

Ellen

[Xray]

If you believe she used concrete to refer only to entities, you are dead wrong. To wit:

I was referring to the specific sentence in ITOE, page 10 where she wrote:

"Every word we use (with the exception of proper names) is a symbol that denotes a concept, i. e. that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a certain kind." (ITOE, p. 10).

So she referred to a "word" as audiovisual symbol and what she calls "concept" is a class which contains units (= "a unit is an existent regarded as a separate member of a group of two or more similar members"). So all units of a concept have to be similar.

A class has "units" and per Rand, "the ability to regard entities as units is man's distinctive method of cognition". (ITOE, p. 6).

Imo nothing in that sentence from page 10 ITOE indicates that in using "concretes", she did not mean 'entities' here.

Even if she used concretes in a wider sense elsewhere in ITOE, problems arise when a list of those concretes as 'units' of a 'concept' is asked for.

"Every word we use .... is a symbol that denotes a concept, i. e. that stands for an unlimited number of concretes of a certain kind." (ITOE, p. 10)

Can you name some examples of "unlimited concretes" (=the units of the class) denoted by e. g. the word "if" ?

Can you name some examples of "unlimited concretes" denoted by e. g. the word "jeopardy"?

Rand: This process of conceptual identification (of subsuming a new concrete under an appropriate concept) is learned as one learns to speak, and it becomes automatic in the case of existents given in perceptual awareness, such as "man," "table," "blue," "length," etc. (ITOE2, 28).

Here the difference between the elements (what Rand calls "units") and the class they belong to is blurred imo.

Rand: A moral code is a set of abstract principles; to practice it, an individual must translate it into the appropriate concretes—he must choose the particular goals and values which he is to pursue. (ITOE2, 33).

That's where Rand is trying to insert her ethics into the system, and abandons the field of epistemology.

The message she wants to bring across is simple enough: 'Just as concepts are organized hiercharchically, Objectivists are to organize their moral values hierarchically as well." In the "right" order, of course. The order in which Objectivism tells you to group them. If you group your moral values "wrongly", you would be just as mistaken as an individual who fails to recognize that a birch is an element belonging to the class tree ...

Rand: Above the level of conceptualized sensations and metaphysical axioms, every concept requires a verbal definition. Paradoxically enough, it is the simplest concepts that most people find it hardest to define—the concepts of the perceptual concretes with which they deal daily, such as "table," "house," "man," "walking," "tall," "number," etc. (ITOE2, 49).

Why should it be more difficult to define something as simple as "table" as opposed to e. g. defining "surreptitious"?

Xray, if Rand meant what you got out of ITOE from your careless and unimaginative reading, then it certainly would be a very absurd book, I will grant you that much.

Sjw,

I have no doubt that a lot of imaginative people have devoted considerable mental energy into trying to make sense of ITOE.

But if what it says in ITOE is so clear to you, then surely you won't have any difficulty answering some questions about it:

1) Could you please provide an example of a definition and demonstrate the "contextual absoluteness" in it?

2) Could you please demonstrate "essential characteristics being determined contextually" with a concrete example?

I'd prefer your 'imagination' in the answers not leaving the realm of reality though. ;)

I have more questions but will await your reply before continuing.

Edited August 17, 2010 by Xray

[sjw]

Sjw,

I have no doubt that a lot of imaginative people have devoted considerable mental energy into trying to make sense of ITOE.

But if what it says in ITOE is so clear to you, then surely you won't have any difficulty answering some questions about it:

1) Could you please provide an example of a definition and demonstrate the "contextual absoluteness" in it?

2) Could you please demonstrate "essential characteristics being determined contextually" with a concrete example?

I have more but will await your reply before continuing.

None of this is relevant to your absurd view of what she meant by "concrete." And if you didn't understand what she meant by that, it's a folly to try to delve in any deeper. Besides, I am not one who holds ITOE to be something that can be defended in every respect, I have my own criticisms of her epistemology.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Rand obviously used concrete to mean a mixture of cement, sand, stone, and water that starts as a liquid and, as it dries, hardens to a stonelike mass.

You pour it into buckets and put the feet of your adversaries into it. After it hardens you throw them overboard into deep water.

It's called bucket epistemology.

(It would be helpful if Rand critics were not so concrete-bound in trying to abstract her meaning of concrete. And I don't mean Shayne...)

Michael

[George H. Smith]

Daniel, I'm asking you a question, not Popper. Frankly, I have my doubts that Popper would be exactly pleased by the way you've portrayed his approach, but he isn't here to ask. On the other hand, I don't know why it would be difficult for you to answer this question, which I'll repeat:

Are you or are you not saying that two discussants are wasting time when they try to find out what the other *means* by terms being used?

(Here's a pertinent example just from your and my exchange illustrating why I think finding out what respective parties mean by a term is a good idea. I doubt that you'd have gone off on a wild goose chase substituting "concept" for "theory" as you did in the post I answered above if you hadn't presumed -- and that despite evidence from my posts to the contrary -- that I equate "concept" and "definition.")

Ellen

Some of Popper's remarks on this subject are puzzling and even unintentionally humorous. For example, in "Epistemology Without a Knowing Subject" (Objective Knowledge, p. 121), Popper writes:

To sum up, although the meaning of 'knowledge,' like that of all words, is unimportant, it is important to distinguish between different senses of the word.

Hmmmm.... A non-Popperian might wonder what "different senses" of a word are, if not different meanings (or shades of meaning)of that word. And a non-Popperian might be so impolite as to ask: In explaining "different senses" of a word, are you not explaining what you mean by that word? Thus if word meaning is "unimportant," how can explaining "different senses of a word" be so important?

Such are some blasphemous doubts that might occur to the uninitiated. But we have a reason to be optimistic. Although, in a debate over anarchism, I may not be permitted to ask my opponent what he means by "government," it may nonetheless be very important for us to explore "different senses" of the word.

Okay, I can live with this, since it amounts to the same thing, but I fail to understand how explaining "different senses" of a word will escape the dreaded infinite regress. For any given explanation will contain terms that also have different senses, and after explaining those different senses, we will encounter more terms with different senses -- and so on, "to infinity."

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

In "A Realist View of Logic, Physics, and History" (Objective Knowledge, p. 310), Popper writes:

One should never get involved in verbal questions or questions of meaning, and never get interested in words. If challenged by the question of whether a word one uses really means this or perhaps that, then one should say: 'I don't know, and I am not interested in meanings: and if you wish, I will gladly accept your terminology.' This never does any harm. One should never quarrel about words, and never get involved in questions of terminology. One should always keep away from discussing concepts.

If memory serves, Daniel has objected to how Rand uses the words "selfishness" and "sacrifice." As a good Popperian, however, he should never raise such objections. Rather, he should say, "I don't know, and I am not interested in meanings." Indeed, his best course would be to accept Rand's definitions and work from there. After all, "this never does any harm."

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

While skimming some online articles about Karl Popper, I ran across this passage from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Karl Popper is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century. He was also a social and political philosopher of considerable stature, a self-professed ‘critical-rationalist’, a dedicated opponent of all forms of scepticism, conventionalism, and relativism in science and in human affairs generally.... (My emphasis.)

It seems that Daniel's news that Popper was a "skeptic" has not reached every corner of Popperdom.

Ghs

[9thdoctor]

I finally got the audiobook version of the Harriman.

[snip]

Anyway, this dialogue with Daniel Barnes is turning into an exercise in same old, same old, could someone transcribe the material on Popper? It’s fairly brief and I’m interested to see his reaction.

Meaning, someone with a hard copy, to better insure an accurate transcription? No?? Alright, then I'll do it myself. I can't give a page number reference:

During the past century, however, many philosophers have rejected the validity of induction, and argued that every generalization is an error. For example, Karl Popper claimed that all the laws of Kepler, Galileo, and Newton had been “falsified”. By demanding that a true generalization must apply with unlimited precision to an unlimited domain, Popper upheld a mystical view of “truth” that is forever outside the reach of man and accessible only to an omniscient god. In the end, he was left with two types of generalizations, those that have been proven false, and those that will be proven false. He was then accused by later philosophers of being too optimistic, they insisted that nothing can be proven, not even a generalization’s falsehood. Such skeptics commit, on a grand scale, the fallacy of dropping context. The meaning of our generalizations is determined by the context that gives rise to them. To claim that a generalization is true is to claim that it applies within a specific context. The data subsumed by that context are necessarily limited in both range and precision.

David Harriman,

The Logical Leap

[Philip Coates]

If this thread hits 800 posts, I'm just going to shoot myself... I'm warning you guys....

[9thdoctor]

If this thread hits 800 posts, I'm just going to shoot myself... I'm warning you guys....

Please review from 3:50 to 4:00 for important advice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sowOY6UAonE

[George H. Smith]

If this thread hits 800 posts, I'm just going to shoot myself... I'm warning you guys....

You have just encouraged a lot more people to contribute to this thread.

Ghs

[Brant Gaede]

If this thread hits 800 posts, I'm just going to shoot myself... I'm warning you guys....

No, Phil! No! Please don't--throw me into that briar patch!

--Brant

I'll be up all night on this one: type, type, type

[George H. Smith]

I finally got the audiobook version of the Harriman.

[snip]

Anyway, this dialogue with Daniel Barnes is turning into an exercise in same old, same old, could someone transcribe the material on Popper? It’s fairly brief and I’m interested to see his reaction.

Meaning, someone with a hard copy, to better insure an accurate transcription? No?? Alright, then I'll do it myself. I can't give a page number reference:

During the past century, however, many philosophers have rejected the validity of induction, and argued that every generalization is an error. For example, Karl Popper claimed that all the laws of Kepler, Galileo, and Newton had been “falsified”. By demanding that a true generalization must apply with unlimited precision to an unlimited domain, Popper upheld a mystical view of “truth” that is forever outside the reach of man and accessible only to an omniscient god. In the end, he was left with two types of generalizations, those that have been proven false, and those that will be proven false. He was then accused by later philosophers of being too optimistic, they insisted that nothing can be proven, not even a generalization’s falsehood. Such skeptics commit, on a grand scale, the fallacy of dropping context. The meaning of our generalizations is determined by the context that gives rise to them. To claim that a generalization is true is to claim that it applies within a specific context. The data subsumed by that context are necessarily limited in both range and precision.

David Harriman,

The Logical Leap

I wish Randians would drop this kind of nonsense when using the word "mystical."

This is a very fast and loose interpretation of Popper, to say the least. I was going to order Harriman's book soon, but if the above is an indication of how he deals with other thinkers, it would be a waste of time.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Here are two more passages by Popper that I find somewhat amusing. Both are from "Two Faces of Common Sense," a chapter in Objective Knowledge.

I am not the least interested in definitions or in the linguistic analysis of words or concepts. But in connection with the word 'certainty', so much of little value has been said that something must be said here for the sake of clarity. (p. 78)

Popper then devotes several pages to discussing various meanings of "certainty," such as "certain enough for practical purposes" and "absolute certainty," even though he is not the "least interested" in such matters.

The next passage (p. 94) is even better:

One can of course call 'induction' whatever one likes. One can call my theory of criticism and the growth of knowledge my theory of induction. However, I think that would contribute little to clarity and much to confusion.

Now recall this passage by Popper that I quoted earlier.

One should never get involved in verbal questions or questions of meaning, and never get interested in words. If challenged by the question of whether a word one uses really means this or perhaps that, then one should say: 'I don't know, and I am not interested in meanings: and if you wish, I will gladly accept your terminology.' This never does any harm. One should never quarrel about words, and never get involved in questions of terminology. One should always keep away from discussing concepts.

It seems that, for Popper, "never" means "never, except when Popper wishes not be to misunderstood."

In previous exchanges with Daniel, I have emphasized the importance of definitions (or word meaning in general) for making oneself clear. In the first two passages quoted above, Popper mentions the need for "clarity" twice, and he discusses word meaning in pursuit of that goal. In this respect at least, Popper agrees with me, not with Daniel.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

I know that people may be getting burned out on the subject of Popper, and I gather that Daniel is away for a while, but I've spent much of today rereading Objective Knowledge (as well as parts of Realism and the Aim of Science -- one of my favorite books by Popper), so I want to say something else before my thoughts disappear into the Third World.

As I recall without reviewing the posts, my argument with Daniel started with the issue of whether Popper is a skeptic. Daniel linked an article by David Miller and, after I said that I had never thought of Popper as a skeptic, Daniel gave the impression that this issue was pretty well-settled. (I speak again from memory.)

Popper addresses this very issue in "Two Faces of Common Sense" (Objective Knowledge, pp. 99-101). He writes:

The position here defended is radically different from what has in modern times been called 'scepticism', at least since the Reformation. For in modern times scepticism is described as the theory which is pessimistic with respect to the possibility of knowledge. But the view proposed here hopefully adheres to the possibility of the growth of knowledge, and therefore of knowledge. It merely removes the quality of certainty which common sense assumed as essential to knowledge, and shows that both certainty and knowledge are different from what the commonsense theory assumed. One will hardly describe as a sceptic a man who believes in the unlimited growth of knowledge.

Popper then mentions a different meaning of "skepticism": "some classical skeptics, such as Cicero and Sextus Empiricus were not far removed from the position here defended. Scepsis could well be translated (though it rarely is) as 'critical inquiry', and 'dynamic scepticism' could be identified with 'forceful critical inquiry', or for that matter even 'hopeful critical inquiry.'"

Yes, and we if we had some ham, we could have a ham and egg sandwich, if we only had some eggs. By Popper's loose rendering of Greek skepticism, any critical thinker could be called a "skeptic."

Popper also has his history screwed up. It is not clear that Cicero was a skeptic, but if he was, he was an Academic Skeptic. Sextus Empiricus, on the other hand, was a Pyrrhonic skeptic, as indicated by the title of his book, Outlines of Pyrrhonism (c. 200 C.E.).

These two types of skepticism differed radically. Indeed, the Pyrrhonists accused the Academics of dogmatism, since the latter claimed to know with certainty that certainty is impossible -- a position that is self-contradictory and therefore self-refuting. Pyrrhonists did not deny the possibility of certainty; instead, they suspended judgment on all such matters, claiming that equally good arguments can be given for the truth or falsehood of any philosophical theory. They therefore recommended that we not trouble ourselves with such insoluble problems; we should accept conventional beliefs instead, without criticizing them. This passive attitude, they believed, would remove a major source of mental discomfort that hinders our desire for peace of mind.

If anything is the exact opposite of Pyrrhonic skepticism, Popper's Critical Rationalism certainly is.

Ghs