Objectivist and Popperian Epistemology

[merjet]

In my #67 I offered two options: 1) Popper is playing a shell game or 2) I am doing likewise by misrepresenting him.

This is commonly called a false alternative.

[Daniel Barnes]

In my #67 I offered two options: 1) Popper is playing a shell game or 2) I am doing likewise by misrepresenting him.

This is commonly called a false alternative.

I thought I was trying to be reasonable. So what exactly is your point?

[merjet]

I thought I was trying to be reasonable. So what exactly is your point?

Isn't it as obvious as the fact that Ellen wasn't accusing Popper of a shell game?

[Ellen Stuttle]

So avoid me and go to the source. I have already provided a link to the Wiki page on the subject.

Oh, ok. It looks like this. It's Popper's theory of the metaphysical structure of the universe if you like.

Daniel,

Have you not noticed, despite my pointing this out and Merlin's providing a correct link, that the link you provided doesn't go to a description of Popper's Three Worlds theory?

Ellen

[Daniel Barnes]

That is very strange. However, I will check again. I am nothing if not a fallibilist....;-)

I confirm the correct link is here.

EDIT: Woah, that's weird. It's the correct link, but for some reason reverts to another link when clicked.

I'll just paste it in directly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popper's_three_worlds

EDIT: ah, beginning to see the problem...

[Ellen Stuttle]

Here's the Wikipedia description of Popper's three worlds which Merlin linked to in post #66.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper#Cosmological_pluralism

Cosmological pluralism[edit]

Main article: Popperian cosmology

Knowledge, for Popper, was objective, both in the sense that it is objectively true (or truthlike), and also in the sense that knowledge has an ontological status (i.e., knowledge as object) independent of the knowing subject (Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, 1972). He proposed three worlds:[34] World One, being the physical world, or physical states; World Two, being the world of mind, or mental states, ideas, and perceptions; and World Three, being the body of human knowledge expressed in its manifold forms, or the products of the second world made manifest in the materials of the first world (i.e., books, papers, paintings, symphonies, and all the products of the human mind). World Three, he argued, was the product of individual human beings in exactly the same sense that an animal path is the product of individual animals, and that, as such, has an existence and evolution independent of any individual knowing subjects. The influence of World Three, in his view, on the individual human mind (World Two) is at least as strong as the influence of World One. In other words, the knowledge held by a given individual mind owes at least as much to the total accumulated wealth of human knowledge, made manifest, as to the world of direct experience. As such, the growth of human knowledge could be said to be a function of the independent evolution of World Three. Many contemporary philosophers[who?] have not embraced Popper's Three World conjecture, due mostly, it seems, to its resemblance to Cartesian dualism.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Is the purpose of the three worlds merely to create a fourth: academic contusions and confusions?

--Brant

[Daniel Barnes]

Maybe I'll drop Wikipedia a note advising them that the apostrophe shouldn't be in the url I was using, and that it's resulting in a broken link.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Is the purpose of the three worlds merely to create a fourth: academic contusions and confusions?

--Brant

No. It's an attempt to deal with difficult problems of mind and matter, for one thing - problems which Rand didn't address directly.

There are aspects of Popper's theory which I still haven't gotten around to reading about in his own writings. An especially important work, I suspect, which I haven't yet read is the book Popper and John Eccles co-authored, The Self and Its Brain.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

[...] the primacy of physical reality, or what Rand called somewhat less precisely the "primacy of existence".

Um. I think I don't agree that "primacy of physical reality" is a more precise way of stating what Rand meant by "primacy of existence."

For one thing, she and Branden rejected the description "materialist" - and there are hints of at least property dualism in things she said about mind and volition. For another, there's the supposed adopting of Aristotle's views on causality. Also, there's the issue of "Peikoff's puffs," which was a late development (early '70s).

Ellen

[anthony]

Here's the Wikipedia description of Popper's three worlds which Merlin linked to in post #66.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper#Cosmological_pluralism

Cosmological pluralism[edit]

Main article: Popperian cosmology

Knowledge, for Popper, was objective, both in the sense that it is objectively true (or truthlike), and also in the sense that knowledge has an ontological status (i.e., knowledge as object) independent of the knowing subject (Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach, 1972). He proposed three worlds:[34] World One, being the physical world, or physical states; World Two, being the world of mind, or mental states, ideas, and perceptions; and World Three, being the body of human knowledge expressed in its manifold forms, or the products of the second world made manifest in the materials of the first world (i.e., books, papers, paintings, symphonies, and all the products of the human mind). World Three, he argued, was the product of individual human beings in exactly the same sense that an animal path is the product of individual animals, and that, as such, has an existence and evolution independent of any individual knowing subjects. The influence of World Three, in his view, on the individual human mind (World Two) is at least as strong as the influence of World One. In other words, the knowledge held by a given individual mind owes at least as much to the total accumulated wealth of human knowledge, made manifest, as to the world of direct experience. As such, the growth of human knowledge could be said to be a function of the independent evolution of World Three. Many contemporary philosophers[who?] have not embraced Popper's Three World conjecture, due mostly, it seems, to its resemblance to Cartesian dualism.

Ellen

Fascinating.

All in all, he seems a most worthy thinker who knew more than enough in order to go too far. That takes true genius.

No sarcasm intended.

World 2 ("the individual human mind") still has to identify, integrate and conceptualize - albeit, a miniscule amount of - World 3 ("the total accumulated wealth of human knowledge") exactly as it does reality (World 1).

Simplify, simplify: One World too many, imo.

[Daniel Barnes]

[...] the primacy of physical reality, or what Rand called somewhat less precisely the "primacy of existence".

Um. I think I don't agree that "primacy of physical reality" is a more precise way of stating what Rand meant by "primacy of existence."

For one thing, she and Branden rejected the description "materialist" - and there are hints of at least property dualism in things she said about mind and volition. For another, there's the supposed adopting of Aristotle's views on causality. Also, there's the issue of "Peikoff's puffs," which was a late development (early '70s).

Ok, you disagree over the precision of terminology. I would argue that by Rand not specifying "primacy of physical existence" it makes her formulation less precise (though I agree that in some passages she hints at a dualism). At any rate, quibbling over who's got the most precise terminology is not that important, so we can agree to disagree over this.

That aside, is there a larger problem that you're trying to solve with this discussion?

[merjet]

I would argue that by Rand not specifying "primacy of physical existence" it makes her formulation less precise

Of course, it was a chance for you to slam Rand. On the other hand, including physical would mute the principle being an epistemological one (manner of thinking) as well as a metaphysical one, both contra primacy of consciousness.

[Daniel Barnes]

Merlin, if you think a mild, qualified criticism like:

"I would argue that by Rand not specifying 'primacy of physical existence' it makes her formulation less precise (though I agree that in some passages she hints at a dualism). At any rate, quibbling over who's got the most precise terminology is not that important, so we can agree to disagree over this."

...constitutes a "slam" then clearly you need to spend a little more time in the ring...;-)

[Ellen Stuttle]

I'm copying the whole article "The Quest for Doubt" by Lee Kelly.

I had to hand insert italics, apostrophes, quote marks, and dashes. If any of those are missing, the error is mine. I noticed no incorrect punctuation in the original. (There are several wording errors, mostly a word such as "to" or "a" left out.)

A qualifying note has been added at the start of the article, and the closing section, which I quoted yesterday, has been revised. I think the revision is an improvement.

See post #71 for a comparison of the original and revised text.

link

The Quest for Doubt

Posted on Juy 7, 2013 by Lee Kelly

[NOTE: In the following essay, I attribute views to philosophers without caveats or qualifications. This is mostly for ease of exposition. While I believe philosophers, both professional and amateur, have a tendency toward the views I attribute to them, there are many exceptions.]

Philosophers have a twisted relationship to certainty: they crave it for themselves while deploring it in others. Unfortunately, they're more proficient at eroding others' certainties than fortifying their own, and the ensuing dynamic has instigated a downward spiral of doubt.

More than ever, philosophy is open-minded, nonjudgemental, and self-effacing. The old assurances of religion and 19th Century science have been exposed as empty rhetoric. The supposedly unassailable Newton was surpassed by Einstein, while the optimistic epistemologists of the era were savaged by a new generation of critics. Science, which once revealed truths about the universe, now delivered only probable truths or, even worse, was relegated to a mere tool or instrument. Even the bedrock of pure logic began to show cracks in the light of Gödel's theorems, intractable paradoxes, and the proliferation of deviant logics and alternate theories of truth. Meanwhile, attempts to establish a solid foundation for ethics appeared more futile than ever. Various species of relativism and irrationalism surged in popularity, especially in the humanities. Today, it's difficult to find a serious philosopher who is certain about much at all, and what certainty is professed is normally quantified and qualified, e.g. I'm 99 percent sure, but one cannot be absolutely certain.

The apparent triumph of doubt over certainty has been the unintended consequence of each philosopher acting within a tradition of mutual criticism. Each desiring certainty for himself unintentionally depletes the common stock, and too little certainty remains to satiate the common demand - an intellectual tragedy of the commons. It was as though philosophy itself, rather than any particular philosopher, had decided to pursue Descartes's method of doubt. However, contrary to Descartes, philosophy discovered there was little or nothing to be certain of at all. The foundation of philosophy, such that it was solid, didn't seem to have room for much besides trivialities.

But philosophers remain ambivalent toward certainty. Certainty is derided as dogmatism, fundamentalism, or irrationality, and now a sin in oneself as well as others. At the same time, however, the growth of knowledge, especially scientific knowledge, is identified with increasing certainty in our beliefs. In short, certainty has become the regulative ideal - it's the goal toward which we strive but acknowledge is unattainable in practice. The corollary, meanwhile, is that doubt remains the problem that must be solved - the enemy of knowledge. Perhaps, it's admitted, we must concede some territory to doubt, because absolute certainty is no virtue, but within those limits we must justify, verify, confirm, probabilify, validate, support, or otherwise certify our knowledge. The quest for certainty was never relinquished, only tempered.

Faux Fallibilism

Among the few beliefs that anyone is likely to profess absolute certainty of is their own existence. Perhaps, if they're feeling especially humble, they'll concede that while they mightn't exist per se, there must exist at least something. Why? Because it's self-evident: when you deny your own existence, there must be something that is denying and something that is being denied. There must exist something for there to be such a thing as denial in the first place. This argument strikes us as impregnable: there appears no chink in its armour; any attack is doomed to fail. When there is no room for doubt, so the argument goes, then we shouldn't. Therefore, we can be certain that something exists, and perhaps that's all we can ever really be certain of at all.

But why can we be certain of one thing and not another? For example, in the sentence, 'we cannot be certain that any scientific hypothesis is true', what is the word 'cannot' doing? Obviously, it's not meant to describe a psychological law. People can and have been certain about great many things, from their own existence to climate change, from the colour of swans to the nature of God. There is no shortage of certainty outside of philosophy. Indeed, it's only when confronted with someone who is certain of a scientific hypothesis that a philosopher is likely to object that they cannot be certain. It's normal for criticism to proceed not by addressing the truth of a claim, but instead addressing whether one can or cannot make the claim at all. This odd behaviour usually goes unnoticed.

The words 'can' and 'cannot' are being used as they might during a game of chess in which one participant makes an illegal move and the other objects, 'You can't do that!' What they cannot do, specifically, is make that move and follow the rules of the game. Unlike chess, however, philosophy doesn't have a rulebook stashed in the box.

The rules of philosophy are seldom made explicit, and students appear to absorb them through cultural osmosis. When describing a philosophical problem, its potential solutions and their criticisms, implicit rules concerning purpose and value are transmitted. For example, a position may be correctly described as metaphysical without any further judgement, but place it under the section titled 'Criticisms', and students learn the rules without explicit instruction. And so it is with doubt.

Whether a student entered philosophy 101 thinking that doubt was a problem, he's likely to leave it thinking that way. An instructor may present a list of popular issues, such as whether there is a free will, an absolute moral law, or a god, etc. Students then select a topic, adopt a position, and are charged to defend it. What are they defending it from? Doubt. Specific criticisms may arise, but the mere fact that one could, and some have, adopted the opposite position is usually enough. The student must provide a rational justification to show why their position ought to be believed, regardless of whether there is any problem with it besides that someone doubts it.

Explicit instruction is unnecessary, and the rules are adopted naturally. Among the rules are that we ought believe only that which is rationally justified, and doubts are what remains when such justification falls short. Therefore, one's certainty in a belief ought to correspond to one's degree of justification for it. An undoubtable position, then, is one with unassailable rational justification. What counts as rational justification, weak or strong, is disputed among different schools of philosophy, but near enough all are in accord concerning these underlying normative presuppositions of belief. These are the rules of the game, and they're unabashedly prescriptive about which moves are illegal, what one can and cannot say or believe. Failure to heed these rules is grounds for expulsion from the philosophical community.

Why can't we doubt that something exists? Because such a position supposedly enjoys unassailable rational justification - the rules of the game dictate certitude. However, what of the normative presupposition that one ought to regulate our certainty according to how strongly our beliefs are justified? Is this also undoubtable? If not, then it's not certain that we ought to be certain that something exists after all, regardless of whether something exists or is rationally justified. Further, what of one's method of rational justification itself, the measure of fallibility? Are such rational authorities - or at least one's comprehension of them - not also fallible? If so, then any measure of rational justification is itself uncertain. According to the rules, then, should we be doubtful of our degrees of certainty? Are we supposed to quantify and qualify this certainty as well? And what about our certainty of that? Nothing but an infinite regress awaits beyond this point.

At the core of this faux fallibilism is the presumption that our fallibility can be mitigated and quantified by some incorrigible authority. This foothold of certainty - perhaps thought to come from immediate experience or mathematical probability - is then to serve as a bullwark from which to fight the forces of doubt and ignorance. However, just like the dogmatic and irrational philosophies that preceded it, faux fallibilism falls to the same sceptical challenges. Ultimately, It plays a game designed to serve the purposes of Medieval revelatory theology; shoehorning fallibilism into that framework just perverts fallisbilism. Fallibilism can and should be at ease (rather than at odds) with doubt, and it should be suspicious (rather than covetous) of certainty.

Method of Doubt

Our fallibility is ubiquitous and absolute. If we take it seriously, then it permeates everything. Fallibilism is a general principle; it goes all the way down.

Fallibilists deny that we should be certain that something exists, but that doesn't mean they affirm that we shouldn't be certain that something exists. This is counterintuitive and may even seem incoherent, because it's normally taken for granted that we should regulate our certainty according to how strongly our beliefs are justified. However, if this normative presupposition is false, then it's no longer against the rules of the game to be either certain or doubtful whether something exists. Fallibilists unfuse their judgements concerning what is true or justified from their norms concerning how certain we should believe.

Doubt, for the fallibilist, isn't so much a feeling or disposition, but a principled stance. There's nothing especially wrong with feeling certain, or even just taking something for granted, but, if we take our fallibility serious, we should be suspicious of certainty, and we should be ready to question, probe, and doubt once again. Doubt is no longer what remains when rational justification falls short, but becomes an ever present levy to hold back the tides of our hubris. Rather than seeing doubt as an obstacle, it's seen as a psychological catalyst to the growth of knowledge.

Fallibilism is a game changer.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

[...] the primacy of physical reality, or what Rand called somewhat less precisely the "primacy of existence".

Um. I think I don't agree that "primacy of physical reality" is a more precise way of stating what Rand meant by "primacy of existence."

For one thing, she and Branden rejected the description "materialist" - and there are hints of at least property dualism in things she said about mind and volition. For another, there's the supposed adopting of Aristotle's views on causality. Also, there's the issue of "Peikoff's puffs," which was a late development (early '70s).

Ok, you disagree over the precision of terminology. I would argue that by Rand not specifying "primacy of physical existence" it makes her formulation less precise (though I agree that in some passages she hints at a dualism). At any rate, quibbling over who's got the most precise terminology is not that important, so we can agree to disagree over this.

That aside, is there a larger problem that you're trying to solve with this discussion?

Your ploy aside, there are circumstances in which precision of terminology is quite important. What one is taking to be a realist metaphysics I think is such a circumstance.

Ellen

[Daniel Barnes]

Ellen, I'll take that as a "no".

PS: If you have read your Popper, you should know that not quibbling over terminology is not a "ploy", but a principle. Of course, there are people that love nothing more than quibbling endlessly over terms. It is an regrettably widespread practice, especially in philosophy. As you know well I am not one of those people. So, following this principle, I avoid getting into lengthy debates over this sort of thing.

[Darrell Hougen]

My view is that we clearly possess knowledge, though I'm not sure I can say exactly how, but that fact is sufficient to safely ignore the issue when considering ethics.

Darrell,

I came to a conclusion long ago that humans are not freaks of nature (to use NB's colorful phrase), but instead made out of the same stuff as the rest of nature. That includes the human mind.

Our abstractions can correctly reflect reality--and we can be certain of it--because our abstracting faculty organizes abstractions in the same manner reality is organized. (There's a lot to talk about on this point, but later.)

Once I adopted that premise, that I belonged to the universe and was not a floating exceptional entity outside it looking in, many obscure things became clear.

...

Michael

Hi Michael,

I think that is an interesting point. Probably, many of the same forces that shape the natural world, also shaped our human brain. So, our neural processing may reflect natural phenomena. Humans seem to understand the senses with ease. I find that point interesting because I work in image processing and it is not easy to make a computer correctly interpret visual imagery. Are two images, images of the same object? Where does one object end and the next one begin? Such questions are very difficult to answer. Yet, we humans answer such questions with ease. So, it seems as though our perceptual systems are efficacious. So far, so good. However, I'm not sure acceptance of that point answers questions like, how do we know what we know? Is certainty possible? Is it necessary for knowledge? Etc.

Darrell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Darrell,

There's an intriguing hypothesis by Rupert Sheldrake about vision.

He speculates that not only do we receive photons through the eyes and process them in our brains, but that our sight goes out like a field and actually touches (in a visual sense) the stuff we are looking at.

Think magnetic field or gravity, but for sight.

Fields are very, very intriguing.

So are fractals, for that matter.

(btw - Every time I mention Sheldrake, some people have fits. )

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen, I'll take that as a "no".

I advise taking it as my thinking the question is dopey.

Returning to the article you recommended, "The Quest for Doubt," posted July 7, 2013, on critical rationalism blog (and copied in post #90).

I can't tell if the author, Lee Kelly, has any comprehension of logical self-exclusion.

The words can and cannot are being used as they might during a game of chess in which one participant makes an illegal move and the other objects, You can't do that! What they cannot do, specifically, is make that move and follow the rules of the game. Unlike chess, however, philosophy doesn't have a rulebook stashed in the box.

[....] normative presuppositions of belief [...] are the rules of the game, and they're unabashedly prescriptive about which moves are illegal, what one can and cannot say or believe. [....]

Why can't we doubt that something exists? Because such a position supposedly enjoys unassailable rational justification - the rules of the game dictate certitude. However, what of the normative presupposition that one ought to regulate certainty according to how strongly our beliefs are justified? Is this also undoubtable? Denying it isn't self-evidently absurd, as in the case of denying that something exists. If it's not certain that we should regulate our certainty according to how strongly our beliefs are justified, then it's not certain we should be certain that something exists, after all.

He doesn't seem to grasp that what one can't do is to assert intelligibly that there isn't something, one's statement itself being something. The issue isn't what one is allowed to say or believe, like following rules in a game.

[...] it's normally taken for granted that we should regulate our certainty according to how strongly our beliefs are justified. However, if this normative presupposition is false, then it's no longer against the rules of the game to be either certain or doubtful whether something exists. Fallibilists unfuse their judgements concerning what is true or justified from their norms concerning how certain[ly] we should believe.

Again, he seems to be thinking of logic as normative prescriptions on belief, and not as an essential means of assessing truth. I wonder what method he proposes to use in trying to find out what's true - and if he proposes shooting the horse Popper rode in on (modus tollens).

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Ah, feeling someone looking at you! (#94)

--Brant

like Dagny and the brakeman at the beginning of AS

[Ellen Stuttle]

PS: If you have read your Popper, you should know that not quibbling over terminology is not a "ploy", but a principle. Of course, there are people that love nothing more than quibbling endlessly over terms. It is an regrettably widespread practice, especially in philosophy. As you know well I am not one of those people. So, following this principle, I avoid getting into lengthy debates over this sort of thing.

How noble. Actually, I'd call it using Popper to provide a veneer of respectability any time you want to avoid acknowledging unclarity.

Ellen

[Daniel Barnes]

How noble. Actually, I'd call it using Popper to provide a veneer of respectability any time you want to avoid acknowledging unclarity.

Ellen

Well, you can impute what you will into it, but the fact remains this is a principle I believe in, and so act accordingly. If you are one of those folks who loves them a good terminological dispute, well that's your choice. Objectivism is chock-full of such scholasticism, so you're not alone. Following Popper, I don't regard it as productive.

As far as "unclarity" goes, I admit I'm not clear as to the more important question of what problem you're trying to solve with this discussion. Particularly as you now seem to be pursuing whatever it is with increasing momentum by posting Lee Kelly's essay in full. What point are you trying to make? Can you summarise it ?

For my part, while I don't know Lee, I'm happy to alert him to the fact you're critiquing his essay, in case he wants to come over here and discuss it directly.

[Ellen Stuttle]

As far as "unclarity" goes, I admit I'm not clear as to the more important question of what problem you're trying to solve with this discussion. Particularly as you now seem to be pursuing whatever it is with increasing momentum by posting Lee Kelly's essay in full. What point are you trying to make? Can you summarise it ?

Do other people comply when you try that sort of thing, so you think I will?

For my part, while I don't know Lee, I'm happy to alert him to the fact you're critiquing his essay, in case he wants to come over here and discuss it directly.

I think that Lee might already have noticed this thread. He made some changes to the article, both of which I think are improvements.

He seems to me an intelligent and serious person, and one with whom I could have a productive exchange. However, I'll repeat what I said earlier to "curi." I'm in process of getting ready to leave for a conference in Europe, and I have little time for posting. So although I might be able to start a discussion in the next few days, I'd then have to discontinue till later this summer.

Ellen

[Daniel Barnes]

Do other people comply when you try that sort of thing, so you think I will?

Once again, I don't really get this blanket hostility to perfectly reasonable suggestions. One of the things reading Popper taught me is to try to check on the problem under discussion as early as possible. Saves people wasting time talking at cross purposes, especially when they might have key issues in common. Often major disagreements turn out to be merely verbal confusions at bottom, and not real issues.

While I'm pretty thick skinned, it doesn't seem productive carrying on a discussion with someone who treats everything I say as if it were some dastardly trick, and who doesn't want to clearly state the point they're trying to make anyway.