Illogical Leap: Why Harriman's account of induction is daft nonsense

[sjw]

A persistent doom,

Over this thread does loom,

Because SJW assumes,

Certain facts about Hume.

It's hard to see the doom amongst all the loons.

Still, the last Carson video was indeed great.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

I have a novel idea! How about providing some quotations where Hume actually says what you claim he says.

As I said above I'd be happy to, but first I want to hear what it is you think I'm saying he said, because I'm convinced that you are just misinterpreting me. If so, quoting Hume won't do any good.

No, I'm not going to take the time to tell you what I think you are saying, because your explanations of Hume are so garbled that I really don't know what to make of them in some cases. You can explain what you mean yourself, if you like.

I have a novel idea! Why don't you learn to communicate, instead of denunciate?

I have written numerous and substantial posts on the thread wherein I explain Hume's ideas very clearly, and I have provided representative passages to support my points.

And what have you done in response? Well, to begin with, you have ignored my specific points and responded with generic evasions, to the effect that you have read what you have read, and you know what you have read.

Then, based on reading a chapter or two of Hume (apparently for the first time), you have informed me that I don't know what I am talking about, and you have given some half-assed and quasi-intelligible interpretations that amount to nothing more than lousy guesses, while failing to quote or even cite a single sentence by Hume.

In matters of history and historical interpretation, you cannot simply make things up as you go along or rely on lucky guesses. You actually have to know something about the subject.

Ghs

[sjw]

No, I'm not going to take the time to tell you what I think you are saying, because your explanations of Hume are so garbled that I really don't know what to make of them in some cases.

So, you're jumping up and down denunciating what I'm saying, but you don't even know what I'm saying. You're behaving like Leonard Peikoff on LSD.

You can explain what you mean yourself, if you like.

I'm not privy to your particular inability to understand a statement that you refuse to identify. It is pure silliness to expect me to go back through this thread, sift out all my remarks about Hume, and rewrite them for you, trying to guess whether or not you'll actually understand them in a different form.

Like I said, learn to communicate like a decent, civilized human being.

Shayne

PS: This is pure silliness:

I have written numerous and substantial posts on the thread wherein I explain Hume's ideas very clearly, and I have provided representative passages to support my points.

And what have you done in response? Well, to begin with, you have ignored my specific points and responded with generic evasions, to the effect that you have read what you have read, and you know what you have read.

Then, based on reading a chapter or two of Hume (apparently for the first time), you have informed me that I don't know what I am talking about, and you have given some half-assed and quasi-intelligible interpretations that amount to nothing more than lousy guesses, while failing to quote or even cite a single sentence by Hume.

In matters of history and historical interpretation, you cannot simply make things up as you go along or rely on lucky guesses. You actually have to know something about the subject.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

Like I said, learn to communicate like a decent, civilized human being.

My, but you can be a snotty little twit. This might be bearable if you actually knew something, but not with so much militant ignorance mixed in.

I shall now join Brant and others. This is my last reply to you on any subject. Argue with yourself, if you like. You are well on the way to being the last person on OL willing to do this.

Ghs

[sjw]

Like I said, learn to communicate like a decent, civilized human being.

My, but you can be a snotty little twit. This might be bearable if you actually knew something, but not with so much militant ignorance mixed in.

I shall now join Brant and others. This is my last reply to you on any subject. Argue with yourself, if you like. You are well on the way to being the last person on OL willing to do this.

Ghs

Your insults, juxtaposed with your irrational stance that I clarify that which you will not name, is really a sight to behold. I could not ask for better circumstances for you to put your tail between your legs and run off.

Also, I will point out that it was you who initiated the incivilities with me, and as I said, at that point I decided not to cut you any slack, regardless of your trophies and credentials.

I am still quite willing to clarify/back up any of my statements about Hume above to anyone, including George, but you're going to have to tell me which statement needs clarifying. That George found this simple request so onerous is suggestive of something I will refrain from pointing out.

Shayne

[9thdoctor]

My, but you can be a snotty little twit. This might be bearable if you actually knew something, but not with so much militant ignorance mixed in.

I shall now join Brant and others. This is my last reply to you on any subject. Argue with yourself, if you like. You are well on the way to being the last person on OL willing to do this.

Hate to say I told you so.

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9320&view=findpost&p=110368

[Selene]

I found a picture of Shayne as a child.

[sjw]

My, but you can be a snotty little twit. This might be bearable if you actually knew something, but not with so much militant ignorance mixed in.

I shall now join Brant and others. This is my last reply to you on any subject. Argue with yourself, if you like. You are well on the way to being the last person on OL willing to do this.

Hate to say I told you so.

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9320&view=findpost&p=110368

The more the merrier. This is the first time on OL where I've actually enjoyed the insults. I even enjoyed the nice poem that PDS wrote.

I have "militant ignorance" because I said something about Hume, and then was willing to have a discussion about why I said it, backing up with quotes if necessary (I'm even willing to reverse something I said if it was wrong, but you kind of have to point to something in order to show it as wrong).

This is a very edifying and clarifying thread. I hope more loons join in and attack me.

Shayne

[George H. Smith]

A persistent doom,

Over this thread does loom,

Because SJW assumes,

Certain facts about Hume.

On one fine day

Shayne did say

"I've read a page by Hume!"

He rolled the page

Went onstage

And used it as a plume.

Ghs

[sjw]

A persistent doom,

Over this thread does loom,

Because SJW assumes,

Certain facts about Hume.

On one fine day

Shayne did say

"I've read a page by Hume!"

He rolled the page

Went onstage

And used it as a plume.

Ghs

Oh I certainly wouldn't do that, I already know that you've got a Peacock's tail of plumes, just look at all that plumage you've got on display above (or should I say Peikoff's tail...)

Shayne

[9thdoctor]

A persistent doom,

Over this thread does loom,

Because SJW assumes,

Certain facts about Hume.

On one fine day

Shayne did say

"I've read a page by Hume!"

He rolled the page

Went onstage

And used it as a plume.

Ghs

There once was a twit from Salt Lake City

Whose conversational skills were shitty

He’d hurl epithets

In each line of text

Diagnosis: illiterate Tourette’s.

Here’s a last line variant, to make it more like a proper Limerick:

That he’s not witty is such a pity.

Or,

When he misreads Hume, it's never pretty.

Can't believe I just spent 15 minutes on that.

Edited October 22, 2010 by Ninth Doctor

[Brant Gaede]

A persistent doom,

Over this thread does loom,

Because SJW assumes,

Certain facts about Hume.

On one fine day

Shayne did say

"I've read a page by Hume!"

He rolled the page

Went onstage

And used it as a plume.

Ghs

There once was a twit from Salt Lake City

Whose conversational skills were shitty

He’d hurl epithets

In each line of text

Diagnosis: illiterate Tourette’s.

Here’s a last line variant, to make it more like a proper Limerick:

That he’s not witty is such a pity.

Or,

When he misreads Hume, it's never pretty.

Can't believe I just spent 15 minutes on that.

Unfortunately, you did.

Don't give up your day job.

--Brant

give the guy a break

[sjw]

give the guy a break

You'll never be quite at home with the filthy, gutter nastiness that often rears its head at OL will you? I respect your humanity if not your judgement earlier in this thread.

You should re-read what went on here and forget the fact that George is an Authority Figure. You're holding him and me to different standards, just as he holds himself to a different standard, just as, ironically enough, Leonard Peikoff does. You will notice that my only "sin" in this thread was to act as if the virtue of independence means anything, to expect that George and I should be equal before the laws of rational discussion.

George and Peikoff are happy when they can lord over you and you cower in their presumed greatness, but if you dare question them on anything, then "OUT!" is what you hear, and they expect you to bow your head in shame and walk out the door. I may yet do so out of boredom -- this authority mongering gets tedious.

"...Ayn Rand and other heresies" indeed. How laughably ironic.

Shayne

[Brant Gaede]

give the guy a break

You'll never be quite at home with the filthy, gutter nastiness that often rears its head at OL will you? I respect your humanity if not your judgement earlier in this thread.

You should re-read what went on here and forget the fact that George is an Authority Figure. You're holding him and me to different standards, just as he holds himself to a different standard, just as, ironically enough, Leonard Peikoff does. You will notice that my only "sin" in this thread was to act as if the virtue of independence means anything, to expect that George and I should be equal before the laws of rational discussion.

George and Peikoff are happy when they can lord over you and you cower in their presumed greatness, but if you dare question them on anything, then "OUT!" is what you hear, and they expect you to bow your head in shame and walk out the door. I may yet do so out of boredom -- this authority mongering gets tedious.

"...Ayn Rand and other heresies" indeed. How laughably ironic.

Shayne

In justice I will review this theread and answer you tomorrow when i'm sober. I jusrt unignored you and found this stuff.

--Brant

can't keep away, but I'm getting there

[PDS]

Shayne: let me make another attempt to get us back to the topic of your post.

I found this comment in a Noodlefood thread, by Mindy Newton, interesting and thoughtful:

"In the induction book, the case for "first-level inductions" is being made based on the supposed particulars of how children arrive at--"first-level inductions." There is a world of difference between using an example--a fictional example, in fact, to help the reader imagine the concrete process that has been laid out and supported on independent gounds, and creating a fictional account and then using it to "prove" that a certain process takes place."

http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2010/10/open-thread-on-induction.html#disqus_thread

Your thoughts? George, your thoughts?

[George H. Smith]

Shayne: let me make another attempt to get us back to the topic of your post.

I found this comment in a Noodlefood thread, by Mindy Newton, interesting and thoughtful:

"In the induction book, the case for "first-level inductions" is being made based on the supposed particulars of how children arrive at--"first-level inductions." There is a world of difference between using an example--a fictional example, in fact, to help the reader imagine the concrete process that has been laid out and supported on independent gounds, and creating a fictional account and then using it to "prove" that a certain process takes place."

http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2010/10/open-thread-on-induction.html#disqus_thread

Your thoughts? George, your thoughts?

I addressed this issue earlier on this thread here.

Ghs

[PDS]

Shayne: let me make another attempt to get us back to the topic of your post.

I found this comment in a Noodlefood thread, by Mindy Newton, interesting and thoughtful:

"In the induction book, the case for "first-level inductions" is being made based on the supposed particulars of how children arrive at--"first-level inductions." There is a world of difference between using an example--a fictional example, in fact, to help the reader imagine the concrete process that has been laid out and supported on independent gounds, and creating a fictional account and then using it to "prove" that a certain process takes place."

http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2010/10/open-thread-on-induction.html#disqus_thread

Your thoughts? George, your thoughts?

I addressed this issue earlier on this thread here.

Ghs

I was thinking more of Ms. Newton's comment about the use/overuse of an "example" to prove one's case. Perhaps I missing something, but I have not seen this particular argument (which obviously also applies to IOE) put in quite that way. She would almost seem to be arguing that such reasoning is the equivalent of "anecdotal evidence", and thus subject (my conclusion, not hers) to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

[Rich Engle]

Accusing George of acting like Peikoff on LSD . . . Truly, a cruel thrust: we know what that ends up looking like. The last time he did it the tabloids captured the terrifying shot--LP hunkered down at the Sky Bar, trying in vain to slow it down with tumbler after tumbler of Chartreuse, and a baggie full of poppers. Not a pretty sight, friends, not pretty . . . George would hold up better, and have enough sense to stay out of the spotlight until the trails backed off.

rde

Edited October 22, 2010 by Rich Engle

[George H. Smith]

Shayne: let me make another attempt to get us back to the topic of your post.

I found this comment in a Noodlefood thread, by Mindy Newton, interesting and thoughtful:

"In the induction book, the case for "first-level inductions" is being made based on the supposed particulars of how children arrive at--"first-level inductions." There is a world of difference between using an example--a fictional example, in fact, to help the reader imagine the concrete process that has been laid out and supported on independent gounds, and creating a fictional account and then using it to "prove" that a certain process takes place."

http://blog.dianahsieh.com/2010/10/open-thread-on-induction.html#disqus_thread

Your thoughts? George, your thoughts?

I addressed this issue earlier on this thread here.

Ghs

I was thinking more of Ms. Newton's comment about the use/overuse of an "example" to prove one's case. Perhaps I missing something, but I have not seen this particular argument (which obviously also applies to IOE) put in quite that way. She would almost seem to be arguing that such reasoning is the equivalent of "anecdotal evidence", and thus subject (my conclusion, not hers) to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

I have never taken such examples to be anything more than what Max Weber called "ideal types." For example, John Locke and Herbert Spencer, both of whom wrote books on education, sometimes gave questionable examples of developmental psychology in the realm of concept formation, but the truth or falsehood of their philosophical accounts did not depend on the accuracy of such observations.

Another philosopher who comes to mind is Condillac, a major figure in the French Enlightenment. In his Treatise on Sensations (1754), Condillac explains the relationship between sensations and ideas by positing a marble statue with the internal constitution of a human being. This statue, which is utterly devoid of ideas, possesses the traditional five senses, but all of them are closed. Then, by opening the senses one at a time, Condillac speculates on how each sense would alter the statue's knowledge of the external world. Here is an account from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

In the Treatise Condillac focused just on our pre-linguistic cognitive abilities, which he came to think he might have underestimated when he wrote the Essay. He retracted his earlier claim that perception is a transparent process and accepted both that it involves unconscious inference from what is given in sensation and that sensation itself may contain more than it is at first perceived to contain. He also retracted his earlier claim that depth is immediately perceived by vision. To support these revised opinions, he proposed a famous thought experiment. He asked his readers to consider an originally inanimate and insentient human being (Condillac spoke of a being that is just a “statue” of a human being) and to consider what this being could come to know were it to acquire each of the senses in isolation from the others, or each in combination with just one or two others. In proposing this question Condillac was asking a more radical version of the question Molyneux had posed to Locke: would a person born blind and made to see perceive spatial features well enough upon first sight to be able to identify cubes and spheres without touching them? Condillac was asking what a person endowed with just a sense of smell would think upon acquiring the power of hearing, or what a person endowed with vision would know if unaffected by hunger, incapable of motion, and unaware of any tactile sensation. His answer to these questions sought not just to explain how this person would acquire ideas of space and of external objects, but to prove that nothing more would be needed for it to acquire all the knowledge and all of the abilities that we have other than just to experience a sufficiently rich array of sensations.

Empiricists, having rejected innate and a priori ideas, needed to show how all of our ideas can be derived from experience. Some, such as Condillac, gave explicitly hypothetical examples, whereas others, such as Locke, presented their own theories of cognitive psychology. In no case was it necessary to show how a given idea actually does, in each and every case, arise from experience in exactly the same way. It was only necessary to explain how a given idea could have arisen from experience. The exact psychological sequence, as we see in Condillac's statue, was relatively unimportant. I view Rand's examples in the same way.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

PDS:

The following passage, though it discusses Locke, is relevant to our discussion of Rand (and Peikoff). It is endnote #10 from "The Career of Reason" (Chapter 7 of Why Atheism?)

This is my take on the issue. I am not saying that this is how Rand would have explained it:

Locke’s approach, which was to decompose complex ideas into simple ideas and then trace the latter to their origin in experience (either sensation or reflection), has been called the psycho-genetic method (or, more simply, the genetic method) because of its stress on the psychological genesis, or origin, of ideas. This “plain, historical method” (as Locke called it) was widely criticized by later philosophers (especially post-Kantians) as an illicit mixture of epistemology and psychology. The origin of an idea, we are told, is an issue distinct from the validity or truth-value of that idea; and Locke’s genetic method, we are further told, fails to take this crucial distinction into account. But I think this criticism is a bit unfair to Locke, who nowhere (that I know of) expressly articulates the view commonly attributed to him. And I also think that philosophers who accept this criticism tend to do so either because they rely more on secondary accounts than the original text, or because they read the text with preconceptions of what they expect to find, thereby fastening upon any passage that that seems to support their preconceptions and glossing over any that may contradict it. In any case, the common complaint that philosophers before Kant failed to grasp the difference between epistemology and psychology – between the justification of a belief and its origin in sense experience – is an egregious and pretentious assumption that, if true, would mean that Locke and other empiricists were ignorant of a basic distinction that is taught in first-semester courses on logic. My interpretation of Locke (which is admittedly a sympathetic one) may be summarized as follows: The genetic method is primarily a method of conceptual analysis and clarification, a means whereby we can make our ideas clear by giving to them fixed and determinate meanings. Thus any complex idea that cannot be broken into its constituent parts and ultimately traced to experience is bound to be unclear or, at worst, incoherent. Thus, according to this view, Locke’s genetic method was concerned first and foremost with meaning -- and this is related to justification inasmuch as the meaning of a proposition must be made clear before we can know what kind of evidence would be relevant to establishing its truth.

Ghs

[PDS]

PDS:

The following passage, though it discusses Locke, is relevant to our discussion of Rand (and Peikoff). It is endnote #10 from "The Career of Reason" (Chapter 7 of Why Atheism?)

This is my take on the issue. I am not saying that this is how Rand would have explained it:

Locke’s approach, which was to decompose complex ideas into simple ideas and then trace the latter to their origin in experience (either sensation or reflection), has been called the psycho-genetic method (or, more simply, the genetic method) because of its stress on the psychological genesis, or origin, of ideas. This “plain, historical method” (as Locke called it) was widely criticized by later philosophers (especially post-Kantians) as an illicit mixture of epistemology and psychology. The origin of an idea, we are told, is an issue distinct from the validity or truth-value of that idea; and Locke’s genetic method, we are further told, fails to take this crucial distinction into account. But I think this criticism is a bit unfair to Locke, who nowhere (that I know of) expressly articulates the view commonly attributed to him. And I also think that philosophers who accept this criticism tend to do so either because they rely more on secondary accounts than the original text, or because they read the text with preconceptions of what they expect to find, thereby fastening upon any passage that that seems to support their preconceptions and glossing over any that may contradict it. In any case, the common complaint that philosophers before Kant failed to grasp the difference between epistemology and psychology – between the justification of a belief and its origin in sense experience – is an egregious and pretentious assumption that, if true, would mean that Locke and other empiricists were ignorant of a basic distinction that is taught in first-semester courses on logic. My interpretation of Locke (which is admittedly a sympathetic one) may be summarized as follows: The genetic method is primarily a method of conceptual analysis and clarification, a means whereby we can make our ideas clear by giving to them fixed and determinate meanings. Thus any complex idea that cannot be broken into its constituent parts and ultimately traced to experience is bound to be unclear or, at worst, incoherent. Thus, according to this view, Locke’s genetic method was concerned first and foremost with meaning -- and this is related to justification inasmuch as the meaning of a proposition must be made clear before we can know what kind of evidence would be relevant to establishing its truth.

Ghs

George: very interesting. I shall absorb again and then chew before attempting to comment.

Side note: also interesting is McCaskey's comment in the Noodlefood thread I referenced above. fyi. PDS

[sjw]

I was thinking more of Ms. Newton's comment about the use/overuse of an "example" to prove one's case. Perhaps I missing something, but I have not seen this particular argument (which obviously also applies to IOE) put in quite that way. She would almost seem to be arguing that such reasoning is the equivalent of "anecdotal evidence", and thus subject (my conclusion, not hers) to the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

Mindy Newton is not talking about "over" and "under" use of examples. She is talking about differences in kind not degree. And she is applauding Rand's use of examples while questioning Harriman's. In her words (my emphasis):

Giving simplified examples of how a process that is defined and specified on philosophical grounds works is one thing. In such a case one uses the example of a child so as to exclude an adult's knowledge on the subject. That is what Rand does in ITOE.

In the induction book, the case for "first-level inductions" is being made based on the supposed particulars of how children arrive at--"first-level inductions." There is a world of difference between using an example--a fictional example, in fact, to help the reader imagine the concrete process that has been laid out and supported on independent gounds, and creating a fictional account and then using it to "prove" that a certain process takes place.

Use of the word "supposed" and a quoted "prove" I take to be an expression of contempt, particularly given the emotionally-neutered environment Mindy is writing for, whereas Mindy quite approves of what Rand has done.

Mindy is seeing a different problem with the same example I did, but her perspective and mine are united by the same root issue: Harriman is engaged in argument from authority. This is why she says "supposed" and quotes "prove" -- because she thinks he merely gave an appearance having proved anything. My issue with Harriman's example is essentially the same thing, but deeper: even if that were how a child thought (Mindy merely takes it to be "supposed"), it wouldn't be good enough for the reasons I said in my first post above.

Mindy also offers insights regarding how Rand used an example of children. According to Mindy (haven't read ITOE lately so I will defer to her), Rand didn't employ that kind of example because we need to consult children, she did it to isolate a fundamental issue that would have been made needlessly complicated by consulting an adult context. Rand still could have consulted the adult context to get her point across, but it would have taken more effort, and needlessly so since Rand had, according to Mindy, already "laid out and supported on independent grounds" her position.

Mindy correctly points out that this valid procedure is wholly different from Harriman's procedure, who uses an example not to remind and underscore for the reader what Harriman had already done, but to fraudulently give the appearance of having done so. Which leaves the reader in the state of never really knowing what a first-level generalization is, even while some readers are quite capable of fooling themselves into thinking that they do. First-level generalizations are the base of the whole book, and without a justification of them, there is no justification for the book. It is a fraud.

Shayne

[PDS]

"[The book] is a fraud."

Isn't this rather unnecessary? Come on now.

[sjw]

"[The book] is a fraud."

Isn't this rather unnecessary? Come on now.

You forgot the challenge contained in the accusation: Show how Harriman actually did justify his notion of first-level generalizations.

Shayne

[sjw]

"[The book] is a fraud."

Isn't this rather unnecessary? Come on now.

You forgot the challenge contained in the accusation: Show how Harriman actually did justify his notion of first-level generalizations.

Shayne

When I was in college, I had an engineering professor who some liked to call "Idi Amin" because he was such a strict professor. I happened to be his TA. I remember one time I was correcting homework, and noted that 3 assignments, all next to one another in the pile, were exact copies, just in different handwriting. So I wrote a little message on them. I forget what exactly, maybe something about how if they were going to cheat they should at least give the appearance of not having done so. Anyway, "Idi" gets a complaint, and he calls me into his office, and tells me "You're a mean TA." I was rather surprised at his lapse in standards. ;)

Shayne