Tal's epistemology (and DCP's)

[Guest]

"Truth includes, but is not limited to, knowledge which corresponds to reality—things as they were, things as they are, and things as they will be". (See Jacob 4:13; D&C 93:24.)" (Can this be reconciled with "absolutely pure and untainted sources of knowledge do not, and cannot, exist. Not, at any rate, here in this fallen world". Doesn't seem like it to me...)

Sure. The quote is just expressing correspondence theory of truth, meaning that truth is that which corresponds to reality. It's probably the most intuitive notion of truth and likely why Elder Maxwell used it. I don't think you are required to adopt this position to be LDS, but that's beside the point here. The latter is just expressing the notion that what one knows is potentially wrong, however remote the possiblity. These two positions aren't mutually inconsistent. I'm not even sure how you've come to think that they are, but however you have managed this, you are wrong. What is inconsistent about believing that what one knows is true if it corresponds to reality and thinking that what one knows is fallible?

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/

[_Ren]

I hope you realize that I am not holding this up as an example af faulty scientific induction but rather as faulty formal logic.

If I didn't before, I do now :)
I'm sure I did in a way, but I think I was also over-eager to apply it to a scientific example. Without remembering that it was a pure logic example.
(This probably underlies quite a bit of misunderstanding on my part generally. This thread has been extremely helpful to me...)

[NorthboundZax]

Hi Tarski

I read your points and I understand them. As you suggest, let's discuss more when I'm done. For now, I suppose I should just say that Mormonism, in addition to a spectrum of faith, does posit the possibility of, to use Hinckley's words, "sure and certain knowledge", and contrary perhaps to our wishes, authoritative LDS sources don't seem to have many, or any, qualms about using those exact words as they are taken to mean in common discourse, or are defined in dictionaries. I think what they are saying is quite clear, and in fact, theirs is a position which most non-religiously inclined people might have a tough time with. After all, it is not as if the clash between religion's claims of true enlightenment and knowledge capital K, and the modern secular mind's tendency to doubt this, is brand new...

Also, by (K) I mean the claim that we know more now than we did 500, or 50,000 years ago. And by "know" and "knowledge", I mean them in as they are used in everyday, sober language (a sense in which, by the way, Popper at times does NOT use it at all - more on that later): a psychological acknowledgement that a certain claim is a fact. For example, "I know that I have just eaten an entire bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I also know that I feel more nauseaous than ever in my life".

I submit that (K) more is known now, than it was in 1507 (hence you reading my words off your computer right now, for example). I therefore further submit that any philosophy which entails or ultimately requires a denial of (K), may be known prima facie to be seriously defective.

Renegade

I know it's almost impossible to believe, but Popper did deny that there was any rational basis for our confidence to grow in theories over time. Many of the quotes I've already posted, in fact, point clearly to that destination. This is why I say that Popper fails to account for knowledge. As you can see, he even denies a rational basis for a calculation of probabilities.

By the way, I feel as though no matter how many quotes I put in, it will still be doubted that Popper could actually mean what the quotes represent. All I can say in response to that is - I know exactly that feeling, since I went through it myself, and that Popper himself takes every pain to clarify that while people cannot believe that he actually thinks the things he says he does, that he actually does. You will see some of that reflected in one of the quotes above. I encourage readers to read Popper's stuff themselves so as to make sure that I am not somehow or other merely interpreting his quotes in misleading fashion. In fact, I think the quotes themselves are very clear. When someone says "inductive reasoning, as a psychological process, does not exist", I don't really know how that could be any clearer.

The Pure Light of Humility's statement that Popper believed in the progress of knowledge, to be accurate, must contain as many qualifiers and word redefinitions as Popper himself requires, which it doesn't, so I think it is misleading. When I get a chance, I will submit for Light's consideration that Popper's thinking on this is sloppy and marred by gross, ad hoc misuse of words, and that in the end, Popper is not just unsuccessful in coming up with a grand "theory of epistemological everything", but actually, can in no way account for the growth of knowledge which he at times claimed to believe in; I will even try to show that in fact his philosophy denies (K). And I think that should be enough to show that in the end, his philosophy of science, for all his protestations of being a "critical rationalist", is inescapably irrationalist.

By the way, I know others probably don't lack a life as much as I do, but I hope that those who might disagree with some of my characterizations will do more than simply announce "on the contrary, Popper believes X!", and then split. I am presenting an abundance of quotes here to justify my characterizations of Popper's positions. I think they should be convincing. Reading the actual text, I think, will be even MORE convincing; so it is difficult, and unenlightening, to just hear someone say, "Popper believed something else" with no corroboration.

Speaking of this habit, Light, I have yet to see even one quote from you justifying your characterization of NY Times columnist David Brooks as a "rabid misogynist". This all seems sort of hit-and-run to me. Can you produce a few quotes to justify your insulting characterization? Even one?

[_Tal Bachman]

By the way, Tarski, no, I have absolutely nothing to say about Ayn Rand.

[_Ren]

Tal,

I certainly don't know how to even try and make any real, practical sense of what Popper said about induction in terms of physcology, animals etc. That just seems - well - all philosophy is wierd to some extent - but - just, wow...

This whole 'increase in knowledge' - well - once you've tried to redefine 'knowledge' as 'conjecture', then I'm pretty much left with no clue as to what is 'really' meant wherever the term 'knowledge' is used. I'm down with the critisism on that front. It's not so much a matter of agreeing or disagreeing as not really being sure what I'm meant to be agreeing or disagreeing with.

So - I can safely say right now that I'm far less confident that I agree with Popper. But what may still be 'right' is whatever I may have 'gleaned' from Popper. Or at least what I 'thought' he was saying (and perhaps honestly suspect he might have meant, at least in some cases - garbled language aside...)

And by "know" and "knowledge", I mean them in as they are used in everyday, sober language (a sense in which, by the way, Popper at times does NOT use it at all - more on that later): a psychological acknowledgement that a certain claim is a fact. For example, "I know that I have just eaten an entire bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, and I also know that I feel more nauseaous than ever in my life".

So can I take this to mean that someone can know that they have 'just eaten an entire bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken' in exactly the same way that a person can know that 2 + 2 = 4?
If you consider that a really daft question, then that's fair enough. And I must admit that the only objection I could possibly have to you answering "Of course it is you numbnut!" may well be the cheapest objection possible - perhaps.
But I'd just like to know - in an effort to understand clearly where you are coming from...

I mean, you've done a good job at denting my impressions of Popper. But I still don't understand what mistake a Newtonist would be making pre-Einstein if they said 'Newtonian gravity is the truth'. Or is my obsession with this circumstance unwarranted for some reason? Did they have an obvious 'blind-spot' for not realising that they didn't believe in 'the truth', that we now avoid? Or is saying that they didn't believe in 'the truth' a misnomer?
Or is it true that:

* Newtonians had no good reason not to think that they knew 'the truth'. (Or at least, the 'full' truth. Is the distinction important?).
* But yet, this doesn't mean that we don't know more now than we did 500 years ago...

...?

Is it just that some things are obvious (like eating KFC), and others aren't? (Like the nature of gravity?)

[_A Light in the Darkness]

"Truth includes, but is not limited to, knowledge which corresponds to reality—things as they were, things as they are, and things as they will be". (See Jacob 4:13; D&C 93:24.)" (Can this be reconciled with "absolutely pure and untainted sources of knowledge do not, and cannot, exist. Not, at any rate, here in this fallen world". Doesn't seem like it to me...)

Sure. The quote is just expressing correspondence theory of truth, meaning that truth is that which corresponds to reality. It's probably the most intuitive notion of truth and likely why Elder Maxwell used it. I don't think you are required to adopt this position to be LDS, but that's beside the point here. The latter is just expressing the notion that what one knows is potentially wrong, however remote the possiblity. These two positions aren't mutually inconsistent. I'm not even sure how you've come to think that they are, but however you have managed this, you are wrong. What is inconsistent about believing that what one knows is true if and only if it corresponds to reality and thinking that what one knows is fallible?

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/

It's also worth noting that correspondence theory is still the most popular and almost everyone is a fallibilist. So perhaps Tal thinks a substantial portion of the world's philosophers are trivially contradicting themselves. Perhaps he should publish a seminal paper on the subject.

[_Tarski]

It's also worth noting that correspondence theory is still the most popular and almost everyone is a fallibilist. So perhaps Tal thinks a substantial portion of the world's philosophers are trivially contradicting themselves. Perhaps he should publish a seminal paper on the subject.

I suggest we come back to this after Tal finishes covering his main points. He is still telling us what he thinks the "gang" got wrong but he hasn't told us enough about his own view.

It's too early for sarcasm so please, everybody, lets not burst the bubble of civility just yet -pleeeez.
But, your right that one must address the tension between the desire to have a fallibilist epistemology and the need to make sense out of genuine knowledge.

[_A Light in the Darkness]

It's also worth noting that correspondence theory is still the most popular and almost everyone is a fallibilist. So perhaps Tal thinks a substantial portion of the world's philosophers are trivially contradicting themselves. Perhaps he should publish a seminal paper on the subject.

I suggest we come back to this after Tal finishes covering his main points. He is still telling us what he think the "gang" got wrong but he hasn't told us enough about his own view.

It's too early for sarcasm so please, everybody, lets not burst the bubble of civility just yet -pleeeez.
But, your right that one must address the tension between the desire to have a fallibilist epistemology and the need to make sense out of genuine knowledge.

Tal has three broad positions his defending here. One is Dr. Peterson denying the possibility of knowledge. Another is fallibilism being inconsistent with Mormon Doctrine. And finally he is arguing that several philosophers are and/or reduce into radical skeptics. The third, ultimately, is meant as a defense of the first. Tal, when he's not tossing out clunky insults, is occilating between defending these different views in his posts. I'm sort of shotgun replying to points here and there. Though, yes, Tal did argue that saying that truth is that which corresponds to reality (actually Elder Maxwell's claim is weaker, but we'll grant that) is not reconcilable with thinking what one thinks is possibly wrong. One way to respond to this is to note that both those positions are held by a large % of relevant philosophers. This strategy is just an attempt to get a person to think through if they've considered what they're saying. Of course, I was sarcastic at the end, but I don't know how you can say there is a bubble of civility when Tal is routinely attempting to insult myself and Dr. Peterson.

[_Tarski]

Of course, I was sarcastic at the end, but I don't know how you can say there is a bubble of civility when Tal is routinely attempting to insult myself and Dr. Peterson.

OK, call it a bubble of relative civility that has been around for a very short while.
I was kinda hoping it would get even more civil.

Still, I want him to finish his main line of reasoning about Hume, proposition (K) and all that.

[_Tal Bachman]

Hi Renegade

I think you have put your finger on a very relevant question here, and that is, what exactly does Popper mean when he uses the words "know" or "knowledge"? For if he, in Clintonesque fashion (who, at best, privately decided that the term "sexual relations" should in no way include "sexual relations undertaken orally"), has come up with his very own personal definition of these words, which does NOT refer to anything like what WE mean when we say, "we know that the heart pumps blood through our system" or "we know that cells are real", then we need to know that in order to evaluate his philosophy, don't we?

There are so many things to say about Popper's thought that I hardly know how to go on, or how to organize my sentences so that they will bring clarity to something which seems clear on the surface, but which I contend is actually extremely muddled. I don't really know how to bring things into manageable, intelligible, or their most convincing, form...

...

Tarski, before I go on, I want to try to explain something about how I approach these sorts of things. You may disagree with this, and if so, I might as well not even continue since it all be for naught, but here goes.

You are a mathematician...so, I hope I am right in saying that "quantity" as a concept would be meaningless unless we contemplated finitude, or if you prefer, exclusion. That is, if we deny that any parcel of anything can be discrete or bounded or exclude something else, then we can have no "parcel of anything", for all would merely all melt together - it would be entirely unquantifiable, and therefore, we could hardly understand it, if at all.

I think words and concepts are like that. For any proposition to be intelligible to us, it must have content; and it can only have content, if it has bounds - dividers (however provisional perhaps for purposes of inquiry) between it and other conceptual parcels, as it were. If, for example, the (just-invented) word "mig" can refer to absolutely anything, then what would this statement mean to us?:

"When migs mig with other migs, migs are often migged".

So, the more sharply we restrict the meaning of mig, or the more we use other words in lieu of mig so as to respect mig's new boundaries, the more meaning - the more content - that sentence will have for us. So, for example:

"When canaries mate with other canaries, baby canaries are often conceived". This obviously tells us something.

An infinity of possible meanings led to the impossibility of intelligibility; but the other extreme is a kind of hyper-reductionism, which would reduce, say, mig to "living creature", then to bird, then to canary, then to German roller canary, then to yellow and brown mottled German roller canary, then to more and more detailed and lengthy descriptions of more and more of the component constituents of the creatures, until the sentence would literally be interminable. We could be talking about molecules and cells and neurons, and even farther down - and this too would produce the impossibility of intelligibility.

So, in order to understand anything about the world, we maintain many hundreds of thousands, I am sure, of conceptual, lexical, etc., boundaries. It might be argued that the boundaries are not inherent in nature, but are only the result of our own projections born of psychological necessity. But if so, it is no matter - without them, the world would be unintelligible to us...it becomes less intelligible the more we depart from a kind of ideal state (though that must always be in dispute) of meaning- or boundary-granting.

For example, if the words knowledge, theory, hypothesis, conjecture, and guess, were all to be granted something like synonymity, I think this would be a blow to our ability to comprehend the world, not a boon to it. And I don't think it would be fair, as I suppose will probably happen on this thread, for someone to label, say, I don't know, ME for example, as being a "fundamentalist", or "naïve", for wishing to preserve, for purposes of understanding the world, certain boundaries around concepts and the words which represent them. I want to make it clear that the reason I would insist on a retention of some boundaries, is that without them, nothing is intelligible, and - literally - anything can be said to be anything. And if anything can be said to be anything, nothing can really be understood, and we are in the same state as madmen.

This kind of "lexical liquefying" is what Popper does, often. By that misuse of language - by his assaults on certain words and concepts in order to make what is really a patently implausible philosophy appear plausible (most of all to himself, no doubt) - he creates the illusion of understanding where he should create the reality of it. I'll try to defend my characterizations next time.

I have to run, I'm taking my wife out.

Talk to you soon,

T.