L&FP, 67: So-called “critical rationalism” and the blunder of denying [defeat-able] warrant for knowledge

_{kairosfocus
March 25, 2023

Academic Freedom, Agitprop, knowledge, Logic and Reason

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IEP summarises:

“Critical Rationalism” is the name Karl Popper (1902-1994) gave to a modest and self-critical rationalism. He contrasted this view with “uncritical or comprehensive rationalism,” the received justificationist view that only what can be proved by reason and/or experience should be accepted. Popper argued that comprehensive rationalism cannot explain how proof is possible and that it leads to inconsistencies. Critical rationalism today is the project of extending Popper’s approach to all areas of thought and action. In each field the central task of critical rationalism is to replace allegedly justificatory methods with critical ones.

A common summary of this is that it replaces knowledge as justified, true belief, with “knowledge is unjustified untrue unbelief.” That is, we see here the ill advised privileging of hyperskepticism.

The quick answer is to update our understanding, based on how well informed people of common good sense generally use “knowledge.” Knowledge is a term of the people, not some abstruse, rarefied, dubious philosophical notion. And it is a term that is sound,

Namely, and following Plantinga, Gettier and others, knowledge is warranted, credibly true [and reliable] belief, i.e. it includes strong form cases where what is known is absolutely certain, AND a wider, weaker sense where what we claim to know is tested and found reliable, but is open to correction for cause. Newtonian dynamics counted as knowledge before the rise of modern physics and with modification to recognise limitations it still counts as knowledge. This is a paradigm case.

But doesn’t that come down to the same thing as critical rationalism and its focus on what is hard to criticise as what counts for now as “knowledge”?

Not at all.

First, the confident but open to correction spirit of warrant and tested reliability is utterly different from the cramped, distorted thought that naturally flows from the blunder of privileging selective or even global hyperskepticism.
Second, inference to the best explanation and wider observational, inductive approaches — the vast majority of common, day to day knowledge and professional practice — is not put under the chilling effect of dismissive, undue suspicion.
Third, knowledge is accepted as a commonplace phenomenon, not a privilege of the elite few, undermining the subtext of contempt that reeks out of far too much of skeptical discussion.

And if you imagine these considerations are of little weight, that is because you are part of the problem. END

Comments

We the little people know nothing, we do not even know that the sun will come up tomorrow.
This is also addressed above, in regards to Hawthorns. But, to address this directly, It’s our explanations of how the world works that indicates what we will experience. For example, if our long chain of independently obtained explanations for how our sun works indicated it would suddenly grow cold and collapse when its fuel supply is exhausted and that will occur in roughly 4.6 billon billion years after it was formed, we wouldn’t expect the sun to rise tomorrow despite having experienced it rising every day for the entirety of human existence. Right? We explain the sun’s surface via its core, which we cannot actually observe. In reality, we think the sun’s core burns hydrogen, and has enough fuel to last last another 5.4 billions years. At which time, it will exit its main sequence and become a red giant, rather than explode in a supernova. The idea that the sun will rise tomorrow is base on our theories about how stars work etc., in reality, not what experiences we will have over and over again. Furthermore, the very idea that something has been repeated is not a sensory experience. Theory aways comes first. For example, theories of optics and geometry tell us not to experience seeing the sun rise on a cloudy day, even if a sunrise is really happening in the unobserved world behind the clouds. Again, we thought this long before we could fly above the clouds, though theory. It’s only though theory that not observing the sun in those cases does not constitute an instance of the sun not rising. And the same can be said if we observe the sun rising in a mirror or on video. It’s those same theories of optics and geometry that tells us we’re not experiencing the sun rise multiple times, that there are not multiple suns, etc. To quote Deutsch...
“First, inductivism purports to explain how science obtains predictions about experiences. But most of our theoretical knowledge simply does not take that form. Scientific explanations are about reality, most of which does not consist of anyone’s experiences. Astrophysics is not primarily about us (what we shall see if we look at the sky), but about what stars are: their composition and what makes them shine, and how they formed, and the universal laws of physics under which that happened. Most of that has never been observed: no one has experienced a billion years, or a light year; no one could have been present at the Big Bang; no one will ever touch a law of physics – except in their minds, through theory. All our predictions of how things will look are deduced from such explanations of how things are. So inductivism fails even to address how we can know about stars and the universe, as distinct from just dots in the sky.”
critical rationalist_{March 27, 2023
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You mean the... "a lot of stuff on Hume’s position on induction, not Popper’s", mentioned above? Popper's solution to the problem of indiction is not Hume's solution. Get back to me when you've read the referenced article.critical rationalist_{March 27, 2023
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Dykes quoting Popper on Hume
According to Popper, Hume had shown that: “there is no argument of reason which permits an inference from one case to another... and I completely agree” [OKN 96]. Elsewhere he referred to induction as “a myth” which had been “exploded” by Hume [UNQ 80]. He further asserted that “every rule of inductive inference ever proposed by anybody would, if anyone were to use it, lead to... frequent practical mistakes.... There is no rule of inductive inference — inference leading to theories or universal laws — ever proposed which can be taken seriously even for a minute” [UNQ 146-7]. In a more detailed presentation, Popper wrote: “Hume tried to show (in my opinion successfully, as far as logic goes).... that any inductive inference — any reasoning from singular and observable cases (and their repeated occurrence) to anything like regularities or laws — must be invalid.... [we] cannot validly reason from the known to the unknown, or from what has been experienced to what has not been experienced.... [No] matter how often the sun has been observed regularly to rise and to set, even the greatest number of observed instances does not constitute... a positive reason for the regularity, or the law, of the sun’s rising and setting. Thus it can neither establish this law nor make it probable...” [RASC 31].
http://nicholasdykes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/philn037.pdf We the little people know nothing, we do not even know that the sun will come up tomorrow.Origenes_{March 27, 2023
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CR, :lemon: Andrewasauber_{March 27, 2023
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It appears you merely looked for references that suited your purpose. Why am I not supprised? From A Refutation of Nicholas Dykes on Karl Popper.
Dykes on Hume, whose anti-induction ideas Popper adopted:

There then follows a lot of stuff on Hume’s position on induction, not Popper’s. Popper had many arguments against induction that Hume didn’t give him and took those arguments more seriously than Hume. Dykes does not address most of the arguments Popper provided.
You seem to have been misled by Dykes. On to the law of identity.....
This argument doesn’t solve the problem at all. The problem of induction as stated by Hume is that our expectations of the future don’t follow from what we have observed in the past. To see why let’s take Dykes’ example of the hawthorn, which he claims will not produce grapes. How does he know it won’t produce grapes? Perhaps some scientist will genetically engineer hawthorns to produce grapes. And even if he doesn’t the fact that it won’t produce grapes doesn’t follow merely from the fact that it hasn’t in the past. To put this in Dykes’ language, if we were to accept that existence implies identity that would not tell us the identity of any specific entity. And indeed characterising the issue as being about the identity of the object in question is a bad way to think about it. Whatever the thing in question is we need an explanation of how it works to say what it will do next and why. And we won’t be able to tell what we can predict about the entity in question without such an account. Why do hawthorn bushes not produce grapes? That has to do with a complicated set of circumstances in its evolutionary past that selected against hawthorns producing relatively large fleshy fruit and refers to lots of things that are not hawthorn bushes, like human beings who did not selectively breed hawthorn bushes to get them to grow grapes. Stating this theory in terms of definitions would make it less clear because the explanation involves tying together many different entities and so the whole explanation would have to be repeated many times in slightly different ways. Note also that Dykes’ approach to creating knowledge amounts to defining terms in the right way: that is, to the idea of methodological essentialism that I criticized in my comments on Section 1.
All observations are theory laden...
It is not true that the fact that our senses are theory-laden implies that we are cut off from objective reality. More broadly the problem is this: all sources of knowledge are flawed in some respects, so how can we ever learn anything? First, knowledge can have implications beyond the problem that it was invented to solve. Our eyes can be used to do things they did not evolve to do like looking at readings on scientific instruments: they are limited by the content of the knowledge instantiated in them not by the problem they originally evolved to solve. Second, what counts is not whether any particular piece of information we get is flawed. Rather, what matters is whether we can correct those flaws. We can do this by comparing different sources and trying to come up with an explanation of the underlying objective reality that explains what all of the sources say. They will not all be flawed in the same way and so we can try to work out which ones are giving us bad information on any particular issue. (See “On the Sources of Knowledge and of Ignorance” Section XIII onward in “Conjectures and Refutations” and Chapter 1 of Objective Knowledge). Dykes never mentions this argument let alone addresses it.
On conjecture not being knowledge....
In this section, Dykes plays a sort of verbal game saying that conjecture is not knowledge because conjecture means “an opinion formed on slight or defective evidence or none: an opinion without proof: a guess.” Popper does think all of our knowledge consists of unproven guesses. Dykes is not satisfied with this but logically it is no different than the problem that all sources of information are flawed and so it does not need a distinct answer from the one given in the previous section.
There is more, but these seem the most relevant.critical rationalist_{March 27, 2023
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@KF
CR, again, the issue is responsible warrant,
Yes. That is the issue. Warrant, credence, etc. Are all ideas we can dispose of. Knowledge is not justified, true belief. - For some a to justified by b, then b must be justified, by some c, which must be justified by some d, etc. - Knowledge is not true because all ideas are incomplete and contain errors to some degree. - Knowledge is not belief because it exists in brains, books and even the genomes of living things. Everyone knows knowledge is justified true belief isn't an argument. Nor is we traditionaly define knowledge as justified true belief, etc.critical rationalist_{March 27, 2023
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Kairosfocus @
... knowledge is a concept that belongs to the people ...
You are onto something profound here. We normal people do not know anything? Do we not know that the thorn will produce red berries? Dykes on Hume, whose anti-induction ideas Popper adopted.
Hume stated, in essence, that since all ideas are derived from experience we cannot have any ideas about future events — which have yet to be experienced. He therefore denied that the past can give us any information about the future. He further denied that there is any necessary connection between cause and effect. We experience only repeated instances, we cannot experience any “power” that actually causes events to take place. Events are entirely “loose and separate.... conjoined but never connected”.42 According to Hume, then, I have no guarantee that the hawthorn in my hedge will not bear grapes this autumn. Or, should I prefer figs, the thistles in a nearby field are just as likely to provide them as my neighbour’s figtree, for aught any one can tell. My expectation that the thorn will produce red berries, and the thistle those purple flowers so loved by my Scottish ancestors, is merely the result of “regular conjunction” which induces a subjective “inference of the understanding”.43 In the gospel of St David, there is no such thing as identity, there is only “custom” or “habit”. However, Hume also wrote: “When any opinion leads to absurdities, it is certainly false.”44 And the idea that one might gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles is surely absurd enough to qualify. And false is what Hume’s opinions most certainly are. Left standing, they lead to what he himself called “the flattest of all contradictions, viz. that it is possible for the same thing both to be and not to be”. 45 The crux of the case against Hume was succinctly stated in 1916 by H.W.B. Joseph in his great work An Introduction to Logic: “A thing, to be at all, must be something, and can only be what it is. To assert a causal connexion between a and x implies that a acts as it does because it is what it is; because, in fact, it is a. So long therefore as it is a, it must act thus; and to assert that it may act otherwise on a subsequent occasion is to assert that what is a is something else than the a which it is declared to be.”46 Hume’s whole argument — eloquent and elaborate though it may be — is, as Joseph implied in his drily precise way, “in flat conflict with the Law of Identity”.47
http://nicholasdykes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/philn037.pdfOrigenes_{March 27, 2023
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KF How about this. Popper has been dead for thirty years and no one is buying his falsification theory any longer. I particularly enjoyed the quote from Dirac…… (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-idea-that-a-scientific-theory-can-be-falsified-is-a-myth/)chuckdarwin_{March 27, 2023
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CR, again, the issue is responsible warrant, recognising that knowledge is a concept that belongs to the people and that it comes in degrees, with a relatively few undeniably true things, a great many others are well warranted but open to correction, especially empirical matters. The privileging of hyperskepticism in our civilisation has led to chaos and should be corrected. KFkairosfocus_{March 27, 2023
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AF, just think of what has already been done to target me (and others who have dared to publicly support ID) over the years, since you chose to get personal: online cyberstalking and slander, on the ground stalking, stalking of relatives at degrees of remove (including minors), attempts to kill employment, going to other sites to attack behind the back and more, even hacking attempts. That speaks volumes and especially so when the balance on merits clearly favours [1] the design inference in general and [2] the observation that it is an evidence backed consensus that the living cell contains string data structure, symbolic, coded algorithmic information. I suggest the ongoing push to pull this thread off focus speaks for itself. Could we now return to substance? KFkairosfocus_{March 27, 2023
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Again, it is a truth easily accessible to anyone. Unlike Pythagoras, or an even more profound truth like cogito ergo sum. I try to take the reader into consideration. So, any reader could find 2+2=4 in error, unlike Pythagoras, or an even more profound truth like cogito ergo sum?
CR, I have no problem with scrutinizing propositions.
I don’t recall suggesting you were incapable of or uncomfortable being a fallibilist. Rather, attempting to think of ways a proposition might be wrong reflects criticism of that proposition. That’s fallibilism. Choosing to call it scrutiny seems to be a matter of semantics and just muddies the waters.
For instance, I do not ascribe to the self-contradictory idea that “all knowledge remains conjectural”
2+2=4, of all things, has been around for thousands of years. So, yet you apparently questioned it at least sometime within the last century.
You do not paraphrase my main criticism of fallibilism, I argue that is based on self-contradictory ideas
Being based on self-contradictory ideas is not a way that fallibilism could be wrong? Huh? Also see #54. Furthermore...
At the time we had no good criticisms of Pythagoras theory. That is, until general relativity. In which case the angles may not always add up to exactly 180 degrees due to the warping of space.
critical rationalist_{March 27, 2023
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CR, at this stage, it is pretty clear that the point in the OP needs to be seriously faced. Once you are willing to acknowledge that knowledge belongs to the people, not an esoteric tiny circle, it will be obvious that a weak sense is valid and that scientific knowledge is on that side. Origenes has underscored some fairly serious concerns about self referential incoherence in several Popper clips. Some, with adjustment can be saved, some are just hopeless. Empirically founded, inductively supported knowledge is rationally defensible, and in particular it is a responsible view to hold that knowledge is warranted, credibly true (so, reliable) belief. Popperian falsificationism, associated critical rationalism and the sometimes seen resort to hyper skepticism fail. KFkairosfocus_{March 27, 2023
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CD, we recognise the tactics, down to now scare quotes. I assume you have done some basic logic so if you are willing you can readily verify the substantial corrections. If not, trying to use scare quotes is itself a further example of the problem, compounded with gaslighting. But then, this is probably just for record, KFkairosfocus_{March 27, 2023
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Andrew at 75, In regards to a few here, I think that's the highest... uh... something. :)relatd_{March 27, 2023
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CD, Thou sayeth: "nastier and repetitive" High praise? Andrewasauber_{March 27, 2023
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CD at 73, "endless entertainment" Yes, well, here, it's a two-way street.relatd_{March 27, 2023
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Asauber/68 Who said anything about not liking it? Why would we leave a website that supplies endless entertainment--for free?chuckdarwin_{March 27, 2023
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Andrew at 71, Yes. Yes we do.relatd_{March 27, 2023
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"Nice try. But, like used car salesman, they have to show up every day to sell their product." Relatd, We need a lemon emoji, so we can invoke Lemon Laws. Andrewasauber_{March 27, 2023
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Andrew at 68, Nice try. But, like used car salesmen, they have to show up every day to sell their product.relatd_{March 27, 2023
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CR @64
So, there was no reason why you picked 2+2=4? Was it random?
Again, it is a truth easily accessible to anyone. Unlike Pythagoras, or an even more profound truth like cogito ergo sum. I try to take the reader into consideration.
This does not conflict with Origenes having [criticized each of the candidate propositions] by “[thinking] of ways or reasons they might have been conceivably false.” IOW, Origenes would be a fine example of a practicing fallibilist. 2+2=4 can be also be conveniently reformulated as 2*2=4. 2+3 cannot. That’s another conceivable way 2+2=4 could be found in error. Right? The very process of attempting to conceive of ways any proposition can be found wrong reflects an example of criticizing them in relation to each other.
CR, I have no problem with scrutinizing propositions. For instance, I do not ascribe to the self-contradictory idea that “all knowledge remains conjectural”; see #47 and #51. That does not make me a fallibilist.
IOW, you seem to be a fine example of a practicing fallibilist, even when it comes to 2+2=4. And, this is the same cases, in regards to fallibilism itself. To paraphrase, “If fallibilism is true, then what of 2+2=4 or Pythagoras?” IOW, Origenes is criticizing fallibilism by proposing ways that fallibilism could be false. This is fallibilism at work.
You do not paraphrase my main criticism of fallibilism, I argue that is based on self-contradictory ideas; see #47 and #51.Origenes_{March 27, 2023
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My advice to those who don't like UD, and still devote a lot time and effort into not liking it: Go away. Andrewasauber_{March 27, 2023
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I’ve never seen KF post in an environment he couldn’t control. He may have done and I’ve missed it but I doubt he would have received the courtesy to which he thinks himself entitled and demands here while dishing out ad homs to critics with gay abandon.
I constantly criticize Kf. I also thank him for some new concepts that I have learned. In the 17 years I have been commenting here, there has been only one anti ID commenter that ever contributed anything positive. I wonder why? What type of person is it that can only contribute nonsense or negativity but nothing constructive.?jerry_{March 27, 2023
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"I’ve only followed this blog for about a year, but even in that short of time, it has gotten noticeably nastier and repetitive" CD, Coincidence? ;) Andrewasauber_{March 27, 2023
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I think you are right–this is the only rodeo in town left for ID
If that were true and it’s not true, what would that make the commenters whose only objective is to mock a dying entity.
2+2=4 can be also be convenient reformulated as 2*2=4. 2+3 cannot. That’s another conceivable way 2+2=4 could be found in error. Right?
Apparently you didn’t get the memo. 2+2 = 4 is a definition. Also multiplication is addition. It is fast addition which is why it’s so useful.jerry_{March 27, 2023
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@Origenes #61
If I had chosen another self-evident truth would you then be asking why I had chosen that particular one?
So, there was no reason why you picked 2+2=4? Was it random?
Why is this question relevant?
You must have missed it in #52
This does not conflict with Origenes having [criticized each of the candidate propositions] by “[thinking] of ways or reasons they might have been conceivably false.” IOW, Origenes would be a fine example of a practicing fallibilist.
Perhaps you can provide some other explanation? How else did you end up with 2+2=4 instead of 2+3=5? off The top of my head, 2+2=4 can be also be conveniently reformulated as 2*2=4. 2+3 cannot. That's another conceivable way 2+2=4 could be found in error. Right? The very process of attempting to conceive of ways any proposition can be found wrong reflects an example of criticizing them in relation to each other. However, I just came up with that off the top of my head. IOW, you seem to be a fine example of a practicing fallibilist, even when it comes to 2+2=4. And, this is the same cases, in regards to fallibilism itself.
To paraphrase, “If fallibilism is true, then what of 2+2=4 or Pythagoras?” IOW, Origenes is criticizing fallibilism by proposing ways that fallibilism could be false. This is fallibilism at work.
critical rationalist_{March 27, 2023
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CD at 62, Gosh...relatd_{March 27, 2023
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AF I think you are right--this is the only rodeo in town left for ID and I think the broncs and bulls are getting tired. I've only followed this blog for about a year, but even in that short of time, it has gotten noticeably nastier and repetitive with a lot of interesting commenters drifting off....chuckdarwin_{March 27, 2023
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CR @60 If I had chosen another self-evident truth would you then be asking why I had chosen that particular one?
But, even then, this is also true in the case of 2+3=5. So, why is 2+3=5 not the shining example you use consistently? If it is equally as a much as shining example, then why don’t you eventually end up selecting it?
Are we descending into psychology now? Why is this question relevant?Origenes_{March 27, 2023
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@Origines See #52.
Because 2+2=4 is conveniently confirmable by observing one’s fingers. In this context, 2+3=5 is a solid alternative.
As opposed to all of the other possible candidates that could not be confirmable by observing one’s fingers? To rephrase, one way that 2+2=4 could be found in error is that you could conveniently count up with your fingers and have it end up with something other than 4. This is in contrast to other candidates could not. Right? But, even then, this is also true in the case of 2+3=5. So, why is 2+3=5 not the shining example you use consistently? If it is equally as a much as shining example, then why don't you eventually end up selecting it? Again It's unclear how this does not reflect you yourself being a fine example of a practicing fallibilist.
It is certainly consistent with how we experience the world.
You being a practicing fallibilist is not inconsistent with how we experience the world. If you think it is, then you seem to be confused about fallibilism.critical rationalist_{March 27, 2023
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