Simon Blackburn, The Big Questions: Philosophy, Quercus, London,2009.
In the chapter What Do We Know? Virtual realities and reliable authorities.
One of the most influential views of our situation as theorists is that of Karl Popper, famous for his deliniation of scientific method as that of bold conjectures, followed by severe testing. The theories that emerge are those that have survived in a kind of Darwinian process that weeds out competing theories. Popper himself had no very satisfactory theory of testing: at some points he seemed to think that it was a conventional matter whether you described a test as having refuted a theory at all. This was a consequence of another aspect of his views, which was that nobody could ever be justified in holding a theory other than provisionally, on hold as it were for yet more testing.The first major problem is this if this is so, then we become equally unjustified in being sure that a test of the appropriate type was performed, had the results reported, or would have been likely to falsify the theory in question in any case. Testing is itself a theory-laden question in any case, requiring all kinds of confidence.
Another major problem is that unless survival in Popper’s Darwinian process is allowed to increase our confidence in theories, then we never seem able to rely on them with the confidence that we do. It is all very well saying that it is a bold unfalsified conjecture that my GPS will tell me where I am. But unless it is a bold conjecture that I can rely on, that give me no reason to spend any money on it.
I do not want it to be a bold conjecture that my flight will life off and answer to the controls. I want it to be a racing certainty [not actually a cetainty at all! RC]. For that we need our confidence to match what happens. That is the gold standard, for knowledge and truth alike.
This also casts a better light on whether a subject like economics is a science. Economics issues plenty of bold, testable predictions about what is going to happen. But so do oracles. From the sidelines the trouble seems to be that they are mostly wrong. pp 46-47
In the chapter Why Do Things Keep On Keeping On? Problems of constancy and chaos.
Our lives are premised on the supposition that the immediate future will indeed resemble the immediate past…Anyone thinking these regularities are about to break in his favour (or his harm) is deluded. Karl Popper was famour for asserting that all science could give us are ‘bold conjectures’ as to what might happen next (see What Do We Know?). But if the right attitude to a bold conjecture falls short of actually believing it, the comparison must be wrong. Our empirical science, our discoveries about the way the world works, give us more than mere hypotheses or mere conjectures. They give us our certainties, the beliefs that our whole lives presuppose. In fact, the philosophical sceptic arguing that we should not place any confidence in these continuities is wasting his breath. Nature forces us to expect things as we do. p. 128.
The problem we have been looking at is a philosophers problem…It does not affect our natural confidence in ongoing order as we conduct our daily lives. But in some contexts, when emotions run high, the inevitable confidence in regularity can falter, and here Popper’s description of us as merely making bold conjectures can do real damage. Consdider that the standard timeline for cosmology and geology, the age of the earth…the evolution of animals, is premised on regularities…But if we say that all of this is, nevertheless, merely bold conjectures we open the way for biblical fundamentalists and creationists to say thier ‘bold conjecture’ that the earth is in fact only six thousand years old is just as good a ‘hypothesis’ as that which science gives us. Careful philosophy of science thus seems to open the door to the most unscientific nonsense, and strips us of any rational weapon with which to counteract the nonsense. pp 130-31.
It’s hard to know what to say to people like this. Popper addressed the issues he complains about.
Confidence? That one is easy. If we have one theory that has survived criticism, and no others, then acting on that theory is the only *rational* way to proceed.
Feelings aren’t so important, but if one really cares he can be more confident the harder he deems it to be to create a new rival to a theory: e.g. he can be more confident in better tested theories. But if one feels this way, he must bear in mind his confidence is not an epistemological argument — he shouldn’t think it means he has justification or something.
As for certainty, it’s ridiculous to respond to an explanation of why certainty is impossible and something we never have (and don’t need) with saying how much one yearns for it, and how rival epistemologies offer it. That’s just missing the point: anything that offers it is *false* (pending a criticism of Popper. And “Well, I want certainty” isn’t a substantive criticism.)
BTW about testing, I think Popper made a mistake by focussing on empirical tests too much. Empiricism is false and ultimately it always comes down to explanation and argument. The appeal of tests is they seem more grounded/certain/non-arbitrary than English arguments, but, again, yearning for certainty/authority/foundations *is a mistake* and it’s not a criticism of argument that it lacks those things.
What Blackburn has not done is give any criticism of CR on its own terms. He just criticizes it for not meeting the standards of the epistemologies it refutes.
Blackburn reveals the real difference between critical rationalists and more traditional philosophers–they do not seek the same ends.
Critical rationalists frequently argue that more traditional philosophers cannot, by their own standards, achieve their ends. Instead, critical rationalists advocate that such ends be rejected and alternatives adopted. Unfortunately, the desire to rid oneself of doubt–the yearning to defer decision-making to some criterion or authority–is oppressively strong. The perennial problems of philosophy remain perennial, because philosophers are unwilling to let go of the chimera of justification. They continue to search for that magic argument which finally delivers them from uncertainty. By arguing that such philosophers cannot, by their own standards, achieve their ends, critical rationalists make little progress. The ends themselves must be undermined, or else more traditional philosophers will merely continue in their previous pursuits.
This kind of discussion is very difficult, since these matters are rarely discussed. Many who are educated in more traditional philosophy often struggle to comprehend that one may even choose an alternative end, because such ends are assumed in every problem, argument, and solution–they are out there, as it were, and anyone who claims to reject them is merely not facing the facts.
Joe Agassi in his book on his difficult relationship with Popper has many examples of gross misrepresentation of Popper by reputable and even esteemed academics. Of course if enough people keep repeating the same errors they become self-perpetuating but that does not explain why so many people got it wrong in the first place.
Clearly the problem as stated by Lee is that the issue of justification is assumed from the go get and the alternative is not allowed a place at the table. Joe Agassi once had a neighour who found that Joe was a philosopher and expressed an interest in some philosophical discussion. He wanted to talk about the justification of beliefs and he flatly refused to accept that their discussion could proceed on a different basis.
In the Critical Cafe we discussed justification and advocated the CR approach over a decade or so and our critics always said that this Popper/Bartley stuff was only a concern for us, not for any other philosophers they knew about.
It is strange the way some people will go to all sorts of places for alternative ideas to the mainstream of analytical philosophy – eastern philosophy, the POMOS, Kuhn, Marxism but the CR alternative has no appeal to them.
25 years ago I stopped having protracted arguments with philosophers because I decided it was a waste of time, but now I have decided to take a stand in some way or other because things like the good parts of Austrian economics and classical liberalism cannot survive in the justificationist climate (metacontext) that is reinforced by most religions and by academic philosphy.
> classical liberalism cannot survive in the justificationist climate
Rafe,
Liberal values started to gain significant ground in like 1700 (earlier? idk), and were making a lot of headway by 1800. But there were no Popperians then. There was no rational challenge to justificationism and empiricism. Even fallibilism was rare. (Godwin was a strong fallibilist, but there was no one else like him who seriously applied fallibilism to political and even educational issues until after liberalism had a lot of sway).
To take another example, as far as I know Mises did not take on board Popperian epistemology prior to adopting liberal and Austrian ideas (or ever). His liberalism book does a great job advocating liberalism without needing sophisticated epistemology. There are plenty of other strong arguments — many roads to the truth.
I do think justificationism is harmful to liberalism. e.g. John Gray gave up on liberalism because he failed in his quest to justify it (plus he didn’t understand its connections with fallibilism and error correction). But I don’t think it’s certain doom.
Best of luck taking a stand, of course! And if you ever want a protracted debate with a Popperian philosopher, I would be happy to oblige.
Yes, points taken, I should have said it cannot thrive, rather than survive.
Still, the emergence of an ethos of tolerance and reason is something of a miracle, against the tendencies of the authoritarian structure of thought and it remains precarious. The tendency is for people to lapse like Gray.
Incidentally he made some very good points in one of his later books, pointing out the need for a core of common principles to permit differences of other kinds to coexist.
He seemed to be adopting the position that I encountered in Wellek on lit crit,
W called it “perspectivism”, looking at things from different points of view. I will post on this when I find the notes that I took.
I don’t agree that a core of common principles is a good idea. It sounds like setting up a foundation to be held uncritically, and then debate on other topics is allowed.