Dear colleagues (Dean especially), On Mon, Aug 13, 2007 at 03:47:30PM -0400, Dean Anderson wrote:
> There is no waste. Those efforts culminated in my draft, and your draft. > If it weren't for those discussions, I wouldn't have written my draft. [. . .] I don't want to spend too much more time on this thread, because I think it will probably not do anything more than re-hash previous arguments. This will be my last post in this thread. As previously in this thread, I want to emphasise that I am discussing my personal views, and not my views as editor of any document. I have read Dean's comments, and I believe they reveal that Dean and I have fundamentally different ideas about reasoning and knowlege. My view is that there are vast areas of human experience in which knowledge is not well-defined as "justified true belief". I believe that I am in the mainstream of contemporary epistemology in this view. And this view is what underpins my critique of the proposed -anderson- draft: I think it too often dresses up as certain truth propositions about which competent practitioners of the art sometimes disagree. I think that competent practitioners can disagree, and that a document that purports to offer advice about current practices should outline how those disagreements might have practical effects. I believe there is a current working group document on reverse mapping that offers exactly such an outline. I do, however, have to take special issue with one claim Dean Anderson makes, because it's a particularly pernicious form of scientism, and one that I think must not be left unchallenged. > Actually, assertions about scientific and judicial reasoning are exactly > what make up a valid argument. A valid argument is merely an argument whose premises, if true, would entail the conclusion. The validity of an argument is classically entirely unrelated to the truth of its premises or conclusion. For instance: P1. If you gerwuffle, then you blort. P2. But you do not blort C. Therefore, you do not gerwuffle. is a valid argument (on the grounds that it denies the consequent -- often called _modus tollens_). I have no idea whether the conclusion or any premise is true, because I don't know what "gerwuffle" and "blort" mean. But I am sure the argument is nevertheless valid. I also note that the argument has nothing to do with scientific or juducial reasoning. I'll also observe in passing that the issue of RFC 2119 words in any document on this topic is, I suspect, a matter of taste and current practice. I think they don't belong in BCPs, except very rarely. That there are BCPs that happen to include such language is therefore irrelevant. I don't think they are used appropriately in the -anderson- draft, but I also think that's a meta-discussion that perhaps needs to be taken up with the author of draft-peterson-informational-normativity-00. Best regards, Andrew -- Andrew Sullivan 204-4141 Yonge Street Afilias Canada Toronto, Ontario Canada <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> M2P 2A8 jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] +1 416 646 3304 x4110 _______________________________________________ DNSOP mailing list DNSOP@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dnsop
