At 13:41 14/10/97 -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
>Ajit Sinha writes: >>As anyone could see in Jim's response, he fumbled almost
>every second line. <<
>
>Ajit tells us that _all_ statements of truth are arbitrary (i.e., "coming
>about seemingly at random or by chance or as as a capricious and unreasonable
>act of will" according to my dictionary). Thus, the above statement from Ajit
>should be ignored, since I am sure that he does not exempt himself from his
>own general rules. It's just capricious or unreasonable. (Or maybe it's
simply
>false, since Ajit would avoid arbitrariness.)
_______________
Since when we have started to settle philosophical debates by dictionaries?
As a matter of fact, I, on your asking, gave you what I meant my arbitrary,
so your statement starting with "Thus..." really makes no sense.
_____
>
>Nonetheless, let's humor him.
________
Oh, how kind of you! The only problem is that in your attempt to patronize
me, you have draged the whole of pen-l with you. I'm sure there are many
pen-lers who would not like to have a patronizing relationship with me. So
please leave them alone and stick to yourself--stand on your own feet so to
speak.
_____
>
>I had written: >>I assume that reality exists independent of my perception of
>it, even if I perceive it incorrectly and incompletely.<<
>
>Ajit answers: >And you also believe that your "assumption" should be accepted
>by all human beings on this planet? So I ask the age old question: where is
>the beef?<
>
>The latter question is meaningless, so let's focus on the former: since when
>is the consensus of all human beings the only criterion for truth or anything
>else? Even majority rule is bogus in deciding matters of truth, though
>sometimes we're forced to rely on it (as with juries in US criminal cases).
_______________
Are you saying that to ask you to come up with some substance in your
argument is meaningless? May be so. Who is talking about consensus of all
human beings here? Your criterion of truth is YOUR assumption, the
assumption you say must be made by any one who wants to make sense, i.e.
say something that is not babbling. Don't you think that if you are going
to propose a universal criterion for making sense, then it should be
something more than your "assumption"?
_______
>I was "assuming" that reality exists independent of my experience of it not
>because it's _popular_ but because it's the only way of dealing with the
world
>that makes any sense.
__________
Then aren't you saying that everyone must accept your assumption, if that
person does not claim him/herself to be mad or interested in simple babbling?
____
>
>>>This is only an unprovable _assumption_, since you might be a product of my
>fevered imagination. <<
>
>>If you could prove it, then why the hell you assumed it? Where is the logic
>...? You and Doug Henwood are implying that I'm 'irrational' ..., but I find
>that I'm able to hold to your tenet of 'reason' more faithfully then you
can.<
>
>I never said that I could _prove_ it.
______________
You said it was ONLY an unprovable assumption, since I might be a product
of your fevered imagination. Let's suppose I'm not a product of your
fevered imagination or let's suppose I'm dead and no longer exist. Now,
could you prove your assumption on this supposition?
_______
>
>I am glad that you believe in what I think of as "the realist postulate" (if
>indeed that's what you're agreeing to). If you don't explicitly _assume_ it
>(as I do), then it must be an unthinking act of faith. (Or is there some
third
>alternative I don't know about?)
____________
I have no idea what I'm supposed to be agreeing to here or what this third
alternative is about.
_____
>
>The difference between an assumption and a tenet of faith, IMHO, is that the
>former is a necessary evil while the latter is something one glories in as
>part of some religion. I reject the latter.
___________
What "necessary evil" or "tenet of faith" has got to do with establishing
the truth of 'objective truth'?
______
>
>BTW, how can you "hold" to the "tenet" of "reason" if it is arbitrary, as you
>asserted before?
_________
Don't you think that the rules of chess are arbitrary? Or for that matter
any sports. But we all can play those games because we accept those
arbitrary rules. When I play chess, I don't accept the rules because I
think they are the objective truths. Do you? This question of your is
indicative of the fact that you really don't know what is at issue here.
Your patronizing attitude notwithstanding.
__________
>
>I continued: >>But it's an assumption which we have to make if we want
>anything to make sense.<<
_________
How many times we have already come across this assertion of yours? Do you
have any argument to defend this assertion?
_____
>
>>Is it because you said so, or you got some arguments for it?<
>
>No, there's no reason to assume that what I say is true, just as there's no
>reason to assume that what you say is true.
>
>But consider the alternative, the assumption that there is absolutely nothing
>behind empirical appearances. (I can't think of any other alternatives to
>external reality existing or not existing.) Under the alternative assumption,
>eventually thought becomes impossible.
____________
Again the same assertion without any argument. "Thought becomes
impossible". Why?
Why does 'objective truth' hide "behind" empirical appearances? Is it the
nature of 'truth' to be shy? Why can't it just stand out in open?
____
>
>>>Given that assumption, a greater _approach_ to the truth would involve
>having a subjective picture of that reality that fits the objective reality
>more accurately and completely.<<
>
>>But, according to yourself, since you do not know the 'objective reality',
>how would you know that your "subjective picture" of that unknown "reality"
>fits that reality better or worse?<
>
>I already answered that question. It involves the usual toolkit of serious
>social scientists that Ajit already knows. Also, see below.
____________
What kind of cop out is this? A philosophical question is settled by this
mesterious took kit of "serious" social scientist? Particularly when the
question or the problem is not of social science in particular to begin with.
______
>
>>>As I said, there is no absolute truth that we can know. We can only
approach
>it, attain relative truth. <<
>
>>... If you cannot know the absolute truth, then how do you know you are
>approaching it? You could be going in absolutely wrong direction. So how do
>you know?<
>
>Good question. But I never said it was _easy_; it involves work. In fact,
as I
>said before, it's quite possible to get closer to the truth according to one
>criterion (e.g., logical consistency) while going further on according to
>another (e.g., consistency with empirical data). Given the complication of
>serious issues in social science, it's much easier to tell when you're moving
>away from understanding what's really going on than to tell when you're
moving
>toward it. (That's why it's always easier to criticize than to actually
>contribute something to our understanding.)
____________
Good question, sure! But unfortunately pretty bad answer. Or basically no
answer.
______
>
>I follow Popper a little, but not all the way.
__________
That's your basic problem. You follow itse bitse bits of a thousand
philosophers and create your mumbo-zumbo philosophy par excellance.
_____
The possibility of
>falsification is crucial;
________
Crucial for what?
_____
any vision of the empirical world that can't be
>falsified should be seen as an assumption, the number of which should be
>minimized.
__________
What this got to do with establishing the truth of 'objective truth'?
______
>
>We should either make our propositions explicit as assumptions or try to test
>them (by dealing with new questions, different cases, etc.) If a proposition
>doesn't fit perceived reality, that suggests that something is wrong. If a
>theory is logically inconsistent, something is wrong. If the perceptions of
>external reality and the logical theory don't mesh very well (e.g., involves
>the forcing of data to fit the theory) then it's methodologically suspect. If
>the theory doesn't work in practice (as a guide to policy or political
action)
>something is wrong.
___________________
I thought you were going to establish the existence of 'objective truth'
and establish the fact that without 'objective truth' any communication
would be meaningless. What this pedestrian account of economic theory and
econometrics has got to do with our question. You don't seem to be serious,
Jim. And you want to announce to the whole world that I must, by your
Webester's definition, babbling.
______
>
>Avoiding mistakes is a major criterion for nearing truth. "Hard" sciences are
>much better at it than the social sciences. That's because our subject matter
>is harder, involving much greater possibility for ideology, etc. (Even
>physics, of course, has to deal with quantum mechanics, where things become
>very hard.)
>
>>>... I for one embrace agnosticism (as opposed to religion ...) In fact, I
>think agnosticism -- skepticism -- is the only _scientific_ attitude.<<
>
>> Which you have shown an incredible lack of, as a matter of fact. You have
>shown absolutely no skepticism about your own BELIEF in truth, eventhough
>you keep saying that you can never know it.<
>
>In earlier missives and above, I explicitly noted that it was _an assumption_
>rather than a "belief." Evelyn Woods has failed you.
__________
But the logic has failed you. Your assumption that 'objective truth' exists
is nothing but your belief that it exists.
______
>
>>> We _don't_ know the objective truth. All we really have is "working
>hypotheses" which can be rejected when better working hypotheses come along.
>But the fact that there may be better working hypotheses indicates the
>importance of _relative truth_ and of truth criteria in the first place.<<
>
>>You seem to be talking Karl Popper here. Popper had a theory of
>verisimilitude, on the basis of which he thought theories could be ranked.
But
>under attack, Popper had to accept that his theory of verisimilitude was
>inconsistent with his theory of hypothesis and refutation. So Popper, who you
>are trying time and time again to bring in for help, would not be much of
help
>here. <
>
>I agree with Popper on one thing: I think that appeal to authority is a BS
>way of arguing. I really don't care about what he said, even if what I say is
>similar in some ways (because it is dissimilar in others). (This is
especially
>since I am far from being a serious scholar of Popper's stuff.)
>
>What I said should stand on its own (de)merits. That Pooper made a mistake
>with X does not imply that I am wrong with Y. (And it seems not worth
anyone's
>time to have Ajit prove the identity of X and Y.)
__________
And it simply does not stand. To say that one theory is closer than the
other to 'objective truth' you need a scale to measure them. Did you make a
scale? No. You thought Popper had probably done it. Sure he tried but
failed. Now, it's your turn.
_____
>
>Ajit, why is Popper's inconsistency relevant anyway? After all, according to
>you, all truth is arbitrary. So why not go with inconsistency? Just do it!
__________
I just explained the relevancy of Popper above. When did I say "go with
inconsistency"? I'm basically asking for consistency all the time. My claim
is that your claim to 'objective truth' is inconsistent within its own
logic of critical thinking. Not only that you haven't been able to refute
my claim but you have made a much greater claim that without 'objective
truth' every utterance becomes meaningless. And you have made a total mess
of your own claim.
The more and more I think about it, the more and more this claim that
'everything would be meaningless without the criterion of 'objective truth'
or thought becomes impossible without it' sounds absurd. What Jim is
asserting boils down to the statement that all forms of human communication
accept empirical science are meaningless. I wonder what 'objective truth'
lies behind Jackson Pollock's, Gorkey's, or for that matter any great
painters paintings. What is the criterion of 'objective truth' on the basis
of which poems, novels, short stories, abstract paintings, etc. are
evaluated? Where is 'objective truth' in music? Does Wagner make 'sense'?
Or is it senseless? And why just talk about art. Jim's criterion would
render most of the philosophical discourses meaningless as well. To get
back to where the whole thing started from, Kant's discourse on morality
should be declared meaningless babbling according to Jim Devine's
criterion. The categorical imparative or the moral imarative of Kant does
not rest on any 'objective truth' out there. So, in the end I would advise
Jim to humor himself a bit for a change. Cheers, ajit sinha
