I thank Ken Hanley for his thoughtful and interesting post. I think we are getting somewhere.
Ken: "I see that I have indeed misunderstood your remarks. However, you still seem to commit a petitio since in reply you insist that what you identify as a fallacy is such when that is part of the issue ...." As I understand it, a petitio principii refers to an invalid argument. I agree that if what I wrote is taken as an argument, it begs the question. But I'm not sure that I made an argument. I thought I was just asserting (without support) that the analogy exemplifies the fallacy. I didn't think an argument was required because I thought (and think) that I had already provided the argument. The fallacy is a fallacy because a premise is missing. I don't see that an analogy can refute this kind of argument. At most, it can make us suspect that there *might be* an error in the argument. Ken: "In the first sentence I was not reading "can't" as a logical "can't" but I gather that is what you intend, that there is an internal inconsistency that entails that what is said cannot be true." Yes, that was my intent. (The sentence in question is "If you claim that something someone said can't be right, you have to show that there is *no* interpretation under which it is right." It was part of my defense of the statement, earlier in my post, that "The people who claim(ed) to prove that Marx committed these errors and such actually just have methodological, philosophical, and other disagreements with him. They have not proven what they claim to prove -- *internal inconsistency*, i.e., that Marx does not 'make sense within [his] own framework.'") Ken: "By the way if there is simply an error in Keyne's, on a certain interpretation, the claim would surely be more accurate that what he said was not true as a matter of fact. There may not be any logical inconsistency." Doesn't it depend on the case? Some critics claim he was wrong about the way things are; others claim that the General Theory doesn't hang together on its own terms -- e.g., because one cannot coherently affirm the "classical" doctrine of labor supply while rejecting the "classical" doctrine of labor demand. Ken: "I agree that there is a sense in which if there is some other possible interpretation according to which what is said is not inconsistent this would be sufficient to disprove the claim that what Keynes or Marx or whomever said can't be true. I assume this is what "making sense" is supposed to mean." Good! Yes, by "making sense" I meant what you say, given that we're talking about "what is said" as a whole. I don't think that an interpretation which resolves an apparent inconsistency in argument A, but leaves or creates inconsistencies in arguments B, C, ... disproves a claim that a (whole) theory is internally inconsistent. Ken: I read "can't" as meaning extremely unlikely or implausible, in conflict with what seems well established. I didnt think of it as "logically impossible" which is what you seem to mean. I look at the gas gauge and it shows almost empty. That can't be right I say because I just filled it up last night. Well of course it could be. I could have had my gas stolen etc. That sort of "can't"." Yes, I agree that this is another sense of "can't," as the word is actually used. But it isn't what's meant when Marx's (or Keynes') theory is alleged to be internally inconsistent. Anyway, I see now why you thought I was referring to Keynes' claims about reality rather than to the internal inconsistency of his theory. Ken: "That being so your interpretation of my remarks as exhibiting your "fallacy" is incorrect because I am not using "can't" as you understand it." I don't see this. Your analogy disclosed that, IF one interprets "can't" as you did, what I said was in error. The analogy was evidently meant to show that I did make an error. It didn't show this because it didn't establish that your interpretation of my use of "can't" was correct. Ken: "1) It seems to me that you impose a too stringent requirement when you require that a person prove that their interpretation is correct as a precondition to claiming correctly that there is an inconsistency in what someone says and so it cant be true. Why?" Ah! You're right. I *wrote* "If you claim that something someone said can't be right, you have to show that there is *no* interpretation under which it is right," but I *meant* "If you claim TO PROVE that ...." Ken: "a) In some cases there may be universal agreement what is the correct interpretation and so proof would seem unnecessary at least until such time that someone presents an objection." This seems right to me. The point I was *trying* to make is that proof of internal inconsistency requires proof of the correctness of the interpretation under which there is internal inconsistency. (I realize there is an exception -- cases in which whether something is internally consistent is independent of how the something is interpreted. This is frequently the case in math.) Ken: "b) It is not even clear to me what a proof of an interpretation would be. Isn't the best you can get is agreement on the basis of pointing out evidence in texts and context that support your interpretation and relying upon a common understanding of language?" I also don't know what a deductive proof of an interpretation would be. I think evidence and argument can "prove" interpretations in a looser sense -- they can substantiate interpretations probabilistically, in essentially the same way that they substantiate other empirical claims. I am very uncomfortable with attempts to substitute agreement for decisions about correctness or truth. All I can do is register my discomfort, because I'm not competent to debate the issue. Ken: "c) Wouldn't it be OK to preface one's derivation of the inconsistency by noting that there may be other interpretations that are not inconsistent but that on this plausible, widely supported, or whatever interpretation what is said cannot be true." Well, it would certainly be better and more honest than what in fact goes on (and has gone on in Marx's case for more than a century). However, I have problems with "plausible" and "widely supported." If "widely supported" means supported by other people rather than by a lot of evidence, this is an appeal to authority, not a rational justification, and I think it is irrelevant. Almost everybody can be wrong about lots of things. Physics is one. Interpretation is another. E.g., how often was Popper called a logical positivist, though the whole thrust of his work was opposed to logical positivism? What makes an interpretation plausible? It is widely recognized that an adequate interpretation needs to make sense of the text as a whole. There is thus a prima facie reason to doubt an interpretation under which the text becomes internally inconsistent. This is pointed out by Georgia Warnke, in her 1993 _Justice and Interpretation_, p. 21: "… if certain parts of the text seem to contradict others, the initial presumption of the critic has to be that they do so because one or the other set has been misunderstood [by the critic].” "d) Some interpretations might be consistent only because they interpret terms in ways that may seem unwarranted given the ordinary meanings of words normal interpretation of syntax etc. Are any consistent interpretations no matter how weird sufficient to show an interpretation that claims inconsistency and thus what is said cant be true is unjustified?" "Weird" may simply mean the opposite of "plausible." If so, please see the above. Or "weird" may mean incompatible with common usage. If one rules out an interpretation on grounds of implausibility or incompatibility with common usage, it seems to me that a petitio is involved. Why should we presume that the author is employing common usage? In the case of Marx, indeed any serious dialectician, there is strong reason to doubt this; dialectic shows things to be different from what they seem to be at first glance. I suspect that it is owing to problems such as these that people who deal seriously with problems of interpretation have rejected external standards and instead have universally (except maybe for deconstructionists) argued that “the adequacy of a given textual interpretation depends on the extent to which it can show the text ’s coherence as a unified whole" (Warnke, ibid.). Of course, that may be impossible. But if it is possible, then I think that an interpretation under which the text as a whole coheres is preferable to one under which it doesn't. Ken: "2) Nevertheless I agree that if there is an interpretation of what a person says that is consistent and has some degree of evidence for it then anyone who claims that what is said can't be true is obviously wrong. Yes! Ken: "Not only that but it would seem that there is principle of charity in interpretation by which a consistent interpretation should be chosen over an inconsistent one when it is at all plausible." Right. The basic point is that this is the "natural" way we interpret. We hear someone say something, and we try to make sense of it. We reject interpretations that make her seem the fool, in favor of ones according to which, right or wrong, she at least makes sense in her own terms. Ken: "It would seem that many critics of what Marx has to say about his value theory to the effect that it contains inconsistencies are obviously wrong since there are competing interpretations that are not inconsistent." Right! You've hit on an extremely crucial point that others miss or avoid -- the very EXISTENCE of an interpretation under which he is not inconsistent makes the alleged proofs of internal inconsistency "obviously wrong." Whether one accepts that interpretation or not is irrelevant. The proofs of internal inconsistency are wrong, obviously wrong, whether or not one agrees with the alternative interpretation, and they should be retracted. When it is obvious that the proofs are wrong, yet they are not retracted, it seems clear to me that what is involved is not science, but an ideological attack on Marx. Ken: "COMMENT: X's claim is intended to be in words. "Those who believe strongly enough in Shazzam will not be harmed ....etc." There are various interpretations of what X says." OK. I didn't realize we were dealing with a sentence. I thought we were taking the substance of the claim as given. Ken: "I interpret what is said as meaning that persons who believe (strongly) in Shazzam will not be killed in battle. But there is another interpretation ,X's, that whenever this happens it is because the belief is not strong enough." I don't see two different interpretations of X's sentence. I see one shared interpretation of the sentence, and two different interpretations of, or ways of understanding, why ostensibly strong believers in Shazzam have been killed in battle. Ken: "That there is this interpretation according to your view shows that my claim that X's claim can't be right, is disproven." I was dealing with different interpretations of what someone said. I still don't see that this example does so. Ken: "Well it is in a logical sense. But it is not disproven in the gas tank sense of "can't I would hold." The subsequent discussion of X's claim reveals that it is empty. Nothing follows from it. So it is neither true nor false. There is nothing to disprove. Ken: "But surely you are claiming that the existence of another interpretation that is consistent shows that the claim that what is said can't be true is incorrect." Yes, that is what I claim. (But I am not claiming that statements such as "what Keynes said *isn't* true" must be incorrect.) Ken: "In my example analagously what is shown is that my claim in the gas can sense of "can't" must be incorrect. But my point is that it would seem odd to claim it is incorrect just on the ground there was an alternative interpretation that makes sense. Of course you are correct it does show this in your sense of "can't"." I think I've dealt with this, but I'm not sure, because I'm not sure I understand it. Ken: "I intended no bait and switch. What appears as such is caused by my misinterpretation of "cant"." OK. I take back and apologize for the "bait and switch" comment. Andrew Kliman
