Blogmark: Dykes

"Debunking Popper: A Critique of Karl Popper's Critical Rationalism", by Nicholas Dykes.

Also: "Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists", by D.C. Stove. Excerpt:

"First, then: if there has been a great increase in knowledge in recent centuries, then a fortiriori there sometimes are such things as positive good reasons to believe a scientific theory; but Popper says expressly, repeatedly, and emphatically, that there are not and cannot be such things. This thesis is so startlingly irrationalist that other philosophers, as Popper himself tells us, sometimes 'cannot quite bring [themselves] to believe that this is my opinion'. But it is: 'There are no such things as good positive reasons' to believe any scientific theory. 'Positive reasons are neither necessary not [sic] possible'."

I now and then have occasion to try to describe this to ordinary people not accustomed to thinking about such things. Just about invariably, it takes quite some effort to point out some of the implications, like; "This guy is essentially saying that you never, ever, know what you're talking about." The very most difficult thing about this is convincing them that it is not a joke: that there really are seriously regarded people in the world who actually believe that it's true. And look again at that last word: in this context, it's the onramp to nowhere. If it were a freeway and you could look at it from a satellite photograph, it would be a circle. You really can't even talk about it to everyday people, who do really know what they know, without them laughing in your face. (For example: out here in farm country, if you try to tell someone to imagine a universe in which his arm will not be torn off if he gets it jammed in the power-takeoff of his tractor, he'll simply write you off as a hopless lunatic and go back to work.) Thus, my comment at the bottom of this post, nevermind this post of my own. Is it any wonder that some people sneer at philosophy as they do?

"Balko's dissent was philosophical..."

"Jim Henley at Unqualified Offerings opposed the war on philosophical reasons, not substantive ones."

(Dale Franks.)

"I don’t respond well to political evangelizing, and I don’t get involved in elliptical, obscure political arguments about minor, and largely irrelevant points."

(Kim du Toit)

My largest point, simply stated, is that philosophy is not a game. It is not a disposable luxury. And as long as it is the province of nonsense, the disintegration of thought is the single largest problem that we face in The Endarkenment. It is The Endarkenment.