From: "Kenneth Allen Hopf" <khopf-AT-ix.netcom.com>
Subject: RE: PKF: On Liking Popper AND Feyerabend ...
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 00:38:50 -0800


In reply to John Fox:

JF>On induction.  Yes, Popper changed the state of play enormously and
>largely for the better.  (For an elaboration my "With Friends Like These"
>in Sankey & Nola's _After Popper Kuhn and Feyerabend_, this year.)  But
>"solving the problem"?  Another matter.

>First, what did Popper _say_ his solution was?  That we could decide
>about laws by _falsifying_ them.  How was this supposed to be relevant,
>given that the traditional problem about laws was: on what grounds we
>could reasonably believe them _true_?  Briefly, he restated the problem
>more generally, so that it became that of deciding _about the truth value_
>of laws.

I agree that Popper restated the problem of induction, but it most
certainly did not thereby become a matter of deciding about the truth value
of the laws.  Popper specifically denied that we could have criterion of
truth (not that I think this is what you're saying, I'm simply placing a
signpost in the road so you don't drive into a ditch).  According to
Popper, we don't know the truth value of our scientific generalizations;
all we have are conjectures and criticisms of them, which may in some cases
lead to a rational preference for one theory over another.  Of course, we
can always *classify* a theory as true, but the actual truth value of any
such theory is another matter entirely.

In every other way, your response here strikes me as truly remarkable.  In
one fell swoop you 1) ignore what Popper actually said about induction, 2)
misappropriate the notion of falsification, 3) wrongly assert that Popper's
response to the problem of induction is nothing more than an irrelevancy,
and 4) replace what Popper called the problem of induction with a somewhat
different problem.  It is mostly this last move that sponsors the charge of
lunacy you level against Popper:

JF>To think that any beliefs about the future, or that any laws are likely
>to be reliable in the future, are unreasonable, is close to loony; anyone
>whose causing of deaths or pregnancies is based on their eschewing all
>such beliefs as "unreasonable" is irresponsible in the extreme.  The saner
>Popperian critics of induction, inductive logic etc. have abandoned it;
>e.g. Alan Musgrave (as I argued e.g. in my "Deductivism Surpassed",
>Australasian Journal of Philosophy late last year).

We are now to presume that any time we think some belief about the future
might be reliable, we are engaged in some species of induction!  And since
Popper rejects induction ... why, naturally, he thereby rejects the notion
that we can legitimately think any of our beliefs about the future are
reliable.  What a lunatic!  John ... this description of the facts in the
case (i.e., Popper's philosophy) can't even be taken seriously.  Your
description of Popper's views are themselves so bizarre that one becomes
suspicious of the author.

JF>Apart from that, Popper was just reiterating Humean inductive scepticism.

Not at all.  Popper did a great deal more than agree with Hume's verdict
about the logical problem of induction.  It astounds me that people who
write papers about such things aren't more aware of this.

<snip>

JF>Since some such beliefs are rational, a decent account of rationality
>should display them as rational, explain their rationality.  Providing
>such a defensible account would be a significant part of solving the
>problem of induction.  Popper didn't try.  He proclaimed (as a virtue)
>that he didn't believe in belief, hinting that that way lay
>totalitarianism.  Rather pompous, dogmatic and perversely point-missing, I
>think.

It's not true that Popper didn't try.  For example, he says "Assume that we
have deliberately made it our task to live in this unknown world of ours;
to adjust ourselves to it as well as we can; to take advantage of the
opportunities we can find in it; and to explain it, if possible (we need
not assume that it is), and as far as possible, with the help of laws and
explanatory theories.  If we have made this our task, then there is no more
rational procedure than the method of trial and error -- of conjecture and
refuation: of boldly proposing new theories; of trying our best to show
that these are erroneous; and of accepting them tentatively if our critical
efforts are unsuccessful. (see _Conjectures and Refutations_, p. 51)

There are other, similar passages; and one of Popper's students, William
Warren Bartley, wrote a whole book about the theory of rationality from a
Popperian point of view.

JF>He proclaimed (as a virtue) that he didn't believe in belief, hinting
>that that way lay totalitarianism.  Rather pompous, dogmatic and
>perversely point-missing, I think.

Here is how Popper starts the essay in which he says that he doesn't
believe in belief:

"Allow me to start with a confession.  Although I am a very happy
philosopher I have, after a lifetime of lecturing, no illusions about what
I can convey in a lecture.  For this reason I shall make no attempt in this
lecture to convince you.  Instead I shall make an attempt to challenge you,
and, if possible, to provoke you."

Popper's humility is staggering.  When one thinks of all the
pseudo-mathematical or postmodernist smart-alecks whose books are lapped up
by academic philosophers with never a mention of pomposity or dogmatism,
the mind reels.

JF>Still, we - I, at any rate - owe the old man an enormous amount.  He
>_was_ the PKF of his era - a constantly illuminating and constantly
>irritating gadfly.

The real problem, I think, is that he was enormously more than that.

**********************************************************************
Contributions: mailto:feyerabend-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Commands: mailto:majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Requests: mailto:feyerabend-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu