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I do wish people would stop talking about immigrants "stealing" jobs. It is simply misleading and provocative, a rhetorical trick to entice anger and a sense of injustice, when no such injustice has occurred.
Immigrants, legal or not, no more steal jobs than anyone else. The very same reasoning which leads people to conclude that immigrants steal jobs, could be used to claim that I stole my last job from every other applicant who was turned down.
Why do the words 'flammable' and 'inflammable' mean the same thing?
note: I wrote this today as an attempt to explain the difference between falsificational and methodological criticism, I think I prefer to appraoch the issue differently now, but this is still interesting.
There is nothing intrinsic about logic which implies that we should seek justification as opposed to criticism, or verification as opposed to falsification, nor demands that we assume every theory submitted for rational appraisal is, by default, problematic. It is a matter of methodology, not logic. The study of rationality i.e. rationology, is primarily a study of rational methods: the set of rules we devise to provide purpose, guidance and standards for rational investigation.
It is therefore appropriate to consider what I call 'methodological criticism,' which is a type of criticism not intended to imply falsity. In contrast, if I criticise a theory for logical inconsistencies, or falsification by experiment, I mean to imply that the theory is false. However, if I criticise a theory by methodological standards, I simply mean to imply that to prefer such a theory would be bad rational practice, and not that said theory is false.
This kind of criticism is necessary where we are faced by two or more competing theories, which are logically valid and consistent with observations. Of course, the goal of rational investigation is true theories, so methodological criticism is meant to step in when 'falsificational criticism' fails to indicate preference, to that end this type of criticism is often employed to encourage further testing and criticism.
The two examples of methodological criticism I wish to consider here, are:
1. The check of testability is a way of forming a critical preference by favouring those theories which are more highly testable i.e. more falsifiable, corroborable, or improbable. Of course, that doesn't mean it is rational to prefer a more testable theory even if it has been falsified, our goal is true theories, not highly testable theories. It is only when selecting between competing unfalsified theories that testability steps up as important.
The reason is simple. The more highly testable a theory is, the more potential events it prohibits, and thus the easier it is to falsify. Moreover, the more potential events a theory prohibits, the better guide to future action, and more informative, it is. Such a rule is it not meant to imply that untestable, or less testable, theories are false; only that we should avoid, where possible, adopting theories which are difficult to test, since if such a theory is mistaken we should find it very difficult to refute it.
2. The check of problematicality is a way of forming critical preference against theories which do not address problems, but may possibly be true. It can be understood very simply as a response to the question: when is a theory in need of revision? and answers it: when a theory is problematic.
It is always the case, that for any set of facts, there is an infinite number of potential theories, which are logically valid, equally testable, and consistent with that set of facts, yet are mutually incompatible. However, this need not worry the rationalist, or compel him to revise theories, since the mere possibility that a theory is false is not a criticism of that theory, and if a theory has not been criticised, then it is not problematic, and if a theory is not problematic then it is not in need of revising.
To provide one example, we might consider the famous grue problem, where two mutually incompatible theories are both logically valid, and consistent with the evidence. The first theory is 'all emeralds are green,' and the second is 'all emeralds are grue, where grue is defined: green up until time t, and blue after time t.' If we define time t in the future, then both theories are logically valid and consistent with the same evidence.
Here we might employ the check of problematicality, and note that the theory 'all emeralds are grue' is inconsistent with many physico-chemical theories regarding the composition of emeralds, behaviour of electromagnetic waves, and structure of the human visual system, theories which were proposed to solve old problems. In this case, the theory "all emeralds are grue" does not criticise any of those theories, it merely expresses and alternative possibility, which we can ultimately wait until time t to test.
note: my check of problematicality is not intended to be the same as Bartley's check on the problem, since there is a subtle but important difference. I also consider Bartley's check on the problem to be a form of methodological criticism, though did not cover it here.
Following my previous post, this is a summary of my theory of problems. (I have decided to drop the rather cumbersome phrase 'problem of problematicality').
(A) every position submitted for rational appraisal is assigned...
(B) any position submitted for rational appraisal can be reassigned...
I believe that competing theories of rationality can largely be understood as responses to (A) and (B) or to pose them as questions, (A) what is the default problem-value? and (B) by what standards are problem-values reassigned?
(B) concerns the traditional battleground for rational discussion i.e. what rules, standards, or authorities, we should use to decide whether a position is justified or criticised, true or false, meaningful or meaningless, or in whatever way unproblematic or problematic.
I believe (A) has been largely overlooked by rationalists, most uncritcally assuming that every position submitted for rational appraisal is problematic (unjustified), until made unproblematic (justified). If we reverse this assumption, then the consequent theory of rationality is very different in form, goals, standards and results.
Here is an interesting article from ReasonOnline on Hugo Chavez, emporer president of Venezuala.
Incidently, another example of a resource rich country writhing in poverty. How few people realise that there is more wealth in a culture and associated political institutions than can ever be extracted from a hole in the ground.
This short essay concerns what I call the problem of problematicality. The problem addresses the standards and rules we employ when identifying problems. In other words, how we answer the question: when is a theory problematic? It is important to note, that by the word 'theory' I mean any theory, hypothesis, statement, observation, proposition, idea, axiom, assumption, guess, presupposition, conjecture, position, thought, presumption, suggestion, concept, notion, definition, intuition, etc.
I believe the problem of problematicality is a central problem of rationology i.e. the study of rationality, and that different theories of rationality can be broadly understood as different responses to this problem. The two to be considered here are justificationism and critical rationalism (hereafter: 'criticalism'). The purpose of a theory of rationality is to provide a context in which rational debate can take place, which allows for the identification of problems and solutions, so that we may demarcate between good theories and bad theories. (It is also worth noting that even irrationalists have a theory of rationality, or else how would they recognise themselves as irrationalists?).
I therefore suggest that every theory submitted for rational discussion is assigned a problem-value, either unproblematic or problematic, but not both, and not neither, nor are there any other problem-values. I think problem-values can be understood to behave very much like truth-values, though are not intended to replace or determine the assignment of truth-values. This however, raises a question. If every theory submitted for rational discussion is assigned a problem-value, then what value do we assign to a theory that has been submitted, but not yet scrutinised? or to put it another way: what is the default problem-value?
How this question is answered has profound consequences for the resulting theory of rationality, for what makes a theory problematic, the goals of rational discussion and the results that follow.
(1) we may consider a theory of rationality which by default assigns the value problematic to every theory submitted into rational discussion. In such a theory of rationality, any theory will be problematic until it is made unproblematic. The goal of rational discussion is to identify some criterion or rule, by which we might make some theories unproblematic, and justify them.
(2) we may consider a theory of rationality which by default assigns the value unproblematic to every theory submitted into rational discussion. In this theory of rationality, any theory will be unproblematic until it is made problematic. The goal of rational discussion is to identify and apply standards of criticism, so that competing theories are made problematic by a survival of the fittest.
The first response to our question can be represented by justificationism, and the second by criticalism. It can be shown, by applying the two theories of rationality to the same statement, different problem-values are returned. In other words, justificationism and criticalism have different answers to the question: when is a theory problematic? To demonstrate, we can take the problem of induction, which originally arose in response to statements like "the sun will rise tomorrow" or "all swans are white."
In the context of justificationism, the statement "the sun will rise tomorrow" is by default problematic, and so must be made unproblematic. To that end a justificationist uses a series of tests, which if passed successfully, provide justification for theories, thus making them unproblematic. Traditionally, the tests used to justify theories have been a check for logical validity and a check for empirical observation.
The statement "the sun will rise tomorrow" passes the check for logical validity, but does not pass the check of empirical observation. No matter how many times we observe the sun rise, it does not follow that the sun will rise tomorrow. In other words, our criterion, or criterions, which were intended to provision justification, thus making an problematic theory (by default) into an unproblematic theory, are logically inadequate. The statement "the sun will rise tomorrow" must remain problematic.
In the context of criticalism, the statement "the sun will rise tomorrow" is by default unproblematic. To that end a criticalists uses a series of tests, which if not passed, successfully criticise theories, thus making them problematic. The tests used to criticise theories are the same as those used to justify, but used differently.
The statement "the sun will rise tomorrow" passes the check of logical validity as in justificationism, but then also passes the check of empirical observation. The difference is that where the justificationist was trying to make the theory unproblematic by deriving it from sense observation, the criticalist is trying to make the theory problematic by falsifying it by sense observation. In consequence, it follows that the statement "the sun will rise tomorrow" is not problematic, and so there is never any need to postulate a logic of induction, or principle of induction in the first place. If there is no need to postulate induction then there is no problem of induction!
It is important to realise that this short essay is not comprehensive. I have omitted many interesting problems and questions which arise here, simply for clarity and brevity. Moreover, the problem of induction is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of the differences which can be exposed between justificationism and criticalism. This essay is intended to simply introduce the problem of problematicality, and its importance to any theory of rationality.
I have neglected my blog recently, though wish to rectify that in the coming days.
I have been up to a lot, visited the US for the first time to stay with someone special in Alabama, got a new job, lost a new job, and plan to move home sometime soon.
I have also been thinking hard on the topics which fascinate me most, rationality, knowledge, and society, and have some very interesting new ideas (for me at least!).
More soon...
Have you noticed how some media pundits like to say that Islam is a "religion of peace," yet the same pundits consider Islamic extremists anything but peaceful?
This just occured to me.
The liar paradox isn't a paradox, since lies are not always false.
The statement "I always lie" can be true, because it is possible for a liar to mistakenly speak the truth. If it is possible for a liar to mistakenly speak the truth, then statement "I always lie" does not imply its own falsehood, and there is no paradox.
However, this does not solve the nonlying variants of the paradox e.g. "this statement is false"
Some would call me an advocate of 'free trade,' which is peculiar. I might be tempted to ask what the alternative is, 'unfree trade' perhaps? Isn't that just theft?
I think I'll resign myself to advocating plain old regular trade.
