[lit-ideas] Re: The continued mistreatment of Karl Popper by academics
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 12:31:45 +0000 (GMT)
Robert's response prompted me to re-read the Stanford Entry, which I had
criticised at some deatil in a correspondence with its author many years ago. I
was going to compare that article unfavourably with the Wiki entry on Popper,
but decided to first re-read that too. Since I last examined these articles
they appear to have changed, the Stanford entry slightly for the better (I
think) and the Wiki sadly for the worse.
Nevertheless the final section of the Stanford Entry, 'Critical Evaluation',
which was the main focus of my criticisms, remains very problematic. It
contains a 1, 2 and 3 offering "a summary of some of the main criticisms
which [Popper] has had to address".
Of these 1 is the most easy to rebut and the most obviously flawed. What is
remarkable is the good professor's sheer dogmatism in not revising his basic
errors in this part of the Entry despite them being pointed out to him many
years ago. For example, the reference to "sense-data" as in Professor
Thornton's explanation of what constitutes a test statement - "basic statements
(i.e., present-tense
observation statements about sense-data)" - should have been expunged. For test
or basic statements are not, for Popper, "present-tense
observation statements about sense-data". They are never about sense data, for
Popper, because the whole idea of such 'data' is a myth Popper rejects; and
they are not even about 'perceptual events' in some wider sense that does not
imply a theory of "sense-data", but are 'about' actual events [albeit ones that
can be observed]. And they are not at all confined to being "present tense": it
may be a test statement that 'Yesterday at 3.00pm there was a swan in my
garden' and that 'Tomorrow at 3.00pm there will be a swan in my garden' - what
matters is not the tense but that the statement is a statement falsifiable by
observation. No one who understands the basic contents of Popper's Logik der
Forschung, and his subsequent development of his views there, could properly
make the fundamental mistake of defining a basic or test statement as Professor
Stephen Thornton does: yet while this has been pointed out to him (by me at
least), his entry remains
steadfastly dogmatic here in the face of clear falsification. It is also a
low-level kind of mistake to make: no one competent in Popper's theory of
knowledge could present it as a theory that assumes "sense data", as in fact it
repudiates them; and no one competent could suggest (for the suggestion is
outrageously silly) that a test statement must be "present-tense". [After all,
do today's "present tense" test statements lose their logical character as test
statements by tomorrow?]. But then attributing to Popper views that Popper
disavows as outrageously silly seems to be what some Professors are uniquely
well-placed to do.
1 then offers this, "However, and notwithstanding Popper's
claims to the contrary, this itself seems to be a refined form of
conventionalism—it implies that it is almost entirely an
arbitrary matter whether it is accepted that a potential falsifier is
an actual one, and consequently that the falsification of a theory is
itself the function of a ‘free’ and arbitrary act." Yet you will look in vain
for an argument that supports Thornton's critical conclusion here - a
conclusion that seems to entirely rest on his presumption that a decision that
is not entirely determined by logic or evidence must therefore be entirely
'arbitrary'. This is logically feeble of Thornton; but then he is the man who
has barefacedly just told us that test or basic statements are "present-tense"
and "about sense-data". And Professor Stephen Thornton will not stand to be
corrected about this.
Professor Stephen Thornton's 2 and 3 I criticised in my correspondence with him
as a one-sided putting of Putnam's and Lakatos' criticisms in Popper's Schilpp
volumes but without even outlining Popper's replies. In my view the Entry is
still open to this charge of unjustified one-sidedness in its presenting the
arguments; but it does at least read, "For Popper's responses to critical
commentary, see his ‘Replies to My Critics’, in
P.A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper, Volume 2,
and his Realism and the Aim of Science, edited by
W.W. Bartley III." However, how many readers will follow this up? Or even
realise that in these responses Popper answers the criticisms Professor Stephen
Thornton then puts forward?
On 2 and 3, unlike 1, the underlying issues (and, therefore, evaluations of the
validity of the criticisms levelled) are not so straightforward - particularly
as it becomes clear that Putnam uses Popper's terminology in quite different
meanings to those Popper intended (so that Putnam's 'auxiliary hypothesis' need
not be Popper's idea of an 'auxiliary hypothesis'). ['Becomes clear' no thanks
to Putnam btw, but only when we carefully piece together his paper and Popper's
response so as to see how they line up].
However, on one issue Popper seems to me right in his reply: Putnam's paper
contains a school boy howler in logic [however, this is not perhaps enough to
decide whether or not there is anything important in what Putnam is elsewhere
trying to get at]. This howler is repeated by Professor StephenThornton, with a
straight face as it were, when he writes at 3: "Thus ‘All As
are X’ means ‘If anything is an A, then
it is X’. Since scientific laws are non-existential in
nature, they logically cannot imply any basic statements, since the
latter are explicitly existential. The question arises, then, as to
how any basic statement can falsify a scientific law, given that basic
statements are not deducible from scientific laws in themselves?" Clearly
Professor Stephen Thornton, following Putnam, takes this question as pointing
up a serious problem.
But the answer, as Popper explains in Schilpp, is simple. Take "All swans are
white" as a 'scientific law'. The basic statement "Here is a black swan" is not
deducible from this 'scientific law'. Yet clearly if "Here is a black swan"
then it is false that "All swans are white". In other words, while a universal
generalisation like "All swans are white" implies no positive predictions
[which is to say it has no 'existential import'] it does imply a negative
prediction - for it is a prediction, albeit a negative one, that 'There are no
non-white swans', and this prediction we can deduce from "All swans are white".
The existence of a non-white swan therefore falsifies this negative prediction,
and therefore falsifies the universal generalisation from which it can be
deduced. The existence of a non-white swan may be deduced from the truth of a
test statement such as "Here is a black swan". So a test statement like "Here
is a black swan" falsifies this
negative prediction [that there are no non-white swans], and therefore
falsifies the universal generalisation ["All swans are white"] from which this
negative prediction can be deduced.
Both Putnam and Thornton seem hopelessly confused about this very simple
logical situation. There is no serious problem here.
Professor Stephen Thornton has refused to correct his confusion here, or his
reference to "present tense" and "sense data", despite having it (politely)
drawn to his attention long ago (by me at least). But then Professor Stephen
Thornton is a Wittgensteinian of some sort for whom Popper's emphasis on the
'critical approach' is simply a 'mantra-like' position - perhaps this explains
how simple and logical criticism of his Entry can wash over him as if it were
merely someone somewhere simply chanting a mantra. It certainly doesn't say
much for his intelligence or integrity. It contrasts markedly with the
intelligence and integrity with which Popper dealt with criticisms of his work.
If Robert sees nothing much 'ethical' at stake here, I am surprised and
disappointed (but also suspect his ethical detachment might disappear if some
other examples of 'academic' discussion and 'misrepresentation' were used).
I also disagree with Robert's view that misrepresentation must be intentional:
in my view, it may or may not be intentional. And, indeed, there is probably a
sliding-scale of mental states or attitudes that correlate with acts of
'misrepresentation', from wilful and deliberate to entirely accidental. There
is also a scale of culpability that varies according to how persons respond
when their 'misrepresentation' is drawn to their attention, and it is on this
scale that Thornton perhaps performs worst. Unfortunately, his dogmatism in
this regard will be hidden to readers of the Stanford Entry who may therefore
be induced to rely on him as some sort of authority on Popper's theory of
science when he cannot even get some key basics right.
Donal
England
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