What is the law of Descartes? It sounds as if I am a gourmand, then I can’t be wrong about what you have to eat Wtf? From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Donal McEvoy Sent: 10 September 2014 19:23 To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: A Connoisseur's Guide to the Noumenon >The argument goes on as follows. Suppose a connoisseur says: i. I am a connoisseur. By the law of Descartes, this yields. ii. If I am I connoisseur, I can't be wrong. But Popper, as per the above, challenges the consequent of (ii), iii. I can't be wrong. Therefore, Popper is suggesting (or at most implicating) that there are no 'true'* connoisseurs.> Dost the argument go on "as follows"? Where in Popper's writings dost it? If the argument only goes on "as follows" in JLS' head, ere then he verily trolleth. D On Wednesday, 10 September 2014, 15:16, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote: My last post today! We are using 'connoisseur' and wondering what Popper might have said about it. In a message dated 9/10/2014 9:25:02 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> asks: >where dost Popper ever remark thus? -- i.e. that connoisseurs are no connoisseurs. Well, for starters. There's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_rationalism "Critical rationalism is an epistemological philosophy advanced by Karl Popper. ... [A] [c]ritical rationalist[... such as Popper was] hold[s] that scientific theories and ANY OTHER CLAIMS TO KNOWLEDGE [emphasis Speranza's] can and should be rationally criticized, and (if they have empirical content) can and should be subjected to tests which may falsify them. Thus claims to knowledge may be contrastingly and normatively evaluated. They are either falsifiable and thus empirical (in a very broad sense), or not falsifiable and thus non-empirical. Those claims to knowledge that are potentially falsifiable can then be admitted to the body of empirical science, and then further differentiated according to whether they are retained or are later actually falsified. If retained, further differentiation may be made on the basis of how much subjection to criticism they have received, how severe such criticism has been, and how probable the theory is, with the least probable theory that still withstands attempts to falsify it being the one to be preferred." The argument goes on as follows. Suppose a connoisseur says: i. I am a connoisseur. By the law of Descartes, this yields. ii. If I am I connoisseur, I can't be wrong. But Popper, as per the above, challenges the consequent of (ii), iii. I can't be wrong. Therefore, Popper is suggesting (or at most implicating) that there are no 'true'* connoisseurs. Cheers, Speranza * Grice calls "true" in "true connoisseur" a trouser-word. "I borrow the phrase from Austin. Sexist, I confess but should do for now" (Grice thought 'trouser word' a sexist expression because it is expanded by Austin as "the word that wears the trousers" -- implicating that there is a gender implicature in the wearing of this piece of costume that some Scots may cancel on occasion). ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html<http://www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html>