[lit-ideas] Re: Bartley's Non-Justificationism (Was: Justifying Moral Principles?)
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2015 18:30:09 +0000 (UTC)
It's important not to fight unnecessarily over words. The term "justification"
can be used harmlessly enough, even though it is suggestive of a
"justificationism" that is mistaken as a theory of knowledge and which should
be replaced by a critical approach that accepts that all our knowledge has a
conjectural character. We can say (harmlessly enough) that we are justified in
preferring Einstein's physics to Newton's alternative (in terms of their
success in passing tests); but we should 'know' this does not justify
Einstein's physics in a way that renders it infallible or definitely true, and
that it does not imply that the great knowledge contained in Einstein's physics
is any kind of "justified true belief". [Conversely, we should abandon the
silly philosophical dogma that because Einstein's physics cannot be regarded as
JTB it must be denied that it represents any sort of "knowledge".]
I don't think there is any important distinction between theoretical, practical
or moral fields in this regard - our knowledge in all these fields (which may
overlap btw) should be regarded as conjectural rather than "justified" in some
infallible way. It is the failure of our greatest 'theoretical' knowledge, at
its most developed and well-tested in the sciences, to attain anything like
"justified" infallible status - the lesson to be learnt from the overthrow of
Newtonian physics by Einsteinian - that should warn us against regarding our
less elevated views of practical and moral matters as having anything like
"justified" infallible status.
DnlLdn
On Tuesday, 24 February 2015, 16:56, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In a message dated 2/23/2015 5:08:30 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
The non-justificationism of Popper, [W. W.] Bartley [,III] and their ilk
is much more thorough-going than this. Shocking though it may seem, they
would deny there are anything like "reliable methods" for arriving at
knowledge - certainly not of the sort traditionally sought by philosophers as
the
basis for how knowledge is justified. A key insight of Popper's approach is
that knowledge does not need to be justified to be effective or to 'work',
it simply has to be true or approximate sufficiently to the truth - and the
critical approach of science is not based on finding inductive
justification but on the ruthless and severe testing of the truth of theories."
So I suppose, since this was W. O.'s question re: justifying a moral
principle (other than accepting it blindly as a political article of faith, as
he metaphorically puts it):
i. One may not be able to justify a moral principle.
Yet.
ii. One may be able to KNOW that the moral principle is to be followed.
(I'm speaking loosely).
McEvoy goes on:
"Surviving severe tests - that is, severe attempts at falsification - does
not justify knowledge in traditional terms but it provides the best guide
we have for assessing truth and verisimilitude. Not only is this 'critical'
approach the best guide, it is the only guide. There simply are no
(inductive) "reliable methods" for arriving at, or generating, true theories.
Though the contrary myth dies hard, it is merely philosophers' make-believe
(none of whom can plausibly explain by what "reliable method" Einstein
generated his revolutionary theories, or by what "reliable method" we can
generate
theories to resolve some of the outstanding problems of contemporary
physics)."
Indeed, the above quote that McEvoy is replying to, which amounts to the
view of knowledge as justified true belief, is aimed at theoretical knowledge
(or reason) so-called, rather than the realm of ends and practical reason
in general.
It would seem that we may have two uses (never 'senses') of 'justify': a
theoretical (or as I'd prefer, alethic) one, and a purely practical one.
And the question is whether, since, for Popper, Bartley and the
non-justificationists of their ilk refuse to consider 'justification'
legitimate,
they would also object to the use of 'justify' in a non-alethic, i.e.
practical context.
If so, the question by W. O. -- when does the justification of a moral
principle not circular? (rephrased) -- remains unanswered (*)
Cheers,
Speranza
(*) And perhaps it is one of those 'unanswerable questions' referred to by
Mike Geary and Rush Rhees. Geary: "Not every 'statement' followed by "?"
and with the verb in the interrogative position is a _question_ as I use the
term. Some questions are unanswerable and not just 'not yet answered'".
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