[lit-ideas] Re: My father's wound
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 08:41:28 +0100 (BST)
________________________________
From: Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, 8 August 2012, 23:47
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: My father's wound
"[E]veryone always does exactly what they want to do."
>There's something interestingly odd about that proposition.
What we might usefully clarify is whether this claim is meant in an irrefutable
sense, so that - for example - even if someone protests that they did not do
what they wanted [when they dropped out of the marathon], we insist that behind
that appearance is a deeper reality where what they did [dropping out] was
really what they wanted [despite their protestations to the contrary].
Claims that are irrefutable in this way are not therefore false but must be
treated with caution, as "irrefutability is a vice not a virtue". Yet the
uncritical temptation is to take their irrefutability as a virtue -
particularly because such claims may seem to have an all-encompassing
explanatory power. Yet this power is illusory.
Popper worked with Adler and was struck how Adler, when presented with a case,
so quickly and decisively found it to be a case of an 'inferiority complex'
[Adler's pet theory in psychology]. Asking Adler how he could be so sure so
quickly [that there was no alternative diagnosis], Adler replied, "Because of
my thousand-fold experience"; to which Popper rejoined, "Which next time will
be one-thousand-and-one-fold".
Popper was also struck that whatever someone did could be explained by this
kind of theory. If a man drowned a child, that could be attributed to his
inferiority complex; if a man jumped in and saved a drowing child, that could
be attributed to his inferiority complex; if he called for help or didn't call
for help, likewise these different behaviours could be attributed to his
inferiority complex. The problem was that the theory, as formulated and
defended, was not falsifiable or testable. What seems to be its
all-encompassing explanatory power is, from a logical POV, only a mirage that
arises from it not being falsifiable by any observable state of affairs.
This kind of critique is central to Popper showing that Freudian theory is,
despite trumpeting itself otherwise, not scientific because it is not
formulated and defended in a falsifiable way [we may leave aside here
Grunebaum's interesting remarks that Freudian theory could be rendered
falsifiable, as these do not deflect the thrust of Popper's critique].
If N means his claim in a testable way, then how is it be tested?
If it is not testable, how is its truth to be evaluated or decided? Clearly not
scientifically.
[Will leave it at that for now.]
Donal
Newcastle-upon-Tyne area
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