[lit-ideas] Re: Popper: The Unknowable and the Unknown
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 14 Aug 2015 14:45:17 +0000 (UTC)
JLS' post is too long to admit of a single reply.
A few points for now:
It is his appeal to the reality of the Third World, which Popper invokes
partly in order to account for certain features of evolution by natural
selection, that constitutes his crucial argument against the most powerful
contemporary variant of materialism.>
This single sentence reveals a catalogue of misunderstandings, so much so it is
hard to know where to begin.
First, "the reality" of W3 is not Popper's "crucial argument against the most
powerful contemporary variant of materialism": on the contrary "the reality" of
W2 is a more crucial argument (see below). Popper is well aware that the
reality of W3 is much more disputable/doubtful than the reality of W2. The
reality of W3 may provide another set of arguments against this materialism but
it is neither fair nor accurate to characterize the reality of W3 as the
linchpin of Popper's anti-materialism. In fact, an absolutely crucial part of
Popper's anti-materialism is entirely at the level of W1 itself (i.e. without
bringing in any W2 or W3): Popper argues "Materialism Transcends Itself" in
that as a programme for understanding W1 it has irreparably broken down as
physics has gone far past explanation in terms of "matter" being ultimate. That
is, one of Popper's "crucial" set of arguments is that "materialism" is
mistaken as a programme for understanding W1 itself. (A set of arguments that
presuppose no W2 and no W3).
No one would guess any of the above from JLS' bowdlerised account.
Nor does the "reality" of W3 owe much to "natural selection": W3 being neither
a direct product of "natural selection" (Popper is under no illusion that "the
reality" of W3 follows from acceptance of "natural selection") nor evolving as
a direct result of "natural selection" (the interaction between W3 and W2,
which is the basis for the evolution of knowledge in W3 terms, is not
interaction that falls under the rubric "natural selection").
Though Popper does say that the emergence of W3 may give humans certain
advantages in meeting the challenges of "natural selection" [e.g. by assisting
with the development of anti-biotics], it does not follow that "natural
selection" explains either the origin or growth of W3. At most W3 and its
growth might be regarded as an indirect, by-product of "natural selection" at
the level of W1 - but even this watered-down thesis needs careful handling, for
the role of "natural selection" is very indirect here (almost as indirect as
its role in the production of Mozart's _Requiem_).
It is 'the-reality-of-W2' argument that involves "evolution by natural
selection", but in the following (somewhat indirect) way: there would be no
evolutionary rationale to the emergence of consciousness unless consciousness
had a downward causal effect on W1. Hence the emergence of consciousness
provides a crucial argument, given a Darwinian POV, against the causal
closedness of W1.
The reality of W3 may reinforce the above argument against the causal
closedness of W1 but it is nowhere taken by Popper as what "constitutes his
crucial argument". As too often before, JLS is not a reliable guide to Popper's
arguments and positions.
Second, it is a colossal error to suppose that Popper takes "natural selection"
to apply outside of W1 - colossal in that it entirely mistakes what is meant by
"natural selection" and entirely mistakes Popper's position. Though Popper is a
foremost exponent of "Evolutionary Epistemology", and though this applies a
Darwinian approach to epistemology, it does not claim that knowledge at a W2
and W3 level evolves by "natural selection" in Darwin's sense. It simply
doesn't. What "Evolutionary Epistemology" does allow is that in important ways
[e.g. 'selective retention within a nested hierarchy'] the evolution of
knowledge at a W2 and W3 level occurs in ways analogous to how evolution occurs
by "natural selection" within W1. But we can also emphasise how the the
evolution of knowledge at the W2 and W3 level is disanalogous to "natural
selection". Both the analogy and disanalogy will be found further explained in
Popper's writings.
This reply only addresses the start of the errors that litter JLS' post.
DL
On Friday, 14 August 2015, 1:55, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Apparently, the distinction can be phrased, according to McEvoy, in terms of
material implication (English 'if') and 'logical implication' (Moore's
entailment), apparently overlooked by Whitehead and Russell. It pertains to
objects in W3. W3 'grows' so one has to be careful as to what items Popper
accepts as members of W3. Popper developed a theory of a "three-tiered world",
comprising not only material objects and states of mind (which he calls "World
1" and "World 2," respectively) but also then a domain of intelligibles,
virtual objects or abstract entities (which he calls "World 3"). Undoubtedly
the most controversial part of Popper's argument against materialism, however,
is that which appeals to his theory of a Third World of abstract entities.
Popper shares with Plato, the logician Frege, and the influential contemporary
American philosopher W. V. Quine, the belief that a domain of objective
structures must be postulated that is independent of the realms of matter and
mind and that can interact causally with them. Popper's "World 3" differs in
several important respects from Plato's realm of essences, from Frege's third
realm sf thoughts, and from the domain of classes, or sets, postulated by Quine
(who, interestingly, combines the commitment to abstract entities with a
rejection of mentalism). But it has in common with these accounts the
fundamental commitment to a pluralist view of the world. It is his appeal to
the reality of the Third World, which Popper invokes partly in order to account
for certain features of evolution by natural selection, that constitutes his
crucial argument against the most powerful contemporary variant of materialism.
For example,wWhile the brain-mind identity theory has the advantage over other
doctrines of-allowing for the causal potency of the mind, argues Popper, it
involves a view of the world that neglects the emergence in it of abstract
objects. Thus Popper reveals that his argument against this most attractive
form of contemporary materialism presupposes the truth of the "Three Worlds"
doctrine. If we can avoid postulating World Three, there is every reason to
suppose we can do without World Two, as well. Some of the weaknesses of
Popper's argument for World Three have been identified not just by J. L. Mackie
(in his genial review for The British Journal of the Philosophy of Science:
"Failures of Criticism: Popper and his commentators" -- as cited by McEvoy, a
Popperian), but by Paul Feyerabend in his masterly review of Popper's Objective
Knowledge (Inquiry 17:475-507). For the record, Feyerabend taught with
Davidson and Grice at UC/Berkeley. He once helped them examine a couple of
students and he was appalled that Davidson, Grice, and the student, spent 30
minutes analysing the conversational relevance of "There is an elephant in the
refrigerator". In connection with Popper's third world, Feyerabend notes, and
correctly, too, that none of Popper's arguments for the autonomy of abstract
objects establishes their irreducibility in terms of mental or physical states
and processes. Pointing out, as Popper does, that such things as numbers,
arguments, and theories exert a causal influence in the mental and physical
realms cannot by itself show that such things do not themselves belong to those
realms. To show a causal connection is not to mark an ontological distinction.
Too often, as Feyerabend remarks, Popper proceeds by excluding certain things
from the physical and mental realms and then triumphantly discovers them in
World Three. In this, Popper compares to Amerigo Vespucci, after whom America
was named (even if he did not, as Popper claims re items in his World 3,
'discovered' it). Popper even elevates this game of hide-and-seek into a
methodological principle, stipulating (bizarrely) that we are to resort to
Occam's razor only after we have decided which entities are irreducible. Grice
knew this well: do not multiply SENSES beyond necessity. Quine agreed, but
found that Ockham's razor came sometimes handy to cut Plato's beard, as he put
it -- figuratively. Schiffer was offended by that and created a brand of
Schiffer's aftershave. Where Popper abjures this procedure, his arguments
often take him on unfortunate excursions into the philosophy of mathematics.
Some are even more reluctant than Feyerabend to follow Popper into what has
become a forbiddingly technical area of inquiry. Three points may be worth
making, however. I) First, it is far from clear that the advantages of
Platonism in mathematics can be purchased by Popper unless he forgoes the
Hegelian satisfaction of allowing error and progress into the Third World. II)
Secondly, Kant's Witters's far more adequate and fruitful work in the
philosophy of mathematics may remind us of a point that Popper has neglected
and that is of fundamental importance for all areas of philosophy: there is an
indispensable place for the notion of the independently real even in a
philosophy that adopts a radically constructivist or conventionalist view of
mathematical knowledge. (For Kant, 7+5=12 was synthetic a priori; in the
trenches Witters called this 'baloney'). One may allow that mathematical
theorems and calculations, like moral judgments, may be publicly testable and
defeasible without allowing that (in mathematics or in morals) there is
knowledge of any realm outside of human practices and conventions. And since
acknowledgement of the public character of mathematical notions involves no
ontological commitment, it is compatible with a physicalist ontology. III)
Thirdly, and finally, Popper's philosophy contains no resources to resist
physicalism, since his only arguments for World Two are arguments that invoke
World Three. If, as we have argued, Popper's postulated World Three is
unnecessary, he has no reason to move beyond the First World of physical
objects and laws. The unknowable and the unknown are keywords in philosophy.
NOT in Graeco-Roman philosophy, because the Greeks and the Romans were pretty
'loose' (to use a favourite expression by Grice) about their use, respectively,
of Greek and Latin. Take 'philo-sophia'. Heidegger claims that philologically
speaking, 'philo-sophia' is a kind of 'sophia', i.e. knowledge. Of what? Of
'philo-', i.e. of love. Cicero, with all his linguistic inventiveness, could
not come up with a Roman equivalent: "If the thing is Greek, keep the Greek",
he said to his friend Atticus in a letter. Plato's difference between 'doxa'
and 'episteme' helped. Helped Hintikka, for example. In Hintikka's logic, we
distinguish between a modal logic for 'doxastic states', which are merely
claims and beliefs, and 'epistemic' claims, which are claims about knowledge.
Consider: i. That's a goldfinch. For J. L. Austin, one should utter (i) when
one KNOWS that that's a goldfinch. Grice is not as strict. His maxim is "Do not
say what you believe to be false". Still, there is no implicature: ii. I
believe that is a goldfinch. from (i), for (ii) is merely a logical entailment
out of the fact that (i) is in the indicative mode. For what would 'indicative'
mean if not 'indicative' of belief on the part of the utterer that he is
uttering what he believes to be true? All these distinctions which would help
Popper in his agglomerate that he calls "World 3" he dismisses as "Oxonian".
Cheers, Speranza
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