[lit-ideas] Re: The Immortality of Popper
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2013 06:31:34 +0000 (GMT)
It's early morning and I've just disposed of a diaper - you may have caught me
at a bad time. Nvthless...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
>Thanks to D. McEvoy for the clarification between valid deductions and
invalid inductions. >
Yeh, it was great wasn't it?
>McEvoy had written, in Lit-Ideas, some time ago (rather than some time in
the future):
"'All men are immortal' is scientific because testable; whereas 'All men
are mortal' is not per se testable or scientific, for its potential
falsifier - an immortal person - is not observable."
I provided the alleged counterexample:
I wrote, basing myself on the above observations by McEvoy:
"Popper proves that it is testable that "Popper is mortal" is observable.">
Now immediately we have an issue: this "alleged counterexample" is not a
counterexample to anything I have suggested - for even if we can observe a
'dead Popper', all this falsifies is that "All men are immortal"; it does not
falsify "All men are mortal".
So it is wrong for JLS to suggest that observing a dead Popper is some kind of
counterexample to the view that Popper's immortality is not observable, yet
this is what JLS appears to suggest:
>--- by contra-position to Popper's claim that, "Popper is immortal" is
not
observable.>
This is wrong - because to observe a dead Popper is not to observe anything
from which we might infer that an undying Popper is observable. To be clear: an
undying or immortal Popper is not observable because this perpetual state goes
beyond anything observable.
>McEvoy comments:
"Hmm."
----- vide Grice, "The implicature of "hmm"".
And goes on:
"This [i.e. the claim that "Popper is mortal is observable"] ... seems to
[be or become or subsist, or supervene on] the product of some confusion
of
thought.">
I left out the "be", so should have written "seems to be".
JLS asks >Why?>
Before continuing let me explain something. Take 'My car is now parked in the
street'. This is testable by observation, and so is a scientific claim (it
happens to be false btw, and for several reasons). But whether we treat 'My car
is now parked in the street' as a scientific claim depends on our view of
science - here, if we take the view that 'if a statement is
falsifiable/testable by observation then it is scientific', we may conclude
that 'My car etc.' is scientific. But that we take such a view is not thrust on
us by observation: nor is that view [viz. that 'if a statement is
falsifiable/testable by observation then it is scientific'] a view that is
itself falsifiable/testable by observation.
This is why, as JLS puts it, "Well, as McEvoy goes on":
"[J]ust because we may observe Popper 'in a state of being dead' would
not mean that the claim "Popper 'being dead' is observable" is itself
observably true or testable _in that same sense_]. But [I] am tiring
[myself] now."
Now this may need some clear thinking to appreciate but comes to this: let us
grant that we may observe a dead Popper, that is one thing. It is another thing
to say that the claim 'we may observe a dead Popper' is an observation claim at
the same level as 'Popper is dead'. By observing a 'dead Popper' we may thereby
show that a dead Popper is observable; but we do not thereby show that it is
observable that 'we may observe a dead Popper'. Put another way: while Popper
being dead may be observable and an issue that can be settled scientifically,
it is not observable [or something that can be settled scientifically] that
'Popper is dead' is a scientific claim.
Before you ask, No, this is not the start to the New Year that was reflected in
any resolutions I may rashly have made.
Best,
Donal
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