[lit-ideas] Re: Verging on Popper
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 08:02:12 +0100
But just as the article mounts a crude attempt to paint Popper as someone whose
personality stood in marked contrast to the virtues of his philosophy ["The
situation was straight out of Molière: the greatest
living exponent of the value and necessity of criticism would fly into a rage
at the least breath of criticism"], part of its theme that writers write to
compensate for what they lack (and so their writing shows qualities at odds
with them as persons), so it also repeatedly illustrates its own comment about
how some writers let "let rhetorical grace do a lot of the work of hard
thought". That is, the writer Gopnik lacks hard thought and lets "rhetorical
grace" try to do the work by way of compensation.
Consider Gopnik's claim: "The reason science gave you sure knowledge you could
count on was that it wasn’t sure and you couldn’t count on it." This is from
the Clives James School of Literateur's Paradox (or "rhetorical grace"), but
any serious thought will reveal this claim as a hoax - it simply cannot be the
case that because science is not sure and can't be counted on is the very
reason it can give sure knowledge and can be counted on. What Gopnik's
formulation tries to present as something solved by Popper's "conjectural" view
of science (and of all knowledge) cannot be solved in this way unless one is
taken in by "rhetorical grace" as a solution to serious problems: for there is
a problem in explaining why we generally will rely on well-tested science (and
even stake our lives on it by getting on a plane or undergoing a medical
procedure) even though this science has always a "conjectural" character - and
this problem is so serious for some that
it leads them to conclude that Popper cannot be right that science is
"conjectural" for it must, they contend, be something more reliable than that.
Anyone who finds the article interesting, and the contrast between "rhetorical
grace" and hard thinking interesting, and yet does not see that key assertions
in the article are not products of hard thinking but merely of "rhetorical
grace", is asleep at the wheel.
But then some people think, even in this day and age and post-Popper, it is
perfectly acceptable to teach how "knowledge" equates with "justified true
belief" without bothering to examine any serious challenge to this traditional
but badly mistaken view.
Dnl
Ldn
On Monday, 21 July 2014, 23:03, Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:
An interesting read, Robert. Thanks for sharing.
I'm caught on the very idea of "rhetorical grace" doing the work of hard
philosophical thought?? Like, hello? Category mistake big time. Surely any
reader who is unable to differentiate between the two has never seriously
studied those dialogues by Plato in which Socrates soundly trashes the
sophistic views of the likes of Callicles, Thrasymachus and Stephen Harper.
Moreover, as even we who have been initiated into the traditions of Eastern
Orthodoxy recognize, grace cannot be attained through conscious and deliberate
effort, while philosophical thought and argument requires precisely such
effort.
And we don't cross ourselves backwards, btw, but I won't mention that out of
respect for religious diversity in pluralist democracies.
Gospodsi, Gospodsi, pomolimsya ....
Gospodsi, Gospodsi pomiluy nas ....)
Having a knack for persuasion and being imbued by the Russian spiritual essence
of humanity, Valodsya
Quoting Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>:
> Torgeir just sent some thoughts on Adam Gopnik and Karl Popper. Over a
> dozen years ago, Gopnik wrote something about Popper, which originally
> appeared the April 1 2002, of *The New Yorker.* This is the article to
> which Torgeir refers.
>
> I posted a link to it to whatever list we were then, and commented on some
> of Gopnik's remarks, which were not entirely about Popper's thought, but
> also about Popper himself, drawn from conversations between them. Gopnik
> did not present Popper as an easygoing, tolerant man.
>
> This drew a caustic reply from Donal, who sent the list a sharp response,
> upbraiding both Gopnik, and me; Gopnik for his uninformed bigotry, and
> me—well, me for my gullibility, if not worse.
>
> Here's the link again.
>
> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/04/01/the-porcupine
>
> Robert Paul
>
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