ACCORDING to Raymond Harvey: The scientific sceptic, as opposed to the philosophical sceptic, is defined by rational inquiry — someone who investigates with a disposition to be persuaded.
THE Greek word skopein – from which the English word scope derives – means “to observe, aim at, examine.” It is related to the Greek skeptesthai, which means “to look out.” Skepsis and skeptikos are also both Greek and mean “to look; to enquire; to aim.” Those are the etymological roots of the word sceptic.
Sceptic – or if you’re in the United States, skeptic, the difference purely one of form and not substance – has its origins in the Ancient Greek thinkers who developed arguments which purport to show that knowledge is either impossible (Academic Scepticism) or that there is never sufficient data to tell if knowledge is possible (Pyrrhonian Scepticism).
Academic Scepticism rejects certainty but accepts degrees of probability. In this sense, Academic Scepticism anticipates elements of present-day quantum theory. The Academic Sceptics rejected certainty on the basis that our senses (from which all knowledge ultimately derives) are unreliable and reason therefore is unreliable since, say the Academic Sceptics, we can find no guaranteed standard by which to gauge whether our convictions are true. This claim rests upon the notion that humans can never know anything that is absolutely false.
The roots of Academic Scepticism are found in Socrates famous apothegm: “All I know is that I know nothing.” The word Academic in “Academic Scepticism” refers to Plato’s Academy, third century B.C.
At around this same time, a fellow by the name of Pyrrho of Elis (c.360-275 B.C.), who was connected with the Methodic School of Medicine in Alexandria, founded a school, which soon came to be known as Pyrrhonian Scepticism. Pyrrho’s followers – most notably a loyal student named Timon (c.315-225 B.C.) – were called Pyrrhonists. None of Pyrrho’s actual writings have survived, and the theoretical formulation of his philosophy comes mainly from a man named Aenesidemus (c.100-40 B.C.).
The essential difference between these two schools of Ancient Greek scepticism is this:
The Pyrrhonists regarded even the claim I know only that I know nothing as claiming too much knowledge. (Talk about dumb!) There’s even a legend that Pyrrho himself refused to make an definitive judgment of knowledge even if “chariots were about to strike him dead,” and his students putatively rescued him a number of different times because he refused to make commitments. Also, some of his best lady friends are reported to have left him “because he wouldn’t commit.”
To this day the term Pyrrhonist is synonymous with the term sceptic, which is also synonymous with the term agnostic (a meaning “without”; gnosis meaning “knowledge”).
It’s perhaps worth pointing out as well, since he came up in Part 1 of this series, that the word agnostic in this sceptical context was, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, coined by Thomas Henry Huxley, in the spring of 1869, at a party, in which there was reportedly “much licking and sucking.” According to R. H. Hutton, who was there: “Huxley took it from St. Paul’s mention of the altar to ‘the Unknown God.’”
In truth, however, the word agnostic was most likely first used by a woman named Isabel Arundell, in a letter to Huxley. Huxley stole it from and gave her no credit.
The Oxford English Dictionary (Unabridged, 2004) lists four meanings of the term sceptic, which are as follows:
1. one who, like Pyrrho and his followers in Greek antiquity, doubts the possibility of real knowledge of any kind; one who holds that there are no adequate grounds for certainty. Example: “I am apt to think there never yet has really been such a monster in the world as a sceptic” (Tucker, 1768).
2. one who doubts the validity of what claims to be knowledge … popularly, one who maintains a doubting attitude with reference to some particular question or statement; one who is habitually inclined to doubt rather than to believe any assertion or apparent fact that comes before him. Example: “If every sceptic in Theology may teach his follies, there can be no religion” (Samuel Johnson, 1779).
3. one who doubts without absolutely denying the truth of the Christian religion or important party of it; loosely, an unbeliever in Christianity. Example: “In listening to the arguments of a sceptic, you are breathing a poisonous air” (R.B. Girdlestone, 1863).
4. occasionally, from its etymological sense: a truth seeker; an inquirer who has not yet arrived at definite conclusions. Example: “A sceptic, then, is one who shades his eyes in order to look steadfastly at a thing.” (M.D. Conway, 1870).
The anthropogenic global warming debate has catapulted this latter definition to the forefront, yet many purists, who know the philosophical roots of the word scepticism, are not always comfortable using it in this way — mainly because it’s so at odds with the philosophical meaning of the term. Scepticism has over 2,000 years of heavy philosophical baggage, and to call yourself a sceptic in the philosophical sense entails much more than one “who shades his eyes in order to look steadfastly at a thing.”
Language, however, as everyone knows, is a living, breathing organism which will and properly should evolve, and it would be very bad (that’s bad meaning bad, not bad meaning good) to say that sceptic in this latter sense is incorrect. And yet there is another word, arguably more precise and less laden: Evidentialism.
In the realm of human conviction, there exists at any given time three alternatives: possible, probable, and certain.
Possible is when some evidence exists, but not much.
Probable is when a lot of evidence exists, but not all.
Certain is when the evidence is so overwhelming that no other conclusion is possible.
What determines the one from the other is not only the amount of evidence but also the context of knowledge within which that evidence is found.
True scepticism — which is to say, agnosticism, which is to say, Pyrrhonism — rejects the possibility of all knowledge, and yet it is precisely this that the scientist seeks, and finds: knowledge. What is knowledge?
Knowledge is the apprehension of reality based upon observation and reason; reason is the uniquely human faculty of awareness, the apparatus of identification, differentiation, and incorporation. Knowledge is truth, and truth is the accurate identification of reality. Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus. Truth is the equation of thing and intellect. For example, when the child grasps that 1 unit combined with 2 other units makes a total of 3 units, that child has discovered a truth. She has gained knowledge. The philosophical sceptic rejects this elementary fact.
The philosophical sceptic is defined by three words: “I don’t know.”
The scientific sceptic, on the other hand, is defined by rational inquiry — someone who investigates with a disposition to be persuaded and yet does not (in the words of perhaps the most famous sceptical inquirer of them all) “insensibly twist facts to fit theories, instead of twisting theories to fit facts.”
Raymond Harvey
Colorado, USA
http://fortcollinsteaparty.com/
Parts 1-4 of this series can be found here http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/tag/philosophy/
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
And of course those who are not climate skeptics are all “Greens” and sentimental idiots. It’s so simple and obvious.
No mention of ‘climate skeptics’ in the above post?
SJT needs to be tested because his 2 alternative types of non-sceptics are inadequate; what are your views on these 2 related AGW issues SJT?
1 Are nuclear and thorium viable alternatives to fossil fuel energy sources?
2 Would you say there are extremists travelling under the banner of AGW with one example being Malthusian exponents who want drastic and forced reductions in human population?
I am not a climate sceptic. There is no doubt in my mind that climate exists and changes. I have become strongly convinced by people that label me as a denier that they have been unable and unwilling to prove that humans cause the increase in CO2 in our atmosphere and that increase will make this planet warmer.
I am even more convinced that if we had not invented television for the masses 50 years ago and the internet more recently, we would not have any of these converssations because we couldn’t spread videos. Just because we don’t have videos of hurricanes and droughts 200 years ago, doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.
My dear Doctor Marohasy, in response to your question, I was just getting warmed up. I was laying the groundwork, as it were, for Part 6:
Defining the Sceptics (Part 6)
Scepticism, then, is a method — it is a method of inquiry. The results of that inquiry may be geared toward ethical considerations (as they were for Pyrrho), or they may be geared toward something else. In either case, scepticism, whether philosophic or scientific, is epistemological.
Epistemology — one of the two main branches of philosophy, the other being metaphysics — is the science of knowledge. The word derives from the Greek episteme, which means knowledge.
Epistemology proper didn’t actually begin until Rene Descartes (1596-1650); but the stuff of epistemology — reason, logic, deduction, induction, conviction, faith, et cetera — has been with us since the Ancient Greeks.
Epistemology is an extraordinarily complicated discipline that starts with three simple words:
Consciousness is awareness.
That is an epistemological axiom which cannot be refuted or denied: for any theory of knowledge that purports to refute that consciousness is awareness must rely on the awareness of his consciousness to refute it.
First there exists the external world — also known as reality or existence (i.e. metaphysics) — and then there exists the awareness of it. These two things are separate, but not equal: by definition, the external comes first, before there can be an awareness of it.
In the words of the philosopher Douglas Rasmussen:
“Consciousness is ultimately of or about something other than itself — it is ultimately relational.”
And Neo-Thomist Jacques Maritain:
“The first thing thought about is being independent of the mind…. We do not eat what has been eaten; we eat bread. To separate object from thing is to violate the nature of intellect.”
As previously mentioned, in the realm of human conviction there exists at any given time only three alternatives: possible, probable, and certain. What distinguishes the one from the other is not only the amount of evidence but also the context of knowledge within which that evidence is found.
To conclude certain, or even “a certainty exceeding 99 percent” (as James Hansen likes to say likes to say) requires, therefore, a sufficient knowledge of all relevant data and all potentially relevant data.
This is as true in a scientific laboratory as it is in a court of law — or, for that matter, a quart of slaw.
It means that nothing — the complexity of clouds, for instance, or aerosols, deep ocean currents, cosmic rays, sun spots — nothing is poorly understood, or insufficiently understood.
It means that the science has culminated to such a degree that our knowledge of the thing is complete or near-complete — so much so, at any rate, that there is essentially very little left to learn.
It means that because the evidence is so great, the conclusion admits no doubt.
It means, moreover, that the data-gathering process is not biased or influenced in any way by anything extracurricular, like activism.
Such is the nature of certainty.
From an epistemological standpoint, certainty means absolute.
And yet it’s many of these same AGW scientists who, today, under the insidious influence of postmodern premises, assure us that there are no absolutes in science — “science doesn’t deal in truth, but only likelihood,” to quote a climate modeler named Gavin Schmidt.
Truth is only relative, you see. Quantum physics and thermodynamics have “proven” that the only certainty is that nothing is certain; definitions are purely a question of semantics; a unified philosophy is “circular reasoning” (or, at best, “system-building”). The mind, in short, cannot know anything for certain. Yet AGW is, for all intents and purposes, certain.
These are all epistemological assertions.
Syllogistically, the entire anthropogenic global warming position can be recapitulated in this way:
Global warming is man-made. Man is ruled by governments. Therefore, government bureaus, centralized planning committees, and more laws are the only solution.
In philosophy, this is called a non-sequitur.
It does not follow.
It’s far too hasty.
It is in this way that the AGW theory can be demonstrated as faulty, without any real reference to the science but based primarily upon its corrupt epistemology.
In the final analysis, then, we can say that scepticism represents a paradox: on the one hand, to a great many people, it stands for rational inquiry; on the other, it is precisely the sceptical underpinnings — sceptical in the Pyrrhonian, philosophic sense — of postmodern science that is destroying the discipline of science before our very eyes.
Tricky stuff, hey Luke? As Wittgenstein said, philosophy is ‘a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language’. I’m almost certain he said it, but then, as a sceptic, I am uncertain that I’m certain. Did Wittgenstein actually exist? What is the probability of his existence? Can you write us a Fortran algorithm to sort this out? (Go easy on the keyboard… a cucumber sandwich or two may help, but don’t drop crumbs in the keys)
Every time I read Mr. Harvey, I have to grab a dictionary, turn off the TV to settle down for a spell and get a drink.
I have to throw in with the discipline Ray is demanding here even though I am sure I don’t understand it adequately. Too many contemporary debates are shooting over each other’s bow, never arriving at a truth. When this happens, the debate is no longer rigorous in logic or truth. It becomes Ad Homenum, arm-waving or appeals to Al Gore.
I boil it down to a thought process. I was taught it was the scientific method. As a young engineer, calculating big, expensive things which are supposed to protect lives, I often calc’d things that made the owner unhappy, or which I questioned. I had to rely on my undergrad laboratories, where I tested the theories I was taught.
If it weren’t for the labs verifying those theories, I would have no confidence in my calcs in the physical sciences.
These studies girded my fundamental understanding, er , knowledge, of these relationships and the State says I shall know these things.
The state also says that I can’t withhold data, calcs or methods. I would never dream of such a thing in my practice. Of course, I am a lowly engineer, and I have recently read that engineers are not scientists.
I submit I don’t make recommendations based on chicken bone throws or the horoscope. I use my training in the physical sciences. I apply this training in the real world, with real money and real lives at stake.
A well defined philosophical knowledge/frame would be cool. It should be the way to focus energy and ideas and DECIDE a winner of a debate.
For SJT, again, please note that ‘climate’ is never mentioned above.
Nowhere in this is the idea that a skeptic accepts not making a decision. To me “insensibly twist facts to fit theories, instead of twisting theories to fit facts.” are both invalid ideas. A theory can be made about what we can percieve to be a fact. If on testing the theory it is not found to fit the facts then it is invalid and so you should start again. Twisting sounds more like lies and deceit. If a theory is helpful to interact with the world then for the time being use it otherwise just ignore it.
This blog is very much about AGW. What is the theory? Can you look it up the same as say Einstein’s theory of relativity? I don’t think you can instead you have GCM in which you divide the atmosphere into cells and iterate through them. At the few points you can address a multitude of equations are applied. These are each backed up by a theory. Then integration of these results are attempted. I doubt it is valid add theories together even if each are provable. If the results meet expectations then such a scheme is easily twisted (sorry parameters adjusted).
GCM outputs are taken as fact because they based on such a collection of theories. I think they cannot be tested and shold be ignored. Are but the probality and the precautionary principle and concensus. These are all actively used to convince the congregation of the true way to belief in the lord. Ask those burned by the GFC how well computers model real events.
dhmo said it better than I could. Remember the millions slaughtered during the last century in the name of the people. Hitler 10m, Stalin 20m, Mao 40m. 70 million had to die, in the name of you, yes you and yours. You know, the people. Of course the people are all knowing. I should forever bow to you.
Heretics, like me, are to be again jailed. Which Judge and where? Been there, done that.
Beware the people you thought you knew, let alone what you say.
dhmo,
The range of things people choose to believe in, is endless, can’t give you a better example than the Church of Scientology. Compared to it, the basis of Christianity is a rock solid proven fact.
And yet how many people are adherent to it?
Now even governments acknowledge it as a religion instead of a sect.
No wonder AGW is so popular by politicians!
Sorry in my last somewhat hurried I post meant to say
If the results don’t meet expectations then such a scheme is easily twisted (sorry parameters adjusted).
Marcus I recently heard an interview with Christopher Booker’s about his book “Scared To Death”. He spoke about the political obsession with speeding on the road. Statistically it causes a maximum of 5% of deaths so why the emphasis? Booker says “well for the average poly can show they are addressing the problem, besides it brings in revenue”. This is sobering but not a new idea for me since looking at the actual figures on road deaths I can not think of any other reasonable explanation! Look around there are so many things like this.
I am one that has no religous upbringing and not someone who has discarded a religion. My position is that the those who accept the authority of the Pope are no different to those who accept the authority of Ron L Hubbard. Both are giving the right to reason away. Doing that though seems to be the human condition and means that most are easily manipulated like the Eloi of H G Wells. We see it as religion but this mode of acceptance goes far beyond that.
As Ray observes epistemology has 2 parts; awareness of the self, in relation to the external world; from this comes personal identity; post-modernism has deconstructed the objective externality as part of the process of establishing the primacy of the relativism of personal identity and self-awareness; in this process the mechanisms by which objective reality are defined, science and legal process, are subordinated to the process of making subjectivity the dominant part of epistemology; in this way meaning is not received or perceived from a fixed and revealed reality but subjective values, ideology, and the sense of self that the adherents to the ideology have, give meaning to the externality. This is what AGW does; science and legal process via legislation are mere means of imposing meaning and values on nature; nature is construed as the measureable and defining parameter of the sense of self of the ideological adherents; what in nature does not conform to the sense of self is discarded or remeasured and redefined to fit the ideology and the sense of self which are the same; essentially nature becomes a tabula rasa for the anthropological projection of the values of AGW. This is quintessentially Foucaultian and subversive to the values of the Enlightenment which have elevated humanity to some independence from natural constraints. Seen thus AGW, under the guise of protecting nature and the paradoxical delusion that nature can be controlled by an abrogation of the means of control, is the antithesis of epistemology because knowledge which is tangential to reality is not knowledge but pathology.
“For SJT, again, please note that ‘climate’ is never mentioned above.”
His tentative part six does, it’s all about how AGW is corrupting science, as I said, and it’s up to the skeptics to save it, using their powers to use papers like G&T and Miskolczi that prove it is wrong. Miskoclzi, in fact, has created a whole new law of physics, and no one is skeptical of that. Even the readings he has of the Martian atmosphere.
Dear Raymond Harvey,
You write: “Academic Scepticism rejects certainty but accepts degrees of probability. In this sense, Academic Scepticism anticipates elements of present-day quantum theory.”
It is very distressing to see that you seem to think that quantum theory really has something new or valuable to say about this philosophical problem, that could be “anticipated” by the ancient philosophers. It means you have been bluffed by the status and by the obscurantist language and hubris of the quantum orthodox authorities. That you would be sucked in by their nonsense is a piece of evidence suggestive that you are not really quite yet a thorough sceptic yourself.
Quantum mechanics is a mathematical formalism for dealing with counts from “particle detectors”. It is a calculus of probabilities. It is up against the fact that one cannot get an absolute fix on the phase of the spin of a subatomic particle. Since the phase affects the correlations that are observed in the particle detector counts, and cannot be known absolutely, the theory of probability is needed to deal with the observations. There is nothing new about this in philosophy or in the theory of probability, which you are writing about. It is true that it is only a moderately recent discovery, hardly a century old, that subatomic particles have phases that cannot be absolutely fixed by any empirical procedure. But that is simply an empirical fact with no need for philosophy to justify it, and is no threat to valid philosophy. Niels Bohr succeeded in propagating nonsense contrary to this, and his nonsense is accepted by orthodox authorities who think they are very clever, and let me warn you, you will not get a job in a physics department if you dispute that nonsense.
There are other muddles in your note. For example: “For example, when the child grasps that 1 unit combined with 2 other units makes a total of 3 units, that child has discovered a truth. She has gained knowledge. The philosophical sceptic rejects this elementary fact.” You are not distinguishing logical truth from empirically justified degrees of knowledge. 1 + 2 = 3 is a logical truth (presupposing that the symbols have their usual meanings as in ordinary arithmetic) and is not open to empirical falsification. If you find some empirical evidence that you think would invalidate 1+ 2 = 3, then your empirical evidence is mis-reported or your thinking is mistaken. You can use the logical truth of 1 + 2 = 3 to check your reports of your empirical evidence and your thinking, combined. That the sun came up this morning is an empirically justified piece of knowledge. You might falsify it by some conceivable amount of empirical evidence. If you philosophical sceptic does not understand and accept this, he is really saying that he cannot participate in any rational conversation at all, and even his scepticism has no rational meaning.
You write: “In the realm of human conviction, there exists at any given time three alternatives: possible, probable, and certain.
Possible is when some evidence exists, but not much.
Probable is when a lot of evidence exists, but not all.
Certain is when the evidence is so overwhelming that no other conclusion is possible.”
These are rather idiosyncratic definitions or assertions.
Possibility does not in general necessarily relate to evidence. The possible is what might be. The impossible is what cannot be. The logical partner of the possible is the actual. The actual is what is but might not be, the possible but non-actual is what is not, but might be. Possibility is about what goes on in the mind of the speaker. What might be is a mental question, with a range of qualified answers. Aristotle gave a good account of the notions of the possible and the actual.
Probability is about the relation of evidence to proposition. On the evidence that I saw the sun shine every day this past week I think it probable that it will rise tomorrow morning.
Certainty comes in two forms, subjective certainty and and objective certainty. Subjectively, I am certain that AGW is nonsense, objectively I have to admit that the probability of its being right might be say 1 in 10000000000, based on the evidence that I have examined. Subjective certainty is in a sense arbitrary, objective certainty is subject to rational criticism. The only kind of strict objective certainty is logical truth as noted above. There is no empirical certainty. Empirically there are only degrees of probability based on specified empirical evidence. I like to distinguish arbitrary belief from probative belief. Certainty is a kind of belief.
In order to clarify your understanding of the philosophical and logical basis of the idea of probability, I urge you to read E.T. Jaynes (2003) ‘Probability Theory: The Logic of Science’, edited by G. Larry Bretthorst, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher Game
Hey Christopher,
What about a summary from you on the most relevant aspect of E.T. Jaynes (2003) ‘Probability Theory: The Logic of Science’, edited by G. Larry Bretthorst, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge … for this series on ‘Defining the Sceptics’?
EJ wrote: > Beware the people you thought you knew, let alone what you say.
That’s right, bro. And a secret is no longer a secret if more than one person knows about it.
dhmo, I really agree with what you say about there being no essential difference between L. Ron Hubbard and the Pope of Rome. This whole ipse dixit business is a variation on intrinsicism, which is pure epistemological poison.
Speaking of the pope, did you hear about the gay pope? He couldn’t decide if he was gorgeous or simply divine.
EJ wrote: > Every time I read Mr. Harvey
Mr. Harvey! Hell, no. That’s my dad. Please call me Ray.
cohenite, the final sentence of your last comment should be enshrined.
Thank you. And thank you for reading.
“cohenite, the final sentence of your last comment should be enshrined.”
I agree. As an excellent example of bombastic windbaggery. Cohenite still doens’t understand what AGW is, and until he does, all his talk about it is a complete waste of time.
Ironically, you are describing your thought process, Cohenite. AGW cannot exist because it goes against your view of how the world works. As such, you are prepared to grasp at any straw to deny AGW, including such works of non-science as G&T and Miskolczi. There is a physical basis for AGW, and you cannot even tolerate that since it offends your political view of the world.
Thank you for your detailed comment, Christopher. I’m game to address some of your more salient points:
In reference to my casual mention of the fact that Academic Scepticism anticipates elements of present-day quantum theory, Christopher Game wrote: > It is very distressing to see that you seem to think that quantum theory really has something new or valuable to say about this philosophical problem
You infer too much, Christopher Game, always a dicey endeavor. In fact, I’ve long held just the opposite view and have made no secret of that: I don’t think that quantum theory has anything new or valuable to say on this score, and you will search my words in vain for any such notion. My purpose was merely to point out, strictly in passing, that the calculus of probabilities has indeed revivified and reinvigorated an ancient philosophy — and not, incidentally, just by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger (et al), but even more significantly by the so-called meta-fiction writers, everyone from Thomas Pynchon to Robert Anton Wilson to Tom Robbins and all those in between. Rest assured, there is no need to be very distressed over my simple statement of fact.
Christopher Game wrote: > You are not distinguishing logical truth from empirically justified degrees of knowledge.
You’re correct: I’m not. Mainly because I reject the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, and I don’t believe in the school of rationalism (which states in essence that knowledge of the universe comes by deducing it from concepts apart from “experience”) any more than I believe in the school of empiricism, which states in essence that human knowledge comes only from experience without reference to concepts.
Christopher Game wrote: > 1 + 2 = 3 is a logical truth
It is a truth. Notice that I first stated it as 1 unit combined with 2 more units makes a total of 3 units. I did this on purpose; because in reality (as opposed to on paper) when a child has 1 orange and combines it with 2 more oranges and then observes that she now in reality has a total of 3 oranges, she has discovered a real truth.
Christopher Game wrote: > (presupposing that the symbols have their usual meanings as in ordinary arithmetic)
Of course. We needn’t over-complicate things. My example was deliberately basic for a specific reason.
Christopher Game wrote: > If you find some empirical evidence that you think would invalidate 1+ 2 = 3, then your empirical evidence is mis-reported or your thinking is mistaken.
Newly discovered truth cannot contradict old; it can only elaborate upon it. If something is true, it will always be true. When, for example, at 5,000 feet above sea level, you observe that water boils at a certain temperature, you have discovered a truth. When, at sea level, you discover that water does not boil at that same temperature, your newly discovered truth does not thereby invalidate the old: water does still boil at that temperature at 5,000 feet above sea level. That fact remains true. What’s changed is your context. You then discover why. You learn about air pressure. You learn that lower air pressure also lowers the temperature at which water boils. You learn that water boils faster at higher altitudes and yet it takes longer to cook the same foods. You learn next that the reason for this is that water boils at a lower temperature at a higher altitudes, and so on. Note that at every stage in this process, the newly discovered truth is not contradicting the previously known; it’s elaborating upon it. In this way, your base of knowledge broadens. Since truth is “reality accurately identified,” new truth can’t conflict with old because what has been identified is accurate. The very word “accurate” means “true.” My example need not have been mathematical, necessarily. I could have just as truthfully said: “When the child grasps that the antithesis of life is death, that child has discovered a truth.”
To illustrate more clearly what I mean, let us say that a young person is seeking to discover what money is. As long as his or her observations correspond to reality, the definitions that he or she forms will not be negated by any new truths later discovered; on the contrary, they will only be expanded. Let us suppose that our youngster observes that money is something small and round which fits in her father’s pocket.
For this youngster, then, that becomes a working definition of money: something small and round that fits in her father’s front pocket . Well, that’s true. Money is this. It may also be other things, of course, but it’s this as well. Therefore this child’s observation won’t be negated by any future discoveries, because it is indeed true that money is something round that fits inside her father’s pocket. It’s a true statement.
Say next that this child learns that money is also often made of paper and that this paper is not usually kept in her father’s front pocket but in his billfold. Well, that’s true too. It can be elaborated, of course, but it’s true that money is this greenish paper which she sees her father putting into his billfold. Say next our youngster learns that money has something to do with earnings from labor. That’s also true; money is this.
So money is small and round and fits in her father’s front pocket, and money is often made of paper and carried in billfolds, and money also has something to do with labor earnings. Future knowledge can’t contradict these facts because these facts are true — in her given context. So far, the child is epistemologically safe because her knowledge is based upon her observations of what is. Future knowledge cannot just make these observed facts go away; it can only expand upon them.
Say next the child learns that money is often kept in banks. Say she then learns that money has something to do with exchange and buying things. Say that she learns that this interaction is often a value-for-value exchange (as the economists like to say). Please notice that all these statements are also true in the sense that they correspond with reality.
Money, in reality, is often kept in banks, a fact that the child observed after going there with her father. Money does have to do with exchange and buying things. And money transactions often are a value-for-value exchange. These things are true, and their verity derives not from arbitrary constructs, nor from the nature of the human brain alone, but from reality as observed by the senses and as processed by the human brain.
All knowledge must start and end with observation: the observation of what is.
Let us say next that our increasingly sophisticated youngster then learns that the basis of money is production, and that money is really just a symbol of production, and that the creation of wealth is not precisely the same as the creation of money (contrary to what many of our politicians would have us believe — an instructive lesson to be learned there in this context of truth versus falsehood).
Notice how in our hypothetical example here none of the new things that the child learns controvert anything which she has already discovered. Those previous things remain true, regardless of new discoveries. As long as the discoveries are true in the first place — as long as they accurately correspond to reality — then there can be no conflict.
To say that later truth always or even sometimes controverts earlier truth is to say that reality controverts itself. Which it does not and cannot.
If our hypothetical youngster had, for whatever reason, defined money as pocket lint, well, that is an inaccurate observation and therefore later truth will contradict it. Reality will expose it as false. So you see what I’m driving at.
What I’m driving at is this:
Knowledge if it’s true is only expanded by future discoveries, not crossed-out and begun anew. Never that. If it’s not true, it’s not truly knowledge. The pursuit of more knowledge assumes, and so builds upon, all previously gathered knowledge and so on, backward. The knowledge-gathering process doesn’t begin at the beginning every time. The contexts may and often do change, but the old and known contexts remain true in that context, and thus they are the building blocks of expanding contexts — which is to say, further knowledge. Truth is a judgment that corresponds to external reality, and it is absolute in its given context.
One thing also to please consider: my article was not meant to be a treatise on the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, nor, I’m sure, was that what Doctor Marohasy had in mind. That subject is highly technical and falls slightly outside the scope of the historical roots of scepticism; so if I wasn’t as thorough as you or I might ideally like, please understand why. I was trying not to bore readers too much more than I already have.
Christopher Game wrote: > That the sun came up this morning is an empirically justified piece of knowledge…. If you[r] philosophical sceptic does not understand and accept this, he is really saying that he cannot participate in any rational conversation at all, and even his scepticism has no rational meaning.
Yes.
Christopher Game wrote (in reference to my informal definitions of possible, probable, and certain): > These are rather idiosyncratic definitions or assertions.
Actually, they’re epistemological definitions based upon what’s known as the “evidential continuum.” But you’re certainly right that there are distinctions between, for example, epistemic certainty and psychological certainty, and I possibly I should have specified that, though I felt the context was probably clear.
Christopher Game wrote: > Possibility does not in general necessarily relate to evidence.
On the evidential continuum, it does.
Christopher Game wrote: > The logical partner of the possible is the actual.
Yes.
Christopher Game wrote: > Possibility is about what goes on in the mind of the speaker.
Not really. Not always. Possibility can and often does exist without a “speaker.” If, for instance, a detective is trying to solve a crime, and he’s sifting through all the people present at the scene of the crime, that detective is ideally using evidence to determine which people are possibly suspects.
Christopher Game wrote: > Aristotle gave a good account of the notions of the possible and the actual.
Yes, several in fact. One of them went like this:
“‘Why a thing is itself’ is a meaningless inquiry, for the fact or existence of the thing must already be evident … but the fact that a thing is itself is the single reason and the single cause to be given to all such questions as ‘why is man man’ or ‘the musician musical'” (Metaphysics, 7. 16).
But his greatest student did him one better, in my opinion:
“No one perceives that he understands except from this, that he understands some thing: because he must first know some thing before he knows that he knows” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica).
Existence, in other words, is assumed in any utterance whatsoever. And existence — i.e. the actual — is the basis of evidence.
“In Aristotle’s terms, the identity or ‘what-is-to-be is the cause of each thing’s existence’; and identity is the cause, not just in the sense of what a thing is, but in an ontological sense of that in virtue of which a thing exists” (Rasmussen, 1986).
Christopher Game wrote: > Probability is about the relation of evidence to proposition.
But not just propositions (although that is certainly included). People can and routinely do implicitly gauge probabilities without any reference to propositions at all or numerical value but to the facts themselves. And numerical values can also attach to, for example, events and kinds of events. Take again the example of a detective sifting through evidence to discover who committed a crime. You are very right to speak of evidence. That’s what this is all about. Epistemologically, the validation of notions and ideas and theories, et cetera, operates on a spectrum of evidence. At one end of the spectrum is total ignorance (I mean that in the neutral, non-pejorative sense), and on the other end total knowledge. Validation and proof is a gradual process which comes as the evidence is gathered — as it accumulates. The primary divisions on that spectrum are, as I said above, possible, probable, and certain. But it is a spectrum — meaning: there are degrees of each one of those. It all depends upon the amount of evidence and one’s current context of knowledge. A conclusion “is probable if the burden of a substantial body of evidence, although inconclusive, supports it.” Probable, Oxford goes on to say, means “likely.”
Christopher Game wrote: > Certainty comes in two forms, subjective certainty and and objective certainty.
Usually known as epistemic certainty versus psychological certainty. Only the former applies of course to the “evidential continuum,” and, to my knowledge, only Peter Unger thinks that psychological certainty has anything to do with scepticism.
Christopher Game wrote: > Subjective certainty is in a sense arbitrary
In a sense! You can say that again, brother.
Christopher Game wrote: > There is no empirical certainty.
Are you certain?
Christopher Game wrote: > Empirically there are only degrees of probability based on specified empirical evidence.
Then it is not certain you will either live or die. Or whether or not I will.
Christopher Game wrote: > I like to distinguish arbitrary belief from probative belief.
Yes. So do I.
Christopher Game wrote: > Certainty is a kind of belief.
I like to put it this way: certainty (in the epistemic sense) is an assessment of the evidence.
Yes, true knowledge is not repudiated by future true knowledge although stages of true knowledge can occur such as transitional evolutionary attiributes; but my main concern here is AGW which has posited NO true knowledge only sophistic refinements of unreal conclusions or untrue knowledge. The most recent one was Will Steffen’s statement that atmospheric temperature is not a measure of AGW; this statement followed Senator Fielding’s 3 simple questions to Senator Wong about the lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature over the short term, the medium term and the long term; consistent with Foucaultian reality creation Steffen then dismissed this prior false knowledge and activated a replacement false knowledge, namely Ocean Heat Content; Steffen said that the rate of OHC is increasing; that is, not only is OHC increasing, the rate of that increase is increasing. This is plainly wrong; but it proves the dictum of the facist and advertising lexicons; if you are going to tell a lie make sure it is a big one.
SJT; you are an idiot; and yes my point is proponents of AGW are, to varying degree, mad.
“SJT; you are an idiot; and yes my point is proponents of AGW are, to varying degree, mad.”
You are the one who swallowed G&T hook, line and sinker.
“Yes, true knowledge is not repudiated by future true knowledge although stages of true knowledge can occur such as transitional evolutionary attiributes; but my main concern here is AGW which has posited NO true knowledge only sophistic refinements of unreal conclusions or untrue knowledge.”
Science has always had to deal with the bleeding edge of knowledge and understanding, and always will. If that makes you uncomfortable, that’s not the fault of science. The IPCC AR4 is an excellent example of taking the available, imperfect information, and drawing the most reasonable conclusion that can be made. They consider the observations of different climate sensitive phenomena, they consider the physical basis, they consider the past and the mathematical models that describe the behaviour of climate. Weigh it all up, AGW is the most likely explanation of what is happening. Sitting down and crying because you didn’t get your pony, or being prepared to believe any counter evidence, no matter how absurd, doesn’t count as a rational response.
Dear Ray,
Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
I am glad to learn that my guess was wrong, and to learn that you haven’t been sucked in by the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics. My distress was unwarranted and is now allayed. Thank you for this comforting reassurance.
Your post: “Christopher Game wrote: > You are not distinguishing logical truth from empirically justified degrees of knowledge.
You’re correct: I’m not. Mainly because I reject the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, and I don’t believe in the school of rationalism (which states in essence that knowledge of the universe comes by deducing it from concepts apart from “experience”) any more than I believe in the school of empiricism, which states in essence that human knowledge comes only from experience without reference to concepts.”
I reply: I am not sure whether or why you won’t distinguish logical truth from empirical truth. Perhaps needless to say, I agree with you in rejecting the dogmatic “schools” of “rationalism” and “empiricism”, by which the two legs understanding are separated and arbitrarily made separately exhaustively sufficient. Science is about explanation and understanding of evidence. Are you really saying that you think you could find some empirical evidence that would lead you to deny that 1 + 2 = 3 ? From what you write it seems to me that you want to refuse to distinguish logical from empirical truth. It puzzles me as to why you would want to so refuse? It is possible, by slippery grammatical tricks, to confound, as you have done, the two, but that is not by itself a reason, that I can understand, to want to refuse to distinguish them.
You write: “Possibility is about what goes on in the mind of the speaker. Not really. Not always. Possibility can and often does exist without a “speaker”. . .
that detective is ideally using evidence to determine which people are possibly suspects.”
I reply: it seems to me that the detective is the “missing” speaker. Or was it the butler?
You write: “People can and routinely do implicitly gauge probabilities without any reference to propositions at all or numerical value but to the facts themselves.”
I reply: It is a stretch or a metaphor to say that someone can “implicitly gauge probabilities”. If you are going to appeal to this kind of stretch, I will not feel I can usefully agree or disagree with you.
You write: “Christopher Game wrote: > There is no empirical certainty.
Are you certain?”
I reply: are you seriously interested in rational discussion?
You write: “Christopher Game wrote: > Empirically there are only degrees of probability based on specified empirical evidence.
Then it is not certain you will either live or die. Or whether or not I will.”
I reply: You can’t be serious here. It is logically certain that both of us will either live or die, and no empirical evidence can certainly confirm or refute that. The verb to die is intransitive. It has a logical structure.
But mostly, I am relieved to know that you are not sucked in by the orthodox interpretation of QM. That is good news.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher Game
Dear Jennifer,
You write: “What about a summary from you on the most relevant aspect of E.T. Jaynes (2003) ‘Probability Theory: The Logic of Science’, edited by G. Larry Bretthorst, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge … for this series on ‘Defining the Sceptics’?”
Thank you for your kind invitation. But I will not feel safe to take it up. Jaynes is so opposed to the orthodoxy that my summary would likely not do him justice and would likely create only more passionate opposition and confusion than enlightenment. Best to read Jaynes for oneself. He is a great teacher in ordinary language. Just the first three chapters would be a mighty investment.
Perhaps I can safely make one comment. If you think you know everything, don’t bother to read Jaynes, because he needs you to admit that you don’t know everything.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher
Thank you, Christopher. I thought your rejoinder was very well done. I trust you will not mind if I explicate a little further, one final time.
Christopher Game wrote: > Are you really saying that you think you could find some empirical evidence that would lead you to deny that 1 + 2 = 3?
No, not at all. Just the opposite. I’m saying that to set up a dichotomy between logical truth and empirical truth — or, in the philosophical jargon that I don’t subscribe to, analytic truth versus synthetic truth — is to ultimately sunder consciousness and existence.
To give a quick illustration of this:
The proposition “Water boils if it’s hot enough” is regarded, according to this dichotomy, as “empirically falsifiable” because one can invent (key word) scenarios that refute it — for instance, some strange atmospheric change that prevents water from ever boiling, or a new type of just-discovered water that is somehow impervious to boiling. Conversely, the proposition “Water is wet” is not regarded as “empirically falsifiable” by virtue of how those words are actually defined.
In the first example, the proposition is considered true only so long as “experience continues to bear it out”; it depends, therefore, on experience — which is to say, it is a posteriori.
In the second example, the truth of the proposition cannot be affected by any experience because it is independent of experience; it is therefore a priori.
The upshot of all this, and the important thing to note here, the thing I’m really driving at, is that according to this (spurious) dichotomy, a proposition can only be considered factual — i.e. empirical or synthetic — if we’re able to invent fantasyland scenarios that have no real relation to reality. At the same time, truth that is considered untouchable — i.e. logical or analytic truth — is, by the very terms of this argument, regarded as true only because, in the words of some philosophers, “it is independent of reality.”
Those who attempt to distinguish the “logically” possible and the “empirically” possible commonly maintain that the “logically” impossible [1 + 2 = 5] is unimaginable or inconceivable, whereas the merely “empirically” impossible is at least imaginable [a dog may give birth to something other than a puppy, and therefore it is only synthetically (i.e empirically) true that dogs give birth to puppies], and that this difference supports the distinction.
In short, Christopher, without getting into all the interminable details and devilish intricacies of this famous philosophical game, my answer to your question is this: I reject the distinction between analytic truths and synthetic truths — a.k.a. logical truths and empirical truths — because existence is primary; there’s no alternative to it. As Victor Hugo said: “There is no nothing.”
In this realm, there is only truth or falsehood.
Christopher Game wrote: > it seems to me that the detective is the “missing” speaker. Or was it the butler?
Ha-ha!
Christopher Game wrote: > I reply: are you seriously interested in rational discussion?
Yes, I seriously am. To claim that nothing is certain is to claim a certainty. This is a problem, an old one, I grant, that must be dealt with if one is to claim that nothing is certain.
But it occurs to me once again that the real issue here is in conflating the is with the what-will-be. Quoting the ever-quotable Tom Morecroft:
“It is only with regard to predicting the future that one cannot properly claim certainty. But that’s not news! Everyone has always known that predictions are iffy.”
We can (and do) know for certain that the body human contains muscles and blood and bone; that the earth is composed largely of water; that the planets revolve around the sun — we can and do know for certain these facts and a zillion others beside. But these aren’t predictions. The are an assessment of what is. And what is is part of existence.
cohenite wrote: > but my main concern here is AGW which has posited NO true knowledge only sophistic refinements of unreal conclusions or untrue knowledge.
I share your concern, I truly do.
Speaking of Senator Fielding, did you see this article? I thought it was excellent, a bright spot in the blackness.
“We can (and do) know for certain that the body human contains muscles and blood and bone; that the earth is composed largely of water; that the planets revolve around the sun — we can and do know for certain these facts and a zillion others beside. But these aren’t predictions. The are an assessment of what is. And what is is part of existence.”
The majority of the case for AGW is based on what is known already.
SJT,
It grieves me to see you so vexed. You will become ill. Why not settle down with a good novel, or watch TV? There might (probably will) be an item on ‘global warming’ (umm, climate change). Crumbling icebergs, drowning polar bears, blazing sun, cracked soil, floods, toxic steam from cooling towers – all the religious symbols. Perhaps Bishop Gore, or Cardinal Karoly, or Brother Wong, will preach a sermon. These images will reassure you that you, and your co-religionists are right, and all others are mere infidels, wandering in the wilderness. You could send money to support missionary work by WWF, ACF etc. Then you will be happy. (This counselling is free.)
Dear Ray,
You write: “I reject the distinction between analytic truths and synthetic truths.”
And then you write: “We can (and do) know for certain that the body human contains muscles and blood and bone; that the earth is composed largely of water; that the planets revolve around the sun — we can and do know for certain these facts and a zillion others beside. But these aren’t predictions. The[y] are an assessment of what is. And what is is part of existence.”
I reply: To me this list looks like a list of probable empirical propositions, with no logical truths in it. Just as a matter of detail, the earth is not composed mostly of water, whatever you might mean by “largely”. Mostly the earth is composed of iron and oxygen and their compounds. I am puzzled that you say that these propositions are certain. Why did you avoid putting in a few logical certainties, like 0 = 0 ?
You write: “Christopher Game wrote: > I reply: are you seriously interested in rational discussion?
Yes, I seriously am. To claim that nothing is certain is to claim a certainty. This is a problem, an old one, I grant, that must be dealt with if one is to claim that nothing is certain.”
I reply: You were replying to my remark that “There is no empirical certainty.” I did not say that nothing is certain, as you seem to allege. You thereby misrepresented what I said. From your point of view you should merely have said that what I said seems to be meaningless nonsense because it relies on an invalid or meaningless distinction between empirical and logical certainty. Instead you made a straw man by arbitrarily assigning your chosen meaning to what I said. Perhaps you are confused as a result of your rejection of the distinction between logical and empirical propositions.
I previously suggested you try to learn something useful about the probabilistic interpretation of evidence by reading E.T. Jaynes’ “Probability Theory: The Logic of Science”, but so far you seem more interested in argumentation for its own sake. Let me suggest it again. I suggest that you patiently and carefully read the first three chapters of that book before replying again.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher Game
Ray; I think the Fielding episode was both an opportunity revealed and [temporarily] lost; the revealed opportunity was how flimsy and ill-prepared the AGW bastion was when confronted by a reasonable and methodical analysis and investigation; this was apparent at the ready dismissal, by the nominated science authority, Will Steffen, of the importance of atmospheric temperatures which are continually disproving AGW – indeed the whole temperature history of the planet is a singular disavowal of AGW – and the elevation of ocean heating as the crucial indicator of AGW; of course OHC is not supportive of AGW so the opportunity lost was due to the fact that Fielding, or to their further shame, no section of the msm, took Steffen’s nonsense about OHC to task.
I am none-the-less heartened that the arrogant armour of AGW is so easy to broach; surely it cannot be long before further incursions are made.
One final point; SJT and other blinkered disciples support all their exhortations with unquestioning reverence for the UN’s IPCC; that such a flawed and manifestly corrupt, malfeasant and criminally inept bureaucracy such as the UN and its off-spring can be held out as an authoritative scientific, moral and ethical source can only be put down to one of the wonders of the delusional capacities of the human mind.
“One final point; SJT and other blinkered disciples support all their exhortations with unquestioning reverence for the UN’s IPCC; that such a flawed and manifestly corrupt, malfeasant and criminally inept bureaucracy such as the UN and its off-spring can be held out as an authoritative scientific, moral and ethical source can only be put down to one of the wonders of the delusional capacities of the human mind.”
I am not holding the UN up as an authoritive scientific and moral source, I am relying on the science. This is a global issue, the logical place to address a global issue is with a global body. The IPCC and UN conduct no actual research, the document is the product of the writings of scientists, all named, and it is peer reviewed. There seem to be as many scientists complaining that it is politically motivated to hide the bad news as those who complain that it is exaggerating the bad news.
Completely irrelevent, but you might want to look up the good the UN does, it’s not all bad news.
I will read what ever examples of the good work of the UN you care to provide SJT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox
Dear Cohenite,
You write: “can only be put down to one of the wonders of the delusional capacities of the human mind”
I agree with you. AGW is best not considered as a conspiracy: that would give it too much credit by making it seem partly somehow rational even if misconceived. It is, I think, as you say, a group delusion. I think they are mostly insightless and really, in some sense, believe in it.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher Game
“Dear Cohenite,
You write: “can only be put down to one of the wonders of the delusional capacities of the human mind”
I agree with you. AGW is best not considered as a conspiracy: that would give it too much credit by making it seem partly somehow rational even if misconceived. It is, I think, as you say, a group delusion. I think they are mostly insightless and really, in some sense, believe in it.”
My irony meter just blew up. Stop thinking that arrant nonsense such as G&T and Miskoclzi make any sense, and we might be able to start having a sensible discussion.
Yes Christopher, and belief is a very hard human attribute to counter; especially when it has a veneer of scientific legitimacy.
SJT; fair enough, although technically the WHO is now independent of the UN; but in any event it just goes to show that nothing is completely bad.
Knowledge actually is memory – for without it, there wouldn’t be any.
The Ryan back page column in Quadrant touched on this very topic some time ago, but alas, I cannot remember quickly, which issue.
And absolute certainty is simply an ossified thinking pattern.
Oh and SJT, arrant nonsense? You surely are relying on authority, no? Certainly not from personal competence in the fields you airily dismiss.
Christopher Game
Group delusion it surely is, but based on consensus as well – notice that the whole intellectual edifice of AGW is, writing metaphorically, 1% of physical fact and 99% of computerised modelling, a digital version of group think compressed into a small package. It is inseperable from the collectivist mindset that seems locked into an imaginative or virtual world that keeps being knocked off balance by physical reality.
It’s the collateral damage this lot inflict on the rest of us that is of concern, a sort of Uber “unintended” consequences from ill-thought policy based on emotions and not empirical facts.
“Oh and SJT, arrant nonsense? You surely are relying on authority, no? Certainly not from personal competence in the fields you airily dismiss.”
I have the best authority. Whatever you think, it must be the opposite.
Dear Louis Hissink,
By definition a group delusion is a consensus, a case of groupthink. Rather than being essential, it is, I think, accidental but not surprising that the groupthink favours a collectivist mindset.
The way things are threatening at the moment, they seem set to do terrible damage to all.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher Game
“By definition a group delusion is a consensus, a case of groupthink. Rather than being essential, it is, I think, accidental but not surprising that the groupthink favours a collectivist mindset.”
It’s not a leftist, lunatic conspiracy theory, but it is. You can’t have it both ways.
Science works by building up evidence for theories, when the evidence is good, the theory is accepted. Works for all other areas of science, why not AGW?