Joseph Agassi One Palestine, Two Nations Many are the problems that beset the tragically war-torn and forlorn Palestine. The extant proposed solutions to them all are few. They all relate to the framework of the establishment or the re-establishment of one, two, or three states. Let me list them first regardless of their value.
The variety of languages in the world is considered a curse by some, who view the phenomenon as a Tower of Babel. Others consider it the most characteristic quality of human language as opposed to animal languages, which are supposedly species specific. The variety is viewed as a symptom of human caprice, arbitrariness, or dependence on mere historical accident by some; and as a symptom of human freedom and of the creative aspect of language by others. And, of course, the (...) human limitation caused by the variety of languages and the peculiarities of traditions within languages, as instanced by Sir Winston Churchill's The History of the English Speaking People, are again viewed by different thinkers from different philosophical viewpoints. (shrink)
Abstract and Introduction. This essay is an attempt to dispense with the negative aspects of Romanticism and examine whatever positive it has to offer--in the light of ideas scattered through diverse writings of Ernest Gellner.
Dissertation without tears By Joseph Agassi Tel-Aviv University 1. Perfectionism is the loss of the sense of proportion. 2. Perfectionism in education is pedantry and obstruction. 3. Pedantry expels traditional writing techniques. 4. There are many ways to write a scientific study. 5. The best and easiest writing formula is the dialectic. 1. Perfectionism is the loss of the sense of proportion.
The traditional, dogmatic educational sys tem was reinforced by the addition of science instruction to its curriculum. Three errors are reinforced by this move and the subsequent split of the system into streams. a) Pressure is confused with coercion, b) Interactive study is confused with assigned e x e r c i s e s a n d w i t h s e l f- instruction, and c) Aptitude (disposition) is confused with talent (ability). Reform must begin in the (...) public educational system, at least until experimental schooling becomes the norm; yet research must now repudiate traditional v iews and develop the theory of, and the tools for, free interactive study, aiming at imparting universal literacy, including science literacy. (shrink)
The main concern of these notes is objectivity. The demand of traditional rationalism for absolute objectivity is excessive; the license of hermeneuticists and post-modernists to replace objectivity by frank ethnocentrism by endorsing local prejudices is unfortunate. Most social observers still attempt to overcome ethnocentrism, by the use of statistics and of the field method of participant observation and of other means, knowing that no guarantee is possible. As the volume at hand concerns the sociology of one religion in one place, (...) it may serve as a case study. A little objectivity should prevent the camouflage of the deterioration of religious life caused by discrimination. (shrink)
Analogies have been traditionally recognized as a proper part of inductive procedures, akin to generalizations. Seldom, however, have they been presented as superior to generalizations, in the attainability of a higher degree of certitude for their conclusions or in other respects. Though Bacon de6nitely preferred analogy to generalization~, the tradition seems to me to go the other way ââ¬â until the recent publication of works by Mary B. Hesse {[2], pp. 21-28 and passim) and, perhaps, R. Harre {[lj, pp. 23-28 (...) and passim). The aim of the present note is to argue the following two points. First, generalizations proper are preferable to predictions from past observations to a single future observation, since the latter are std hoc. Second, analogies are either generalizations proper ââ¬â perhaps higher-level ones ââ¬â or ad hoc. In any case, they are not more certain than generalizations, but they are still equally legitimate. (shrink)
On September 17, 1994, Karl Popper died at the age of 92.He was described as the official opposition of the “ Vienna Circle”, the philosophical club which in the inter-war period was glamorous and which espoused the then popular doctrine of logical positivism, so-called. His relations with that club were friendly-hostile, to use the term with which he liked to characterize the relations between scientific researchers. He is the last of that generation (unless it is Carl G. Hempel, who, however, (...) sees himself as too young to belong there). The public aspect of Popper’s friendly-hostile relations with his Viennese peers was unfortunately more hostile than friendly. Somehow, philosophers have managed to keep the accounts open for too long. The end of the era is the time to close accounts so as to be able to go on with the job at hand, since the intermingling of personal affairs with objective knowledge is unhealthy. Yet most of the leading heirs of the “ Vienna Circle” still coast around the issues raised by Popper, and so they can neither overlook him nor quote him correctly. If past evidence is reliable here, then this will alter just about now. Is it? (shrink)
1. The Real Claim of the Chicago School If anything dramatic has happened in economic theory over the last one hundred years – namely, since the advent of marginalism – then, everyone agrees, it was not the rise of the Chicago neo -classical school which, after all, only synthesized the various versions of marginalism, but the Keynesian Revolution. Assessments of this revolution were repeatedly invited, particularly by opponent, chiefly from Chicago. F. A. von Hayek has explicitly and bitterly blames Keynes (...) for all our economic troubles; Harry Johnson has repeatedly declared the most revolutionary work of Keynes, his General Theory of 1936, so poor that but for its author's name on its title page it would have totally flopped. Can such a flop cause so much damage? Are these two assessments – of Hayek and of Johnson – in conflict or no t? Don Patinkin has raised a different question: how different is Keynes from his Chicago opponents, say, Milton Friedman? How many heads need roll, to use his metaphor, before a revolution may be declared? Patinkin sees Keynes as slightly deviant but stil l a member of the mainstream – the mainstream of the mainstream being Friedman and his Chicago followers, of course. Now, can a minor deviant be a flop? Can minor deviations from the true blue doctrine be to blame for all of our economic woes? I do not kno w. Joan Robinson sees in Keynes a minor deviation from classical theory because he said once his correction of classical theory is implemented, that theory takes over once again. Moreover, Samuelson and Friedman have endorsed a (poor) version of Keynes' theory of shortterm relative price and ignored his general theory of price and money. (shrink)
Analogies have been traditionally recognized as a proper part of inductive procedures, akin to generalizations. Seldom, however, have they been presented as superior to generalizations, in the attainability of a higher degree of certitude for their conclusions or in other respects. Though Bacon de6nitely preferred analogy to generalization~, the tradition seems to me to go the other way ââ¬â until the recent publication of works by Mary B. Hesse {[2], pp. 21-28 and passim) and, perhaps, R. Harre {[lj, pp. 23-28 (...) and passim). (shrink)
the walls of the academy. The wall is defended by the idea that not only do experts possess knowledge beyond the ken of lay people, which is trivially true, but that there is an unbridgeable gulf between the two. The aim of this presentation, then, is to discuss the possibility of building a bridge between the ordinary educated citizen and the expert. The tool for this is the famous effort to disseminate scientific literacy, or more generally, any specific sophisticated literacy. (...) The subject-matter of this presentation, then, is scientific literacy, and the question is, how can it best be disseminated? Now the word "literacy" in expressions like "scientific literacy" and "computer literacy" may be meant literally or metaphorically. As I will try to show later on, if time permits, profound ambiguity and ambivalence reside here. The significance of all this remains to be seen. Let me first contrast any specific sophisticated literacy with elementary literacy, and center first on the elementary. It is of course the one that is denoted by the first two of the three r's, reading writing and arithmetic, the three skills teachers of the lower grades of elementary schools are supposed to transmit to their charges. Before discussing scientific literacy or computer literacy or any other specific sophisticated literacy, I will discuss this elementary literacy. My suggestion is that by advancing somewhat our knowledge of elementary literacy we can see what is specific to any specific literacy, however sophisticated it may be, but that there is more profit for understanding the nature of elementary literacy by examining specific cases. My thesis will be that any literacy, elementary or specific, is best achieved by guided, aided experimentation: the trainee should learn by trial and error.. (shrink)
The system of higher education always has a significant place in national political affairs. Politically indifferent academics may legitimately ignore this. Those concerned with the welfare of the system of higher education, however, cannot afford this luxury. Further, intellectuals, including academics, are a significant political factor even when passive. Even were all of them to ignore all politics, including the ever-present political importance of the educational system for national politics, they would still play a particularly significant role in national politics (...) as what Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld call the opinion leadership. This way the maintenance of responsible government, and the maintenance of democracy, much depends on what intellectuals demand of the system. Any regime may be endangered by the negative attitudes that opinion leaders may have towards public affairs -- even if it is merely passively negative. (shrink)
Lakatos’ classical ‘ Proofs and Refutations ’ reports the ongoings in a classroom in Utopia. Lakatos himself tried out the Utopian experiment in a real class early in the day - it was in Popper’s seminar, and while he was writing his doctoral dissertation which includes an early draft of his masterpiece. Not surprisingly, then, he was acidly critical of some aspects of the accepted modes of mathematical teaching (to be discussed below).
Criticism of the welfare state is mostly economic and administrative, relating to the resultant national debt and state bureaucracy. Budget cuts and privatization may help but not eliminate the difficulty. Yet, the primary concern of the welfare system is neither economic nor administrative; so, the force of this criticism is limited. To restrict the discussion to the defunct free-markets and centralized economies is to distort and to obstruct clear thinking on national priorities. Criticism of any welfare system should not aim (...) at the revival of these extremist solutions, but raise cost-effectiveness. All this holds for the medical sector in particular. (shrink)
The traditional hermeneutic ruling not to use reports and legends for questioning edicts and rules signifies the tacit recognition, contrary to explicit statement, of the part of the Rabbinical leadership, of the inevitability of change in diverse aspects if Jewish life. This may invite criticism of the conduct of the ancient leadership, which, as always, is questionable and useless. Rather, an open discussion should be instituted on the proposal to make future changes openly, not surreptitiously; particularly the change from surreptitious (...) changes to open changes is better done openly. (shrink)
As a new field, cognitivism began with the total rejection of the old, traditional views of language acquisition and of learning ─ individual and collective alike. Chomsky was one of the pioneers in this respect, yet he clouds issues by excessive claims for his originality and by not allowing the beginner in the art of the acquisition of language the use of learning by making hypotheses and testing them, though he acknowledges that researchers, himself included, do use this method. The (...) most important novelty of Chomsky's work is his idealization of the field by postulating the existence of the ideal speaker-hearer and his suggestion that the hidden structure of sentences is revealed by studying together all sentences that are logically equivalent to each other. This is progress, but his tests of equivalence are insufficient, as they all are within classical logic. This limitation rests on the greatest shortcoming of Chomsky's view, his idea that every sentence has one subject or subject-part, contrary to the claim of Frege and Russell that assertions involving relations (with two-place predicates) are structurally different from those involving properties (with one-place predicates). (See the Appendix below.). (shrink)
ספר ויקרא, או תורת כוהנים, נראה היום פחות מעניין מאשר ספרי-קודש אחרים, כי הוא ספר מצוות - הוא כולל כארבעים אחוז מכל תרי"ג המצוות - ואף במידה רבה מצוות שאינן בתוקף מאז חורבן בית-המקדש. אך יש בו עניין, שכן הוא מוכר כספר השלם ביותר מבחינת סגנונו ותכנו, ואולי אף בכך שעריכתו כנראה עתיקה ביותר - לא לדעת דון יצחק אברבנאל, שכן הוא לא הטיל בספק כי תורה נתנה למשה מפי הגבורה - אמנם לא בסיני אך בכל-זאת למשה מפי הגבורה. החוקרים (...) המתעלמים מדעה זו.. (shrink)
ANTHROPOMORPHISM is an inveterate tendency to project human qualities into natural phenomena—consciously or not. The standard and most important variant of anthropomorphism is animism which sees a soul in everything in nature. Before entering into the role of anthropomorphism in the history of science, let us consider a few important and usually neglected logical aspects of the idea.
The thesis or theses I wish to present here may, and hopefully should, sound rather trivial. The public role which concerned philosophers should take these days, I suppose, is somewhat similar to the role of preachers in earlier days, namely to state what should be obvious and treated as obvious but is nonetheless systematically overlooked.
The idea of verisimilitude is implicit in the writings of Albert Einstein ever since 1905, when he declared the distribution of field energy according to Maxwell's theory an approximation to that according to quantum-radiation theory, and Newtonian kinetic energy an approximation to his relativistic mass-energy. All his life Einstein presented new ideas as yielding older established ones as special cases and first approximations. The news has reached the philosophical community via the writings of Sir Karl Popper half-a-century after Einstein's (...) trailblazing conception — first in his epoch-making "Note on Berkeley as a Precursor to Mach" and then in his classic "Three Views Concerning Human Knowledge" (both reissued in his Conjectures and Refutations, 1963). (shrink)
The word "brain-washing", translated from Chinese communist jargon, is a very strong metaphor, first popularized by Robert Jay Lifto n. It vividly describes one person interfering with the personality make-up of another, removing the other's ideology and replacing it, and similarly tampering with the other's tastes, pool of information to rely upon and whatever else goes into the make-up of the other's personality. Clearly, in some sense or another everyone interferes with the personality of people with whom they interact; yet (...) what is meant here is something much more drastic than friends influencing one another's tastes or opinions; it is something more dramatic and more large scale. (shrink)
Summary and conclusions As a new field, cognitivism began with the total rejection of the old, traditional views of language acquisition and of learning -- individual and collective alike. Chomsky was one of the pioneers in this respect, yet he clouds issues by excessive claim s for his originality and by not allowing the beginner in the art of the acquisition of language the use of learning by making hypotheses and testing them, though he acknowledges that researchers, himself included, do (...) use this method. (shrink)
Self- Deception in General "A Liberal Decalogue" suggests (Russell, 1967, pp. 60-61) not to envy people who live in a fool's paradise: It is a place only for fools. This saying invites detailed commentary. A fool's paradise is not a place, but a state o f mind; it is a system of opinions, of assessments of situations, that calms one down, that reassures one into the opinion that all is well, even when all is far from well. Fools may be (...) ignorant of the severity of their situations, perhaps because being well informed tends to get them into a panic. This happens regularly, and there is little that can be done about it, except that the wise would still prefer to be well informed so as to try to cope with the panic more constructively. They would not easily fa ll for the reassuring hypothesis, preferring to examine any reasonable alternative hypothesis about any risk that might invite action - - so that if the hypothesis is corroborated they can try to mobilize some appropriate action. (shrink)
1. The Real Claim of the Chicago School If anything dramatic has happened in economic theory over the last one hundred years – namely, since the advent of marginalism – then, everyone agrees, it was not the rise of the Chicago neo -classical school which, after all, only synthesized the various versions of marginalism, but the Keynesian Revolution. Assessments of this revolution were repeatedly invited, particularly by opponent, chiefly from Chicago. F. A. von Hayek has explicitly and bitterly blames Keynes (...) for all our economic troubles; Harry Johnson has repeatedly declared the most revolutionary work of Keynes, his General Theory of 1936, so poor that but for its author's name on its title page it would have totally flopped. Can such a flop cause so much damage? Are these two assessments – of Hayek and of Johnson – in conflict or no t? Don Patinkin has raised a different question: how different is Keynes from his Chicago opponents, say, Milton Friedman? How many heads need roll, to use his metaphor, before a revolution may be declared? Patinkin sees Keynes as slightly deviant but stil l a member of the mainstream – the mainstream of the mainstream being Friedman and his Chicago followers, of course. Now, can a minor deviant be a flop? Can minor deviations from the true blue doctrine be to blame for all of our economic woes? I do not kno w. Joan Robinson sees in Keynes a minor deviation from classical theory because he said once his correction of classical theory is implemented, that theory takes over once again. Moreover, Samuelson and Friedman have endorsed a (poor) version of Keynes' theory of shortterm relative price and ignored his general theory of price and money. (shrink)
Karl R. Popper is “the outstanding philosopher of the twentieth century” (Bryan Magee), even “the greatest thinker of the [twentieth] century” (Gellner). He felt affinity with thinkers of the Age of Reason and developed a new version of rationalism: critical rationalism. As a champion of science and of democracy he was the most influential philosopher of the post-WWII era. He was a close follower of Bertrand Russell and of Albert Einstein in that all three advocated problem-oriented fallibilism (during the peak (...) of the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein who did not), valued commonsense, taking its theories to be approximations to the scientific truths of the day, and considered scientific truths as series of approximations to the absolute truth [Agassi, 1981, 112-16]. In particular, all three viewed science as the bold flight of the imagination checked and tempered by experience [Russell, 1931, 102]; [Einstein, 1949, 680]. Insofar as Russell adumbrated Popper’s philosophy, it may be fair to consider the latter a streamlined version of the former (the way both Berkeley and Hume deemed their philosophies streamlined versions of Locke’s [Hattiangadi, 1985]; [Wettersten, l985]. Russell raised the level of rational discourse in philosophy while remaining within the empiricist tradition; Popper continued and consolidated Russell’s achievements, adding a broad modification of the rationalist tradition [Popper, 1945, Ch. 24], thus forging new ways of philosophizing [Lakatos, 1978, 10]. Many sought a via media between rationalism and irrationalism, between individualism and collectivism, as well as between radicalism and traditionalism. Many sought a via media between empiricism and intellectualism. Popper’s philosophy is the only viable comprehensive rationalist suggestion in these directions (although it is open to modifications, of course), being thoroughly fallibilist and reformist, thus achieving a new and intensified commonsense philosophy, the only one that is integrated.. (shrink)
Even of that, I cannot elaborate. He joined the Irgun National Military Organization as a youth, joined its headquarters as a teenager, and went abroad on a mission at the age of 22, from which he returned a decade later, after his chief political activity was over. I cannot describe all that now. I will sum it up briefly. His life work had two great achievements and two heartbreaking failures. The struggle to rescue the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust (...) and the Declaration of Israel’s Independence were both his achievements and his failures. (shrink)
The ills of psychiatry are currently diagnoses with the aid of deficient etiologies. The currently proposed prescriptions for psychiatry are practically impossible. The defective part of the profession is its leadership which in its very defensiveness sticks to the status quo, thereby owning the worst defects and impeding all possible cure. The current discussions of the matter are pretentious and thus woolly. The minimal requirement from the profession as a whole and from each of its individual members is that they (...) be not defensive and clear. In this vein I offer here preliminary discussions of propriety, of responsibility and of science. (shrink)
currently proposed prescriptions for psychiatry are practically impossible. The defective part of the profession is its leadership that in its very defensiveness sticks to the status quo, thereby owning the worst defects and impeding all possible cure. The current discussions of the matter are pretentious and thus woolly. The minimal requirement from the profession as a whole and from each of its individual members is that they be not defensive and clear. In this vein, I offer here preliminary discussions of (...) propriety, of responsibility and of science. (shrink)
The context of a scientific theory can be epistemological and methodological. Or it car be metaphysical, relating to the intellectual framework within which we cast it. Or it can be intertheoretical, both synchronically and diachronically. My concern here will be mainly diachronical -- the historical context of quantum theory, what is required of it vis -a-vis that context and how well it fulfills this requirement. But I shall come to this only at the later part of this essay. I shall (...) have to clear the 3round by discussing the epistemic and metaphysical contexts first. (shrink)
is an unusual phenomenon. The concern with rights different citizens have in different societies is legal rather than philosophical. It is frequently somewhat a technical matter for jurisprudence to decide exactly what rights a citizen has in a given situation and how he might best exercise his rights. Often, to be sure, the legal technicalities involve matters of principle, and if so these should be made explicit. For this, too, there is a need less for philosophy and more for jurisprudence, (...) for detailed legal study. For example, the problems concerning interests of third parties - related to the questions of when is a third party an aggrieved person, so-called, and what are the rights of the aggrieved third party - have been taken up, in the sixties, by diverse federal courts of the United States, with the aim of increasing individual rights when these are encroached upon by public agencies.1 Although this may call for much philosophical commentary, it is clearly more a legal matter than a philosophical concern. Even the broadly philosophical question of rights within a legal system requires a greater degree of legal than philosophical considerations. Recently H.L.A. Hart, the foremost living legal philosopher, has cited Sir Henry Maine (1891) and William Warwick Buckland (1950) approvingly to support his view that even "Roman law never achieved a clear concept of a legal right." 2 It is not clear to a philosopher what "a clear concept of legal rights" might be, and a philosopher like Hannah Arendt never. concerned herself with this matter when she expressed her admiration for the rights of a Roman citizen to his privacy.3 Regardless of whether we admire or deplore this, we can agree that at least in principle a Roman citizen had more rights and prerogatives within his family than any modern civilized law would ever permit. A philosopher with only a modicum of sensitivity can say that although Rome was not a democracy, and even though in Rome the rights of women and children (not to mention slaves) were not recognized, the rights of citizens to privacy and to be free of the need ever to prove their innocence have nevertheless become the foundation stones of modern liberal individualistic democracy.. (shrink)
New York University Professor Jerome S. Bruner, an eminent and influential educationist, is the author of numerous papers published in professional journals as well as of several highly successful books. Bruner's slim book titled The Process of Education is a most significant work. At the time of its publication (1960), Bruner was a professor of psychology at Harvard University, where he ran the Center for Cognitive Studies. It is an acclaimed classic and was translated into several languages within a few (...) years of its original publication. Though published in 1960, The Process of Education is still very prestigious and influential (see, for example, The Encyclopedia of Informal Education found at http://www.infed.org/thinkers/bruner.htm). (shrink)
Why are the efforts at coordination so feeble? Unless we face this question, we may never see progress. The answer is not hard to find. Decisions on matters of life and death are awesome; decisions on some awesome questions are guided by accepted laws, rules or customs; other awesome questions are open. Obviously, having to decide on an open, awesome question is a hardship in every possible manner: intellectually and practically, legally and morally, socially and psychologically. People are reluctant to (...) explore predicaments if all available alternative remedies to them implicate decisions on open, awesome questions. (shrink)
Error and Inference discusses Deborah Mayo’s theory that connects the reliability of science to scientific evidence. She sees it as an essential supplement to the negative principles of critical rationalism. She and Aris Spanos, her co-editor, declare that the discussions in the book amount to tremendous progress. Yet most contributors to the book misconstrue the Socratic character of critical rationalism because they ignore a principal tenet: criticism in and of itself comprises progress, and empirical refutation comprises learning from experience. Critical (...) rationalism should be recommended in the critical spirit, not as dogma. (shrink)
This volume is a historical anthology of interesting views on science from antiquity to the twentieth century plus a defensive anthology of logical positivism, whose legacy deserves better: clear-eyed assessment and then putting to rest.
This Companion to the philosophy of science reflects fairly well the gloomy state of affairs in this subfield at its best—concerns, problems, prejudices, and all. The field is still stuck with the problem of justification of science, refusing to admit that there is neither need nor possibility to justify science and forbid dissent from it.
A sequel to Shapin’s earlier work, The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation again solves the problem of induction by observing that researchers are decent. Shapin dismisses most of the literature on both the philosophy of science and (more so) on the sociology of science as ideologically biased and as irrelevant. Approaches to the book as light reading and as serious scholarly reading are considered before a critical summary is offered as a conclusion.
We compare Jan ?ukasiewicz's and Karl Popper's views on induction. The English translation of the two ?ukasiewicz's papers is included in the Appendix.
This book is largely unpublished material from Popper’s literary remains regarding his The Open Society and Its Enemies that conveys some interesting stories about its publication and initial reception, throws light on its message, and complements it somewhat. It also contains much that Popper hardly discussed elsewhere.
Marc Lange offers a stale anthology that reflects the sad state of affairs in the camp of analytic philosophy. It is representative in a few respects, even in its maltreatment of Russell, Wittgenstein, and Popper. Despite its neglect of Wittgenstein, it shows again that Wittgenstein is the patron saint of the analytic school despite the fact that it does not abide by his theory of metaphysics as inherently meaningless.
The paucity of literature on the economics of science renders this book valuable. Also, it includes a few interesting papers. Education and research may become more efficient, and their economic aspects want explanations. The explanations may offer suggestion for improvements. The discussions here are mostly unserious and the serious ones are not far-reaching.They concern patent laws more than seems reasonable and ignore many economic aspects of science, mainly its poor communication systems, including university presses, most of which are inept. Practical (...) proposals should address the worst problems and their implementation need repeated checking. For this, they must be transparent and democratically controlled. The book totally ignores all this. (shrink)
Stephen Turner complains about weaknesses of Robert K. Merton's teachings without noticing that these are common. He puts down Merton's ideas despite his innovations, on the ground that they are not successful and not sufficiently revolutionary. The criteria by which he condemns Merton are too vague and too high. Merton's merit is in his having put the sociology of science on the map and drawn attention to the egalitarianism that was prominent in classical science and that is now diminished. Key (...) Words: American sociology • intellectual frameworks • Merton • middle axioms • time lag. (shrink)
One of the questions that philosophers discuss is: How can we avoid, or at least reduce, errors when explaining the world? The skeptical answer to this question is: We cannot avoid errors since no statement is certain or even definitely plausible, but we can eliminate some past errors. This book advocates the skeptical position and discusses its practical applications in science, ethics, aesthetics, and politics. It brings philosophy down to earth and comprises an outline of a skeptical guide to the (...) real world. (shrink)
Hilary Putnam makes two related points in his recent collection of essays: (1) Values can be rational, and their inescapable intrusion into every kind of discourse is welcome. (2) Ignoring or suppressing this fact is common yet irrational. This is of course true; yet the intrusion in question can be trivial, and it can be problematic. Putnam ignores this here. The book is pleasant to read; it is infused with friendly and appreciative personal anecdotes and observations. It is almost entirely (...) critical and almost always in a friendly way. Yet it is often unclear. In almost every discussion here, the author announces one item and discusses another almost identical with it but one much easier to discuss. Key Words: values • rationality • positivism • Carnap • Popper. (shrink)
Tel-Aviv University and York University, Toronto Plato suggested ways to regulate and integrate slaves within the legal system of his Utopian Cretan polis Magnesia as described in his work, Laws . This text alone invalidates most criticism of Popper's presentation of Plato's political views. His 50-year-old reading of Plato fits the text better than any other. To preserve the noble tradition of classical scholarship, classical scholars should acknowledge explicitly that he was correct, and that by now they have surreptitiously incorporated (...) the substance of his views. Key Words: Plato • slavery • apologetics • classical scholarship • Laws • Popper. (shrink)
Why are people interested in money? This question is too broad: there are many kinds of money, interest, and people. The biological approach of Lea & Webley (L&W) makes them seek the roots of this interest, and they contend that tool making and addiction qualify as the roots. Curiosity and the quest for power, however, qualify too. As L&W rightly admit, other approaches supplement their biological one. (Published Online April 5 2006).
Within ontology new theories are extremely rare. Hacking bravely claims to have one: "historical ontology" or "dynamic nominalism." Regrettably, he uses "nominalism" idiosyncratically, without explaining it or its qualifier. He does say what historical ontology is: it is "the presentation of the history of ontology in context." This idea is laudable, as it invites presenting idealism as once attractive but no longer so (due to changes in perception theory, for example). But this idea is a proposal, not a theory, muchless (...) an ontological theory, as it does not say what things are made of. Also, Hacking's details are often misleading. Thus, he falsely hints that he respects Wittgenstein and that he agrees with him. Considered as a study of ontology sans its (often amusing) incidental material, it appears surprisingly thin and repetitious. The study is either excessively opaque or quite clear but stale: the choice between these options is open. Key Words: Ian Hacking • Michel Foucault • ontology • contextualism. (shrink)
Abstract The central thesis of Karl Popper's philosophy is that intellectual and political progress are best achieved by not deferring to dogmatic authority. His philosophy of science is a plea for the replacement of classic dogmatic methodology with critical debate. His philosophy of politics, similarly, is a plea for replacing Utopian social and political engineering with a more fallibilist, piecemeal variety. Many confuse his anti?dogmatism with relativism, and his anti?authoritarianism with Cold War conservatism or even with libertarian politics. Not so: (...) he showed a clear preference for the ideal of truth over relativist complacency, for cosmopolitanism over nationalism, and for democratic control over unbridled capitalism. (shrink)
presents Heidegger as a devout mystic who viewed the Nazi Party as the sacred vessel of a divine message—even though, the author adds, his religion is secular and so it has no divinity and no immortal soul. Rickey sees him as a utopian. This makes some sense: the unique in the Shoah involves the unique descent of a highly cultured, enlightened nation to the rock bottom of barbarism. Ricky’s text belies his effort to exonerate Heidegger. Key Words: Rickey • Heidegger (...) • secular religion • barbarism. (shrink)
Newell wanted a theory of cognition to abide by some explicit criteria, here called the Newell Test. The test differs from the Turing Test because it is explicit. The Newell Test will include the Turing Test if its characterization of cognition is complete. It is not. Its use here is open-ended: A system that does not pass it well invites improvement.
Karl Popper's methodology can be seen as the situational logic of research. Popper called his method "Epistemology without a Knowing Subject." It was dismissed as metaphysical by those who refuse to give up an ideal knowing subject (a perfect human inductive processor). This article surveys the failure of modem discussions of this ideal, from the earliest (the writings of Sir Francis Bacon) to the latest (Kripke). The knowing subject exits at last, but leaves behind interesting results. The ideal knowing subject (...) embodied ideal rationality, outside culture and history. Giving up this ideal invites us to integrate science with its background, to grade rationality (from magic to science), and to integrate different degrees of rationality under one rule. (shrink)
1. Lies, Error and Confusion 2. Lies 3. The Demarcation of Science: Historical 4. The Demarcation of Science: Recent 5. Observed Regularities and Laws of Nature.
The chief feature of Gadamer's philosophy is his claim that the humanities obey their own rules concerning reading texts and ensuring certitude. The promise of certitude is illusory, however, and the discourses on interpretation by him and his leading disciples are too confused to instruct the reader. His own sketch of his philosophy, published in his autobiographic Philosophical Apprenticeship, and its reflection in Gadamer and Hermeneutics (Hugh J. Silverman, ed.), shows this and reveals him as still too insensitive to the (...) national tragedy of the Third Reich, which he witnessed. (shrink)
The ill?named debate between postmodernists and postlibertarians should be transcended; this requires the abandonment of both foundationalism and its converse, without abandoning common sense as well (which is no mean trick). Similarly, the debate over ?minimal statism? versus the planned economy is outdated. Instead of claiming to be in possession of foundations of our scientific?cum?political knowledge in broad terms, and instead of severely limiting our knowledge to given proofs, we offer the putative heuristics of critique in general and the critical (...) evaluations of contexts in particular. (shrink)
Schrödinger's definition of life needs a slight modification to absorb the criticism of it. It is the comparison of the entropy level of a system before and after a process which makes one view it as living: we consider the stability of the deviation from the probable a sign of life. This explains why we do not hesitate to consider as remnants of living systems skeletons and fossils anywhere and physical culture on any archeological site.
The logic of questions is still very limited; there is a need for a specification of what is a problem, and what is a problem-situation — or what is an adequate solution to a problem in a given situation. A problem may seek its wording, and so may do the adequacy conditions or desiderata for its solution. For the inarticulate, there is no distinction between theoretical and practical problems. Their problem is a goal, the situation is the available routes to (...) it, and no adequac y conditions. (shrink)
A good theory of rationality should accommodate debates over first principles, such as those of rationality. The modest challenge made in this article is that relativists try to explain the (intellectual) value of some debates about first principles (absolute presuppositions, basic assumptions, intellectual frameworks, intellectual commitments, and paradigms). Relativists claim to justify moving with relative ease from one framework to another, translating chunks of one into the other; this technique is essential for historians, anthropologists and others. Thus ideas concerning false (...) prophecy are transferable to contemporary discussions. Ancient false prophets offered illusions of overcoming difficult problems cheaply; relativists do that too. The problem that relativism purports to solve cheaply is that of legitimizing pluralism. As the absolutist theory of truth is intuitively problematic, relativism seems intuitively more acceptable, but this intuitive advantage vanishes when it manifests as false prophecy. (shrink)
In the light of a sketch of the history of modem Anti-Metaphysics up from Francis Bacon Wittgenstein's position - the refusal of the possibility of metaphysical assertions - is compared with the views of Mach, of Camap and Neurath and of Popper. Analysing the notions of 'nonsense', 'meaninglessness' and 'Scheinproblem', their interrelations and connections to physicalism three variants of Anti-Metaphysics are distinguished: the Enlightenment view, the positivistMachian view and the linguistic Wittgensteinian view. The present day actuality of these views is (...) evaluated and the conclusion drawn that the model of the cooperation between the different intellectual activities is more promising than the proscription of metaphysics. (shrink)
It is customarily assumed that welfare-state thinking can only appear as a product of the sharpening conflict between revolutionary socialists and the defenders of the status quo; the case of Tom Paine proves otherwise. Although he defended private enterprise (to the exclusion of large landed property), he developed a forgotten early version of a comprehensive system of public welfare in the second part of his The Rights of Man and in his Agrarian Justice, where he argued that the new revolutionary (...) democratic government based on representation and universal suffrage has the duty and the means not only of relieving poverty but of preventing it by a system of universal allowances for marriage, childbirth, the raising of children, basic education, old age pensions and temporary housing and employment for the unemployed of the metropolis. This, he said, should be financed by a progressive inheritance tax levied especially on landed estates. (shrink)
