return
I have returned from my business trip ...
no rest
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A statement ...
One should work very hard to not confuse a tautology with a theory. I include extended tautologies (eg. visciously circular theories) in this critique.
Once you believe you have found some fact ask yourself this question, "what fact or facts would I need to discover in order to decide that I am, after all, wrong on this point?" If you cannot answer this question then you have no theory. All you have is a tautology.
Tautologies are never wrong, i'll grant you that. But neither are they ever meaningful. They apply to nothing but themselves.
The paradigmatic example of what i am attacking is solipsism. Take yourself back to a time in your life, probably when young, when you were easily able to slide into this theory and feel at home.
Question #1: What factual evidence could affect you solipsistic theory? Any?
Now, come back forward into the future.
Question #2: Why then, in your life, did you leave this theory behind? (The old joke goes, "How do you convince a young solipsist he/she is wrong? Leave them alone for 2 years and then come back and ask them how they feel about the issue. If they haven't gotten bored and moved on on their own, its not worth the time discussing it with them anyway.)
"Falisificationism", while too simplistic to be a full physical theory, is certainly on to something. Especially, it notes the primary problem with Scholastic science. The Scholastics were not wrong, they were just promoting useless theories. Sure, opium produces sleepiness because it is made up of sleep inducing elements ... this statement is true, but also useless.
Most projects of philosophical metaphysics (analytic or continental) strive to show just this ... that they are not even logically falsifiable, more or less physically (that is, that some physical fact could disprove them). So ... what does one do with such a theory even once it is completed and sound? Has not the act of such a creative process itself removed the idea from the world, from use?
Reflect on your most deeply felt metaphysical structures, your best "theory of everything". Is there any fact of notion you might discover that would prove it false? Or ... is it merely a statement, unrefutable (again, merely) by the form in which you stated it? What is doing the work? The facts? ... or the logical formation in which you have placed the facts?
no rest
-------------------------------------------------------------
A statement ...
One should work very hard to not confuse a tautology with a theory. I include extended tautologies (eg. visciously circular theories) in this critique.
Once you believe you have found some fact ask yourself this question, "what fact or facts would I need to discover in order to decide that I am, after all, wrong on this point?" If you cannot answer this question then you have no theory. All you have is a tautology.
Tautologies are never wrong, i'll grant you that. But neither are they ever meaningful. They apply to nothing but themselves.
The paradigmatic example of what i am attacking is solipsism. Take yourself back to a time in your life, probably when young, when you were easily able to slide into this theory and feel at home.
Question #1: What factual evidence could affect you solipsistic theory? Any?
Now, come back forward into the future.
Question #2: Why then, in your life, did you leave this theory behind? (The old joke goes, "How do you convince a young solipsist he/she is wrong? Leave them alone for 2 years and then come back and ask them how they feel about the issue. If they haven't gotten bored and moved on on their own, its not worth the time discussing it with them anyway.)
"Falisificationism", while too simplistic to be a full physical theory, is certainly on to something. Especially, it notes the primary problem with Scholastic science. The Scholastics were not wrong, they were just promoting useless theories. Sure, opium produces sleepiness because it is made up of sleep inducing elements ... this statement is true, but also useless.
Most projects of philosophical metaphysics (analytic or continental) strive to show just this ... that they are not even logically falsifiable, more or less physically (that is, that some physical fact could disprove them). So ... what does one do with such a theory even once it is completed and sound? Has not the act of such a creative process itself removed the idea from the world, from use?
Reflect on your most deeply felt metaphysical structures, your best "theory of everything". Is there any fact of notion you might discover that would prove it false? Or ... is it merely a statement, unrefutable (again, merely) by the form in which you stated it? What is doing the work? The facts? ... or the logical formation in which you have placed the facts?
posted by Thomas F. Schminke at 10:57 PM
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