Talk:Popper and After

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There's still more work I could put into this but I'm afraid I've got other priorities. This should do for a while. Please feel free to improve the article any way that seems good, and fits the generous Wiki guidelines. Cheers. Alastair Haines (talk) 17:06, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, and Feyerabend, are all writers whose position inclines them to deny that there has been a great accumulation or growth of knowledge in the last four hundred years. ????

Is this correct? Certainly Popper always found that science has a rational development and Lakatos though the same but using a weaker – impractical – criterion. Popper even understands Darwin’s evolution as a rational way of development. He has to misunderstand Einstein in order to establish a rational link between Newton and Einstein. Do we have different texts?--Cuauti (talk) 23:08, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure, Sir Karl loved science and believed it works.

Very many people have found Sir Karl's work helpful to challenge and correct their thinking, and indeed Sir Karl himself was a great supporter of the value of science. Personally, I can see great value in Popper's work: debunking a popular misperception of science as more than fallible educated guesses. Popper worked extremely hard to reconcile how a methodology with a certain kind of philosophical "weakness" can actually be so genuinely reliable and worthwhile.

On the other hand, Stove was a polemical kind of writer in dealing with whatever he was critiquing. Calling Popper an "irrationalist", and lumping him with a pretty fringe thinker like Feyerabend was designed to grab attention, and perhaps injures the genuine value of his criticism. But, on the other hand, Kuhn is still very popular, and Popper's concept of "falsificationism" is used widely by academics outside philosophy and science, even by politicians! And yet, professional scientists do not consider these famous accounts of science as accurate description of their own methodology; and analytical philosophers other than Stove agree that there are serious philosophical weakness with "falsificationism".

Neither positivism nor falsificationism appear to be the correct philosophical approach to understanding science. Empiricism, on the other hand, has a great deal to do with the nature of science, but doesn't, in fact, describe the whole deal either.

Stove actually agrees with Popper (and everyone) that inductive arguments need some sophistication to appreciate fully. He just disagrees that things are as fatally flawed as part (not all) of Popper-type approaches would have it; and he thinks that the Popper-type alternative explanation fails to account for the accumulation of genuine knowledge that inductive reasoning produces.

If your accurate reading of Popper's sincerity and of Stove's polemicism drowns the points they were making, then you are in good company. It also draws an apology of sorts from me. I have attempted to by-pass the polemicism of Stove and present his thesis stripped of that to the nuggets of clear articulation of objections and proposals. Perhaps I've been hamstrung in that by the very title of Stove's work, and perhaps there is an element of my own enjoyment of Stove's biting wit that has sneaked into my reporting of his thesis.

But to answer your rhetorical question, yes, Stove did have the same text you have, references to specific pages are included in this article. Cheers. Alastair Haines (talk) 01:45, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand how anyone can see Stove's dull attacks as witty! If you have read Popper's works and some of the works of Popper's adherents, then Stove's allegations seem mostly dumb and incompetent. Popper mainly says that a lot of things that one tends to assume by common sense are simply not true, and explains why. Now Stove found some passages where Popper repeated his rejection of these common-sense assumptions, quoted them and basically said "How stupid can Popper be to say this, it is in direct contradiction to common sense and and therefore nonsense!". For example, Popper would certainly agree that if knowledge is understood as Stove understands it (as justified true belief), then he is right: there has not been any accumulation or growth of knowledge at all in the last four hundred years. But Stove thinks that it is enough to say it like that and to pretend that it is so obviously false that no further argument is needed, and he doesn't even consider that it might actually be true!

You claim that "Stove actually agrees with Popper (and everyone) that inductive arguments need some sophistication to appreciate fully" Popper has never claimed that "inductive arguments need some sophistication to appreciate fully". On the contrary, Popper has rejected that inductive arguments even exist! There is simply no such thing as "induction" or an "inductive argument". 'Popper's concept of "falsificationism" is used widely by academics outside philosophy and science, even by politicians! And yet, professional scientists do not consider these famous accounts of science as accurate description of their own methodology' Only few people have understood falsificationism correctly. Further, Popper never claimed to give an account of "science" or a description of it. He only describes the logical structure involved when scientific progress is being made and gives a methodology that says what one should not do when one wants to achieve scientific progess. 'analytical philosophers other than Stove agree that there are serious philosophical weakness with "falsificationism".' It is right that there are some weaknesses in Popper's "falsificationism" (and Popper himself would certainly agree on that), but they are not in places where most analytical philosophers claim them to be. I already pointed to Miller's book below, which is still ignored completely in this article. Did you read it in the meantime? --rtc (talk) 19:19, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply here. If I've heard you correctly you are saying that Popper, read faithfully to the points he is trying to make, explains the counter-intuitive suggestion that induction is not an argument form that produces knowledge. Furthermore, you are suggesting that Stove fails to engage with Popper's actual explanation, i.e. he sets up a straw man.

To be honest, as I've grown older, I've become less impressed with academics who are skilled at lampooning the positions of others. Instead, I warm to those who are skilled at communicating a genuine appreciation of the perspective of those with whom they disagree.

The way you describe Popper is precisely the way I understand him (though I'm no expert). He bravely stood against the many who were praising the emperor's clothes and pronounced induction fatally flawed. Popper was a brilliant and sincere man. However, I just happen to agree with Stove (largely taught by him face-to-face, so I know I'm biased), that Popper threw the baby out with the bath water. In Stove's words, there's nothing wrong with pointing out that induction is "not the best" form of argument, but there is something wrong with insisting that "only the best will do".

It's an odd thing, but my personality is different to yours. Before I ever heard of deductivism, Hume and Popper, I was a deductivist berating induction. Pure mathematics doesn't have any need for induction. Mathematical induction is actually a form of deduction. Unfortunately for me, my philosophy professor was Stove not Popper. As I see it, I was taught to come off my "high deductivist horse" and come down to the real world, where human knowledge often progresses by "educated guesses".

To be honest, I've not really changed all that much, though. I once worked out a formula for an online strategy game from "first principles" (I'm Dangermouse btw), in other words I used pure mathematical deductive reasoning to obtain a solution. Independently, another game critic came up with the same formula, but more conveniently expressed. He used experiments and tabulated data to get his solution, he "guessed and checked" to get the same answer. I was really impressed with his method, and he was impressed with mine, because we both thought we couldn't have done it the other guy's way. Also, neither of us had realised that there were other ways of solving the problem.

If Popper is right and Stove wrong, it will be for something like the reason you suggest. I'm actually working in other areas now and although some day I will look further into Miller (all I've done is looked at a little of some of his most recent work) just now I have other things to work on.

But as for defending Popper in this article, adding criticism of Stove is about all you can do. What might be more useful is adding some material from Miller to the Popper article, though. From what I saw, Miller is the ideal writer for enhancing the Popper article because he is rigorous and positive. He's not simply "defending the honour" of a personal hero against challengers, he actually goes into detail to extend the sort of explanation Popper was advocating.

I'll close with a kind of apology. The way Stove says things, if people believe him, it can make it look as though Popper, or people who have learned from him, are a little silly. I've tried to only present Stove's argument, not his personal asides, that's the best I can do to avoid that unpleasant, unreasonable and wrong conclusion from Stove's work. Even if Stove is right, Popper has helped broaden the thinking of many people for the better, isn't that what a great philosopher is supposed to do?

For a man who claims Popper in support of his own case, though on a different issue, you might be interested in Geoffrey Sampson's Educating Eve: The 'Language Instinct' Debate. I'm rather dragging my heels writing that article and could do with some help, especially someone who could present Sampson's use of Popper with better familiarity with Popper than I have.

Anyway, thanks for interacting about this article. Please feel free to add more specific criticisms here if you wish. Alastair Haines (talk) 13:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Seriously?

Seems like this Stove is introducing mind-controlling taboos by first introducing the conscending irrationalist label, then listing all sentence constructions that a irrationalist exhibits, thereby declaring a whole bunch of guys the "enemies of science". Is he an angry logical positivist, since all the guys he attack, happen to be logical and observational debunkers of this otherwise obsolete philosophy? Said: Rursus ☻ 15:09, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Answering myself: the article on David Stove mentions his criticism as the controversialist kind. Whether the book (this discussion) is of the logical positivist kind I don't know. As far as I can tell he don't apply the cultist accusation systematically by providing any definition. Said: Rursus ☻ 15:24, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

I'll add a bit for you, which you can confirm by reading the text (which is online and searchable). Stove was both celebrated and notorious for scathing humour regarding those he criticised. This certainly marred professional relationships when he was teaching, but is not normally considered as marring his text or argument.

You are absolutely right, cult, in the context of Stove's writing, is hyperbolic, not seriously demonstrated. Stove, if my impression of his character is not mistaken, would be uninterested in proving any objective sense of such appellations as cult. What he was explicitly interested in was exposing logical fallacies, especially if these were popular. Which makes him rather ordinary, wouldn't you think?

As for logical positivism. That would describe the naive undergraduate I was, not Stove, who gave me a merciless flogging for it in lectures, that was enjoyable because of its good natured and skillful instructional style.

I hope you'll apreciate me reflecting a peritrope at you regarding responsible criticism. Would it be too much to ask of you what you ask of Stove? Perhaps you'd care to be systematic in your accusations and provide definitions for "mind-controlling", "taboos", "conscending [sic]"--how's that for condescending. ;)

I'm not serious, but I'm sure you take my point.

But to go back to your history of philosophy comments. As I understand it, both logical positivism and falsificationism are "debunked". Stove is merely one, early and colourful debunker of the falsificationist school. But the debunking is old news in philosophy now. What is interesting, though, is hearing educated people of a certain generation (often academics outside science or philosophy) speaking as though falsification is established consensus. It is not, it is debunked and only useful in disciplines that cite it as presumed support for some of their methodology.

If your concern is to raise the alarm against logical positivism, Stove is your ally, whether you choose to accept him or not. If your concern is to defend falsificationism, then Stove is indeed an opponent (and an easy ad hominem target). However, his broad theses are now very widely published by voices harder to ignore. There is trace of these in the bibliography for this article.

Scepticism is an excellent thing, when applied universally without prejudice. Best regards, Alastair Haines (talk) 01:44, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

PS I'm working on another project and got side-tracked into reading a recentish scientific article—Gutala Venkata Ramana, Bing Su, Li Jin, Lalji Singh, Ning Wang, Peter Underhill and Ranajit Chakraborty "Y-chromosome SNP haplotypes suggest evidence of gene flow among caste, tribe, and the migrant Siddi populations of Andhra Pradesh, South India", European Journal of Human Genetics 9 (2001): 695–700. In their discussion they note, "The AMOVA analysis of the frequency distributions of the 11 haplotypes supports this assertion." The point of quoting them here is that these professional scientists (and those who fund them) believe that even statistical methods can be useful to aquire knowledge which can lead to solving problems (and making or saving money). If Stove is correct, then these people are doing science. If Popper is correct, these people are lost in the dark ages doing something else. A lot of money, all the world over says Stove is right and Popper wrong. Mind you, some people spend money, others spend words (I personally have little else to spend). There are still some people who spend words with Sir Karl Popper's mark on them. They are entitled to space at this article. ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 07:34, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

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Neutrality

The article describes Stove's nonsense at length, but no criticism at all. David Miller's Critical Rationalism, a restatement and defense is not even referenced, see especially pp 28, 52–56, 72f, 199. --rtc (talk) 21:56, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm temporarily removing the neutrality tag, since it is only supported by the clearly non-neutral comment above. Perhaps the better course currently is to add David (William) Miller to the bibliography and expand the criticism section. Of course such things would be assets to the article, and readers would value such contributions. Inadequate coverage of criticism (if such is the case) is not lack of neutrality, the criticism section needs an "expand" tag. If Stove's own position is presented glowingly, or disparagingly, then that would be grounds for a "neutrality" tag. I'm sure Rtc appreciates the distinction. Both the talk page and the article itself are open for his contributions. :) Alastair Haines (talk) 02:00, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

PS I've found some more recent text from Miller, which really tells a story. Eminently citable at this article regarding the way Stove was no more than the vanguard of what is now mainstream.

"With its denial of the false security that other philosophies cherish, critical rationalism has never been an easy position to adopt. At a time when intellectual life is becoming more professionalized and more doctrinaire, it is as unfashionable as it is uncomfortable. It is fortunate that nonetheless there are many people determined to keep its dissident spirit alive. Should the precious insights of critical rationalism ever be lost, they will not readily be regained." — David Miller, "Preface" to Out of Error, 28 July 2005.

Can I hear a voice calling out in the wilderness? ;) Alastair Haines (talk) 07:52, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:NPOV. Of course the undue weight of the article is just as much "grounds" for a neutrality tag as "Stove's own position [..] presented glowingly, or disparagingly" would be. That my comment is allegedly "non-neutral" (NPOV applies to articles, not to discussion pages) does not make it wrong and is no justification for removing the tag. It is also not a justification that there is noone or nothing else that "supports" the tag. The preface you cited does not discuss Stove's notorious book. However, the source cited above does. Stove's book is highly controversial. To become neutral, the article needs to reflect that. --rtc (talk) 01:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Add the material! In a neutral way. I'm sure we both understand:

• Miller believes Stove's work is deficient in x, y and z is neutral; but
• Stove's work is deficient in the following ways (cite Miller) is not.

Indeed, that's pretty much all we've got in the article at the moment:

• Stove believes Popper's work is deficient in x, y and z.

Of course, it would be non-neutral if it presented Stove's view as though it were Wikipedia's view of Popper. Wikipedia has no position. That Stove's view is consistent with what is now pretty much consensus isn't even mentioned, but once criticism is added, we can say that too.

I've only added what I'm familiar with and what I can source easily. I'd be really keen to see sourced criticism from someone with time, sources and motivation to do it. It'd be great if that was you. Otherwise we just have to wait. That's Wiki for you. :( Alastair Haines (talk) 03:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)