Comments on: Don’t be Misled

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 05:36:57 +0000

Kriston, I’m not entirely sure of the source of the paradox, but I’ve heard it attributed to Kripke enough times that I’m pretty sure it’s his! Off the top of my head I think the initial discussion of it is in Gilbert Harman’s Thought where it is credited to Kripke.

By: Kriston

Kriston — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 04:55:10 +0000

Echoing the slightly confused philosopher above, but I’m not familiar with that paradox of Kripke’s. I don’t think it’s from WRPL. Source?

By: Sigivald

Sigivald — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 23:38:02 +0000

John: If that was your point, then I missed it. (Might have helped if you'd simply said it in as clear a way the first time, but I know from long personal experience that that's always easier in hindsight, and when one thinks one is being perfectly clear, one often isn't, at least not enough for all readers and contexts.) Though, why Lomborg needs to address Simon being wrong about some things, because he addressed other people being wrong, I'm not clear on, unless he was proposing that Simon was a fount of Perfectly Correct Prediction And Knowledge...? (I don't know for sure, since I haven't gotten around to reading Lomborg's book. The point, after all, as I said, was whether or not he's generally correct in his assertions about the environment and the environmentalist movement; and specifically in your case, whether or not he is, as he claims, a sincere "environmentalist". That he was, he said, convinced by Julian Simon's data is not changed in the slightest by Simon being wrong about some things, nor does his sincerity as an environmentalist take a hit because he doesn't mention Simon being wrong about those things (since his book is, er, based on his own examinations of the publicly available data, not on Simon, right?). That you immediately disbelieved his claims to "sincere" environmentalism does not, as far as I can tell, reflect on his actual beliefs at all. (I simply don't see why it's difficult to accept at all, unless one has the assumption that any sincere environmentalist would necessarily have a certain set of beliefs regardless of the environmental data they are aware of.) But that's me being an advocate.

By: Neel Krishnaswami

Neel Krishnaswami — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 18:46:38 +0000

Neil: thanks for correcting my mis-characterization of your position. I’ll need to think about this some more before responding.

By: Rich Puchalsky

Rich Puchalsky — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 12:54:29 +0000

neil: “If containing some flaws, even some fairly major flaws (misinterpretation of opponents, fallacious arguments, etc) is sufficient to show that the argument as a whole is wrong and the position false, then all polemical books are wrong and all positions false.” I don’t think that this is true as a matter of fact. There are some polemical books that do not contain such flaws, or at least only contain them in “innocent” ways. It is part of my contention that it is possible to tell the difference between the normal flaws present in any work and the malicious flaws in a bad polemical work. I don’t think that it is possible to write with “minimal competence” if you are on the wrong side of many issues; in order to argue for those issues, you must cheat. And the cheating, as least as I’ve observed, does not seem to be confined to expert matters only. neil: “But even if you can show (again, without special expertise) that Lomborg is not minimally competent (and I suspect those of you who think they can either have expertise or are plain wrong) you still haven’t shown that his view is wrong.” But it’s a good indication that his view is wrong, because you are allowed to use information outside his book proper. If he is well known as an advocate for his side of the issue, and if others on his side of the issue defend his work, then aren’t those others accepting that, for good or bad, his book represents their side of the argument?

By: Sebastian Holslcaw

Sebastian Holslcaw — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 06:46:40 +0000

“My second claim is the controversial one: that there is nevertheless a way rationally to take a position in these debates.” I guess I didn’t see this in your argument. Or do you think there is a way to take a position, but you don’t actually define it in your paper? It seems to me that the closest you come is a sort of ‘accept the general wisdom of authorities’ concept. Which in my mind only helps with deeply settled issues.

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 05:54:05 +0000

“The specific inference that Levy advances — “IF a) you know your position is true, and b) you don’t have the expertise to understand why apparently disconfirming evidence doesn’t, THEN you should avoid looking at apparently- disconfirming evidence” — seems correct to me.” I agree that this claim is true, in some circumstances – but it wasn’t the one I was making. Sometimes, we might know that a position is true and therefore feel justified in ignoring contrary evidence. Suppose you know that you were in New York yesterday, all day. Then you’re quite entitleed to ignore any evidence that anyone might advance to show that you were in Moscow. There are two parts to the claim I was advancing. The first is uncontroversial among philosophers. It is this: we have to take a lot on trust because we’re in no position to find out for ourselves (NOT everything on trust, as lots of folks want to read it, and NOT there’s no point in intellectual debate). When a controversy turns on what I called special expertise, then we can’t adjudicate it if we don’t have the expertise. Lomborg’s book was an example only. Suppose you’re right, and you can detect flaws in Lomborg’s work without expertise. Then I am wrong (at most) only about one thing: Lomborg is not minimally competent. First I suspect that’s not right: every extended polemical work contains some flaws. If containing some flaws, even some fairly major flaws (misinterpretation of opponents, fallacious arguments, etc) is sufficient to show that the argument as a whole is wrong and the position false, then all polemical books are wrong and all positions false. But even if you can show (again, without special expertise) that Lomborg is not minimally competent (and I suspect those of you who think they can either have expertise or are plain wrong) you still haven’t shown that his view is wrong. There is a lot of material on the question out there, and finding that one book (or two, or three) that take a position in this debate is not minimally competent will not give you warrant for taking a position in this debate. None of this should be all that surprising (do you really think that you can come to have a justified belief whether the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is true, by reading physicists?). My second claim is the controversial one: that there is nevertheless a way rationally to take a position in these debates. I agree that the boundaries of special expertise are vague, and that the point at which they shade off into general expertise (the type that all of us who have average cognitive equipment and are lucky in our education can hope to acquire). If the picture was clear-cut, we could be pretty sure it fails to reflect reality.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 05:37:07 +0000

I believe, though I will admit that I’m not an expert, that Chomsky’s ‘universal grammar’ has fallen into deep disrepute among linguists in recent years. But like Marixism and Freudianism, it has fanatical followers. It is often refered to closely with deep structure, but my reading suggests that some forms of deep structure have not (yet?) been totally found wanting. But ‘universal grammar’ (which is the popular expression of deep structure) is definitely out.

By: Neel Krishnaswami

Neel Krishnaswami — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 04:43:32 +0000

Sebastian wrote, “Shall we call it ‘political fundamentalism’?” No, call it epistemic Alzheimer’s. That’s one of the only scenarios I can think of where this could be justifiable behavior. Suppose you are an expert in some subject X who believes Y for good reasons. Then, you come down with Alzheimer’s syndrome, so that you lose the cognitive facilities necessary to understand why you believed Y. So, in this case, you have a good reason to think Y, without being able to properly the arguments for or against it any longer. So it’s not totally impossible—though cases like this make me doubt the wisdom of adopting Levy’s rule as a general maxim even more!

By: Philip Brooks

Philip Brooks — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 04:05:58 +0000

Sebastian: I wasn’t aware deep structure was confined to the same pile as Marxist science and Freudian psychology. What makes you say that? (We are talking about linguistic D-structure, right?)

By: Rich Puchalsky

Rich Puchalsky — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 03:14:53 +0000

abe, I didn’t say that you were a Lomborg defender, or indeed address your post in any way. However, I’d say that your sophomoric reaction means that you’ve nominated yourself as one.

By: a slightly confused philosopher

a slightly confused philosopher — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 23:29:57 +0000

Not really at the heart of the topic, but anyway: is the paradox of the knower really Kripke’s? I thought that Kaplan was responsible for it. If it is Kripke’s, would someone mind putting forward the locus classicus for it?

By: Abe

Abe — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 23:25:06 +0000

Rich—don’t presume to play hall monitor in this discussion. You’re far to small to wear the pants. P.s. What the hell makes you think I’m a Lomborg defender? Re-read my comment very…slowly…

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 22:16:28 +0000

By: Neel Krishnaswami

Neel Krishnaswami — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 22:07:17 +0000

The specific inference that Levy advances—“IF a) you know your position is true, and b) you don’t have the expertise to understand why apparently disconfirming evidence doesn’t, THEN you should avoid looking at apparently- disconfirming evidence”—seems correct to me. It is also of no possible relevance to any real-world situation: how can you form a rational belief that your position is true if you cannot properly evaluate any of the evidence for or against it? While the implication might be true, there’s never going to be a way to form the premise—and so the conclusion can’t ever be deduced.