Arnold Zuboff untangles the problems of a particular type of bad thinking.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/106/Th ... Themselves
Theories That Refute Themselves
Re: Theories That Refute Themselves
First of all, what kind of name is Zudoff? Is it self refutable or can it be refuted?
All kidding aside, and in all seriousness, with no tongue-in-cheek, why do we need an article like this in PN? This is the kind of philosophical stunt that gives philosophy a bad name.
I'm sure my remark can be refuted, and you can bet that it will be. If not refuted, at least ignored or discarded.
Let's discuss real things.
All kidding aside, and in all seriousness, with no tongue-in-cheek, why do we need an article like this in PN? This is the kind of philosophical stunt that gives philosophy a bad name.
I'm sure my remark can be refuted, and you can bet that it will be. If not refuted, at least ignored or discarded.
Let's discuss real things.
Re: Theories That Refute Themselves
Having read Zuboff’s article (unfortunately, you guys can't read it unless you subscribe to Philosophy Now: https://philosophynow.org/, but I will give you quotes (I find myself of 2 minds:
On one hand, I want to respect the man's achievement. He is, after all, a retired lecturer from the philosophy department of the University of London. And it’s like our mothers tell us: if you can’t say anything good about something, don’t say anything at all. And I hate negativity. I really do. It always seems so self indulgent in that it ends up more of an opportunity to puff oneself up through witty and clever statements. It becomes more about the critic than the thing being criticized.
On the other, the good Dr. did use that achievement for ill rather than good in that he prostituted his authority as an excuse to wag his finger at philosophies that didn’t share his neo-classicism with arguments that are so weak and contrary to reality (to the point of ironic (in ways that will require a series for me to pick through –the biggest irony being that his argument does not fulfill the pragmatic truth test (that is the real one as compared to some convenient mental concept he developed for his own purposes (in not working except for anyone but those that share his sentiment in the first place.
(But before I go on, I want to point out (perhaps out of guilt for what I’m about to do (that nothing I say goes to the issue of Zuboff’s intellect. As I see it, it is a matter of how he uses his intellect, of being too immersed in the dogma and doxa of neo-classicism which he has basically made himself the representative of in the face of non-classicists approaches to philosophy that he is attempting to undermine.(
But for sake of the boards I will cross-pollinate with, I want to start with his attack (and that was how both I and he saw it (on pragmatism:
“Neither objectivism nor relativism directly tells us what truth actually is. But objectivism requires the correspondence theory of truth. This is the view that a claim about something is true if, and only if, that thing is really (that is to say, objectively or independently) the way that it is claimed to be. Pragmatism is a rival theory of truth that waters down the requirement for truth.”
Once again, what we are dealing with here is Zuboff’s mental concept of pragmatism that is convenient to his advocacy of the classicist approach. And what it conveniently leaves out is the other truth test, the coherence truth test (deduction, that which, with correspondence, dominated philosophy up until the emergence of pragmatism in a kind of dialectic. The pragmatic truth test emerged as a synthesis of the two and more. Pragmatism was never a rival theory to correspondence or coherence. It simply recognized that the essential feature of both was that they worked within their given contexts. And it makes perfect sense that Zuboff would frame it as:
“Pragmatism is a rival theory of truth that waters down the requirement for truth.”
This is because pragmatism threatens the hierarchical notion that he has of philosophy rooted in Plato’s Republic (along with correspondence and coherence (in which he, having achieved what he has, has earned the right to tell others what the truth or their reality is –that is since any other philosophy can only offer a “watered down” version of “the truth”. This can easily be seen in the smug money-shot he offers to his essay:
“It seems that every attempt to reject truth as objective correspondence to reality must run itself into the same brick wall.”
And it is this kind of smugness, mean-spiritedness, and intellectual arrogance (that which gives voice to a kind of state philosophy (that anti-platonic philosophies (such as pragmatism (reject and work as hard as any neo-classicist to undermine.
On one hand, I want to respect the man's achievement. He is, after all, a retired lecturer from the philosophy department of the University of London. And it’s like our mothers tell us: if you can’t say anything good about something, don’t say anything at all. And I hate negativity. I really do. It always seems so self indulgent in that it ends up more of an opportunity to puff oneself up through witty and clever statements. It becomes more about the critic than the thing being criticized.
On the other, the good Dr. did use that achievement for ill rather than good in that he prostituted his authority as an excuse to wag his finger at philosophies that didn’t share his neo-classicism with arguments that are so weak and contrary to reality (to the point of ironic (in ways that will require a series for me to pick through –the biggest irony being that his argument does not fulfill the pragmatic truth test (that is the real one as compared to some convenient mental concept he developed for his own purposes (in not working except for anyone but those that share his sentiment in the first place.
(But before I go on, I want to point out (perhaps out of guilt for what I’m about to do (that nothing I say goes to the issue of Zuboff’s intellect. As I see it, it is a matter of how he uses his intellect, of being too immersed in the dogma and doxa of neo-classicism which he has basically made himself the representative of in the face of non-classicists approaches to philosophy that he is attempting to undermine.(
But for sake of the boards I will cross-pollinate with, I want to start with his attack (and that was how both I and he saw it (on pragmatism:
“Neither objectivism nor relativism directly tells us what truth actually is. But objectivism requires the correspondence theory of truth. This is the view that a claim about something is true if, and only if, that thing is really (that is to say, objectively or independently) the way that it is claimed to be. Pragmatism is a rival theory of truth that waters down the requirement for truth.”
Once again, what we are dealing with here is Zuboff’s mental concept of pragmatism that is convenient to his advocacy of the classicist approach. And what it conveniently leaves out is the other truth test, the coherence truth test (deduction, that which, with correspondence, dominated philosophy up until the emergence of pragmatism in a kind of dialectic. The pragmatic truth test emerged as a synthesis of the two and more. Pragmatism was never a rival theory to correspondence or coherence. It simply recognized that the essential feature of both was that they worked within their given contexts. And it makes perfect sense that Zuboff would frame it as:
“Pragmatism is a rival theory of truth that waters down the requirement for truth.”
This is because pragmatism threatens the hierarchical notion that he has of philosophy rooted in Plato’s Republic (along with correspondence and coherence (in which he, having achieved what he has, has earned the right to tell others what the truth or their reality is –that is since any other philosophy can only offer a “watered down” version of “the truth”. This can easily be seen in the smug money-shot he offers to his essay:
“It seems that every attempt to reject truth as objective correspondence to reality must run itself into the same brick wall.”
And it is this kind of smugness, mean-spiritedness, and intellectual arrogance (that which gives voice to a kind of state philosophy (that anti-platonic philosophies (such as pragmatism (reject and work as hard as any neo-classicist to undermine.
Re: Theories That Refute Themselves
“A Possible Origin of Relativism:
Let’s briefly consider what I regard as one of the main inspirations for relativism. An object like a hand can be viewed and described in many ways, some true and some false. It can be true at once both that this is a single hand, and that it consists of a multiplicity of parts. A bad argument for idealism (the idea that only experiencers and experiences exist) or relativism, could run as follows: “A hand has at once the contradictory properties of unity and multiplicity. Which of these inconsistent properties it has depends purely on how you look at it. Seen one way, it is one hand; seen the other way, it is five fingers, a palm, and so on. Now nothing objectively real could be at once one and five. So there is only the subjective experience, and idealism is right. And neither of these descriptions, though both are valid or true in the eye of the beholder, could be an objectively true description. So relativism is right.” But no contradictory properties have really been discovered in that hand. If it is simply specified that the number concerned is that of the hand and not the fingers, the number is definitely one. If the specification is of fingers and not hands, the number is five. The properties of being one hand and of being a multiplicity of parts not only fail to contradict each other; they mutually support each other. There are, of course, cases in which inconsistent properties are attributed to the same thing; but then, if the object is real, at least one of the attributions must be wrong.”
This is, perhaps, one of the less egregious aspects of Zuboff’s essay. He, at least, shows the humility of adding the qualifier “possible” to the title. And even though I do not agree with his geneology (I think it’s a little more social and political, it’s not totally unreasonable, and I could not claim to be an expert on the issue or history. And I would note here (that is when you compare it to my take (how hardwired his analytic/classicist sensibility seems to be in this particular section. The best I can do here, rather than dismiss Zuboff’s, is offer my own geneology and leave it up to the jury.
For me, it begins with the nihilistic perspective: that which recognizes the underlying nothingness of being (the recognition that we are, as we are, when we could just as easily not be as we are (Leibniz: why all this rather than nothing? (and eventually comes to the conclusion that anything we can say about the world, if followed through, will eventually break down to assumptions that, ultimately, float on thin air. And what has facilitated and continued this basic ontological recognition is the historically continuous confrontation with the dogma that tends to result from social organization. As long as there is dogma, what better resistance could there be to it than the recognition that the assumptions of that dogma float on thin air: the underlying nothingness?
And as those systems became more complex and sophisticated, the nihilistic perspective became more complex and sophisticated: starting with Socrates’ claim that he knew nothing, up through romanticism’s rejection of the platonic notion “civilization good/ nature bad”, through the Enlightenment’s rejection of religious dogma and Berkeley’s idealism, skepticism, and on to existentialism, original and post structuralism, relativism, and finally to postmodernism and pragmatism. The important thing to note here is that the nihilistic perspective (the source of everything that vexes Zuboff’s neo-classicism (has always adapted to the dogma it was presented with: the very dogma that I think Zuboff represents.
And nothing illustrates this better than the 60’s in which there were a lot of people who wanted to engage in behaviors (drugs and free love (that were dogmatically prohibited. The response to this was the heyday of relativism that challenged the ethical and moral dogmas of the reactionary elements in society. In other words, relativism started as an ethical issue. Eventually, out of frustration with the status quo, it became less than enough to address it as a purely ethical issue. That ethical relativity had to be propped up with a metaphysical/ontological one that included statements about brute facts. It resulted in a kind of theoretical over-reach that attacked more scientific approaches and resulted in Richard Bach’s 70’s book: Illusions.
We have, of course, evolved since then. And my main issue with the good doctor is I’m not sure his mental concepts of the other has. It’s like he’s fighting a fight that he won years ago. But allow me to assure him: even a relativistic hippy knows better than to step in front of moving bus.
Let’s briefly consider what I regard as one of the main inspirations for relativism. An object like a hand can be viewed and described in many ways, some true and some false. It can be true at once both that this is a single hand, and that it consists of a multiplicity of parts. A bad argument for idealism (the idea that only experiencers and experiences exist) or relativism, could run as follows: “A hand has at once the contradictory properties of unity and multiplicity. Which of these inconsistent properties it has depends purely on how you look at it. Seen one way, it is one hand; seen the other way, it is five fingers, a palm, and so on. Now nothing objectively real could be at once one and five. So there is only the subjective experience, and idealism is right. And neither of these descriptions, though both are valid or true in the eye of the beholder, could be an objectively true description. So relativism is right.” But no contradictory properties have really been discovered in that hand. If it is simply specified that the number concerned is that of the hand and not the fingers, the number is definitely one. If the specification is of fingers and not hands, the number is five. The properties of being one hand and of being a multiplicity of parts not only fail to contradict each other; they mutually support each other. There are, of course, cases in which inconsistent properties are attributed to the same thing; but then, if the object is real, at least one of the attributions must be wrong.”
This is, perhaps, one of the less egregious aspects of Zuboff’s essay. He, at least, shows the humility of adding the qualifier “possible” to the title. And even though I do not agree with his geneology (I think it’s a little more social and political, it’s not totally unreasonable, and I could not claim to be an expert on the issue or history. And I would note here (that is when you compare it to my take (how hardwired his analytic/classicist sensibility seems to be in this particular section. The best I can do here, rather than dismiss Zuboff’s, is offer my own geneology and leave it up to the jury.
For me, it begins with the nihilistic perspective: that which recognizes the underlying nothingness of being (the recognition that we are, as we are, when we could just as easily not be as we are (Leibniz: why all this rather than nothing? (and eventually comes to the conclusion that anything we can say about the world, if followed through, will eventually break down to assumptions that, ultimately, float on thin air. And what has facilitated and continued this basic ontological recognition is the historically continuous confrontation with the dogma that tends to result from social organization. As long as there is dogma, what better resistance could there be to it than the recognition that the assumptions of that dogma float on thin air: the underlying nothingness?
And as those systems became more complex and sophisticated, the nihilistic perspective became more complex and sophisticated: starting with Socrates’ claim that he knew nothing, up through romanticism’s rejection of the platonic notion “civilization good/ nature bad”, through the Enlightenment’s rejection of religious dogma and Berkeley’s idealism, skepticism, and on to existentialism, original and post structuralism, relativism, and finally to postmodernism and pragmatism. The important thing to note here is that the nihilistic perspective (the source of everything that vexes Zuboff’s neo-classicism (has always adapted to the dogma it was presented with: the very dogma that I think Zuboff represents.
And nothing illustrates this better than the 60’s in which there were a lot of people who wanted to engage in behaviors (drugs and free love (that were dogmatically prohibited. The response to this was the heyday of relativism that challenged the ethical and moral dogmas of the reactionary elements in society. In other words, relativism started as an ethical issue. Eventually, out of frustration with the status quo, it became less than enough to address it as a purely ethical issue. That ethical relativity had to be propped up with a metaphysical/ontological one that included statements about brute facts. It resulted in a kind of theoretical over-reach that attacked more scientific approaches and resulted in Richard Bach’s 70’s book: Illusions.
We have, of course, evolved since then. And my main issue with the good doctor is I’m not sure his mental concepts of the other has. It’s like he’s fighting a fight that he won years ago. But allow me to assure him: even a relativistic hippy knows better than to step in front of moving bus.
Re: Theories That Refute Themselves
I suppose one of the main attractions for me (perhaps out of Ego (to Zuboff’s article is that about two thirds of it breaks down to the Skeptic’s Paradox: a popular argument against any expression of the nihilistic perspective as I have described it above. And I’m actually impressed at the many variations he has managed to come up with. At the same time, I’m not all that surprised in that I have encountered several different variations throughout my time on the boards and he has clearly spent a large part of his process creating variations of it.
However, this is not to say that it has evolved in the sense of becoming more effective. In fact, the cool thing about it for me is that it allows me to kill a lot of birds with one stone. The skeptic’s paradox, if you really think it through, is not nearly as effective as its practitioners seem to think it is. Consider an analogy:
Say one was to approach a skeptic and the nihilistic perspective and say:
“You cannot argue there are no absolutes since to do so would be to offer up an absolute in itself.”
First, the skeptic would do what they naturally do: scrutinize. Eventually, they would come to recognize (as the so-called relativist post-structuralist and post-modernists have (that there is a big difference between saying we live in a world in which there are no absolutes and actually living in one. Then they would go right on being skeptics.
The nihilistic perspective, on the other hand, would just cross its arms, glare at you impatiently, and snort:
“Right: nothing is engraved in stone; not even that nothing is engraved in stone. What's your point?”
Now the issue of the skeptic goes towards the primary problem with the skeptic’s paradox: its failure to get outside of the semantic method of philosophical inquiry and actually look at the existential context in which the skeptic works. It confuses the language it uses to dispute the skeptic for the actual reality of the skeptic. Consequently, it could no more convince the skeptic to abandon their approach than the paradox of Zeno’s arrow could convince Dr. Zuboff to go prancing around between an archer and their target. The ironic thing here is his attempt to dispel Wittgenstein:
“Do Wittgensteinians want to say that their own description of language as a game is itself merely a set of moves? Then, if rival descriptions of language develop within the game, they should be accepted just as much as Wittgenstein’s. But the reason for this equal acceptance would have been dictated by Wittgenstein’s description of language as a game – which would therefore still be holding sway over its rivals quite apart from its role and position in a game. So the ‘game’ description of language must be regarding itself simply as true – as corresponding to what language really is.”
The assumption here is that by putting the language game in question, we must automatically accept that language can actually reflect reality –that is without actually presenting proof that it actually can. And sans that proof, what can Zuboff be engaging in but a language game. Whether he realizes it or not, between this and his assertion of the skeptic’s paradox, all he really seems to be doing is making Wittgenstein’s point by engaging in language games.
The case with the nihilistic perspective goes to an assumption that, once again, floats on thin air. We have to admit that what he is describing are, in fact, self refuting theories. The problem is that he is asking us to accept that such theories are necessarily wrong in a world that tends to contradict itself, that somehow theories that don’t turn against themselves will, by necessity, do a better job of it. In other words, what he is arguing for is a kind of overcoding of reality in which those who have achieved his status have earned the right to tell everyone else what their reality is –that is in the sense that the other’s perspective can only be contaminated by so much subjective nonsense. And this, in turn, goes towards the elitist, hierarchical, and anti-democratic nonsense he is engaging in.
He frames the pragmatic approach in terms of what is most “efficient” (that is when the pragmatic tends to frame itself in the complex and subtle sense of what works (while indulging in the technocratic and academic bureaucracy propped up by neo-classicism and such buzzwords as “logic” or “objectivity”. He argues (primarily by tearing down the opposition (for the possibility of an absolute truth while having yet to objectively offer one.
Via the technology of Logic (a sophisticated language game (he indulges in something described by Andrew Bower Latz in the article Meaning and Morality in Modernity:
“The problem with this view of reason [the technocratic and instrumentalist] is not its scepticism – scepticism is an essential and intrinsic aspect of reason. The problem is combining scepticism with a claim to self-sufficiency. Here reason denies that it requires anything except itself. The end result is to consider any distinctly human perspective a distortion of an objective picture of a physical universe that exists independently of humanity. And so reason begins to critique moral values as a failure of objectivity, as mere private or personal beliefs, as subjective opinion, not fact.”
In other words, by seeking to drive out the element of paradox (the self refuting theory (and the subjective, Zuboff is more or less seeking to drive out the human and democratic.
However, this is not to say that it has evolved in the sense of becoming more effective. In fact, the cool thing about it for me is that it allows me to kill a lot of birds with one stone. The skeptic’s paradox, if you really think it through, is not nearly as effective as its practitioners seem to think it is. Consider an analogy:
Say one was to approach a skeptic and the nihilistic perspective and say:
“You cannot argue there are no absolutes since to do so would be to offer up an absolute in itself.”
First, the skeptic would do what they naturally do: scrutinize. Eventually, they would come to recognize (as the so-called relativist post-structuralist and post-modernists have (that there is a big difference between saying we live in a world in which there are no absolutes and actually living in one. Then they would go right on being skeptics.
The nihilistic perspective, on the other hand, would just cross its arms, glare at you impatiently, and snort:
“Right: nothing is engraved in stone; not even that nothing is engraved in stone. What's your point?”
Now the issue of the skeptic goes towards the primary problem with the skeptic’s paradox: its failure to get outside of the semantic method of philosophical inquiry and actually look at the existential context in which the skeptic works. It confuses the language it uses to dispute the skeptic for the actual reality of the skeptic. Consequently, it could no more convince the skeptic to abandon their approach than the paradox of Zeno’s arrow could convince Dr. Zuboff to go prancing around between an archer and their target. The ironic thing here is his attempt to dispel Wittgenstein:
“Do Wittgensteinians want to say that their own description of language as a game is itself merely a set of moves? Then, if rival descriptions of language develop within the game, they should be accepted just as much as Wittgenstein’s. But the reason for this equal acceptance would have been dictated by Wittgenstein’s description of language as a game – which would therefore still be holding sway over its rivals quite apart from its role and position in a game. So the ‘game’ description of language must be regarding itself simply as true – as corresponding to what language really is.”
The assumption here is that by putting the language game in question, we must automatically accept that language can actually reflect reality –that is without actually presenting proof that it actually can. And sans that proof, what can Zuboff be engaging in but a language game. Whether he realizes it or not, between this and his assertion of the skeptic’s paradox, all he really seems to be doing is making Wittgenstein’s point by engaging in language games.
The case with the nihilistic perspective goes to an assumption that, once again, floats on thin air. We have to admit that what he is describing are, in fact, self refuting theories. The problem is that he is asking us to accept that such theories are necessarily wrong in a world that tends to contradict itself, that somehow theories that don’t turn against themselves will, by necessity, do a better job of it. In other words, what he is arguing for is a kind of overcoding of reality in which those who have achieved his status have earned the right to tell everyone else what their reality is –that is in the sense that the other’s perspective can only be contaminated by so much subjective nonsense. And this, in turn, goes towards the elitist, hierarchical, and anti-democratic nonsense he is engaging in.
He frames the pragmatic approach in terms of what is most “efficient” (that is when the pragmatic tends to frame itself in the complex and subtle sense of what works (while indulging in the technocratic and academic bureaucracy propped up by neo-classicism and such buzzwords as “logic” or “objectivity”. He argues (primarily by tearing down the opposition (for the possibility of an absolute truth while having yet to objectively offer one.
Via the technology of Logic (a sophisticated language game (he indulges in something described by Andrew Bower Latz in the article Meaning and Morality in Modernity:
“The problem with this view of reason [the technocratic and instrumentalist] is not its scepticism – scepticism is an essential and intrinsic aspect of reason. The problem is combining scepticism with a claim to self-sufficiency. Here reason denies that it requires anything except itself. The end result is to consider any distinctly human perspective a distortion of an objective picture of a physical universe that exists independently of humanity. And so reason begins to critique moral values as a failure of objectivity, as mere private or personal beliefs, as subjective opinion, not fact.”
In other words, by seeking to drive out the element of paradox (the self refuting theory (and the subjective, Zuboff is more or less seeking to drive out the human and democratic.
Re: Theories That Refute Themselves
Rhizome 3/9/15:
“Now the issue of the skeptic goes towards the primary problem with the skeptic’s paradox: its failure to get outside of the semantic method of philosophical inquiry and actually look at the existential context in which the skeptic works. It confuses the language it uses to dispute the skeptic for the actual reality of the skeptic. Consequently, it could no more convince the skeptic to abandon their approach than the paradox of Zeno’s arrow could convince Dr. Zuboff to go prancing around between an archer and their target.” - viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14784
The thing is that Zuboff might have had a far more effective strategy had he of not succumbed to the neo-classicist mental concept of all expressions of the nihilistic perspective (relativism, post-modernism, the pragmatic, etc. etc. (and recognized that in no way have they abandon the principles of empiricism. The nihilistic perspective is the result of seeing too many empirical observations break down to assumptions that ultimately float on thin air.
Had Zuboff recognized this, rather than succumb to the clever semantic tactics of the skeptic’s paradox, he might have realized that the main weakness of “there are no absolute truths” is that it is subject to the same inductive limit as any empirical assertion. The more accurate statement would have been:
“As of yet, we have no proof that there is anything such as an absolute truth.”
This would have made the nihilistic perspective no better off than the neo-classicist insistence on some kind of absolute truth that they claim is out there but have yet to produce.
“Now the issue of the skeptic goes towards the primary problem with the skeptic’s paradox: its failure to get outside of the semantic method of philosophical inquiry and actually look at the existential context in which the skeptic works. It confuses the language it uses to dispute the skeptic for the actual reality of the skeptic. Consequently, it could no more convince the skeptic to abandon their approach than the paradox of Zeno’s arrow could convince Dr. Zuboff to go prancing around between an archer and their target.” - viewtopic.php?f=23&t=14784
The thing is that Zuboff might have had a far more effective strategy had he of not succumbed to the neo-classicist mental concept of all expressions of the nihilistic perspective (relativism, post-modernism, the pragmatic, etc. etc. (and recognized that in no way have they abandon the principles of empiricism. The nihilistic perspective is the result of seeing too many empirical observations break down to assumptions that ultimately float on thin air.
Had Zuboff recognized this, rather than succumb to the clever semantic tactics of the skeptic’s paradox, he might have realized that the main weakness of “there are no absolute truths” is that it is subject to the same inductive limit as any empirical assertion. The more accurate statement would have been:
“As of yet, we have no proof that there is anything such as an absolute truth.”
This would have made the nihilistic perspective no better off than the neo-classicist insistence on some kind of absolute truth that they claim is out there but have yet to produce.
Re: Theories That Refute Themselves
In other words, by seeking to drive out the element of paradox (the self refuting theory (and the subjective, Zuboff is more or less seeking to drive out the human and democratic.
Driving out the subjective and human, and seeking/striving towards/reaching for the objective is what drives science; it does not matter whether such a 'truth' actually exists or is a posit.This would have made the nihilistic perspective no better off than the neo-classicist insistence on some kind of absolute truth that they claim is out there but have yet to produce.
I agree that a similar driving out of the subjective may not be an appropriate method for ethics or art or perhaps anything except physics.
Whether substituting 'what works' (the pragmatic approach) for 'what reaches toward the truth' can obtain the same results is the question for pragmatism. What criterion could you use to answer such a question? The question is not whether science is good or bad or useful or not - the question is what criteria are used to settle scientific problems. The answer that has worked resoundingly for the past several hundred years is - 'the evidence.' And observation of evidence requires the least amount of subjective involvement as we can possibly muster - precision instruments, controlled experiments, etc.. It has nothing to do with driving out 'democracy' or humanity, but error. It is difficult to conceive of a useful backdrop for 'error' other than 'truth.'
The pragmatic criteria for solving scientific problems - i.e. 'whichever solution works best' - does beg the question as it leaves no criterion for the answer to that question except, again, 'whatever works best is best.' It does not answer why we should rely on evidence and, in particular, 'objectively' observed evidence. But it begs the question in exactly the spot where 'classicism'(as you call it) makes its assumption. Seeing the latter as an unproven 'assumption' and the former as a vicious circle is where philosophy has spun its wheels since Descartes, at least.
Re: Theories That Refute Themselves
Ask questions with situational awareness and relevance.
In various philosophy I see neither.
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In various philosophy I see neither.
________________________
We are the pioneers in providing Testking sat prep toefl and with 100% exam pass Download Testking psat test our latest passguidegmat and hartford.edu ccna or pass real exam
Last edited by pasban on Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Theories That Refute Themselves
Thank's Wyman. I will try to get to your points. But I have to focus on the project at hand.
Re: Theories That Refute Themselves
Dear Editor: Arnold Zuboff's article, Theories that Refute Themselves (issue 106), holds to the classicist tradition of acting as if it is the only approach that could possibly be in touch with reality while twisting that reality to its own ends. For instance: his assertion that pragmatism seeks to dispel correspondence. This likely refers to the dialectic between the correspondence and coherence truth tests that traditionally dominated philosophy -that is up until the pragmatic synthesis came along, incorporated both, and added a democratic dimension. But this escapes Zuboff. And there is a big difference between dispelling something and calling it what it is: a tool, one among many, that may or may not work for a given task. And if Pragmatism has an issue, it is with all the fussing and browbeating around the right method when these tools are a natural part of our evolutionary makeup. It’s how we think. Beyond that, for Pragmatism at least, all that has ever, does, and will count is discourse and what works.
l also noticed the irony in Zuboff's dismissal of Wittgenstein's Language Game when the first half of his article pretty much proves the point. He offers a survey of various reincarnations of the skeptic's paradox, a classic language game, and gotcha moment, that has been thrown at many non-classicist isms (relativism, skepticism, existentialism, post-structuralism, post-modernism, pragmatism, etc.), all of which ride on the nihilistic perspective: that which taps into the underlying nothingness and sees all assertions breaking down to assumptions that float on thin air. The problem is that the tactic falls short of the Classicist fantasy of an argument so undeniable that the opposition can only submit. It only preaches to the choir. Say, for example, one was to approach the skeptic and the nihilistic perspective and huff, indignantly:
"You cannot say there are no absolutes since to do so is to offer an absolute."
The skeptic would do what they're wired to do, scrutinize, and inevitably realize that there is a big difference between saying we live in a world in which there are no absolutes and actually living in one, then go right on being a skeptic. The nihilistic perspective would just cross its arms, glare, and snort:
“Right! Nothing is engraved in stone; not even that nothing is engraved in stone. So what’s your point?”
The skeptic’s response reflects on the weakness of the tactic: the failed leap from semantic justification (the language game) to an existential justification that works with the skeptic’s reality. The nihilistic perspective’s response goes to an assumption that pretty much floats on thin air. Zuboff is describing self refuting theories. But he assumes (as many neo-classicists do) that there is no room for them in philosophical inquiry - that is in the face of a reality that can often be contradictory, ironic, and paradoxical. And, existentially, isn't Neo-Classicism just as self refuting in its claim to dominion over reality while insisting on some absolute truth it has yet to produce?
l also noticed the irony in Zuboff's dismissal of Wittgenstein's Language Game when the first half of his article pretty much proves the point. He offers a survey of various reincarnations of the skeptic's paradox, a classic language game, and gotcha moment, that has been thrown at many non-classicist isms (relativism, skepticism, existentialism, post-structuralism, post-modernism, pragmatism, etc.), all of which ride on the nihilistic perspective: that which taps into the underlying nothingness and sees all assertions breaking down to assumptions that float on thin air. The problem is that the tactic falls short of the Classicist fantasy of an argument so undeniable that the opposition can only submit. It only preaches to the choir. Say, for example, one was to approach the skeptic and the nihilistic perspective and huff, indignantly:
"You cannot say there are no absolutes since to do so is to offer an absolute."
The skeptic would do what they're wired to do, scrutinize, and inevitably realize that there is a big difference between saying we live in a world in which there are no absolutes and actually living in one, then go right on being a skeptic. The nihilistic perspective would just cross its arms, glare, and snort:
“Right! Nothing is engraved in stone; not even that nothing is engraved in stone. So what’s your point?”
The skeptic’s response reflects on the weakness of the tactic: the failed leap from semantic justification (the language game) to an existential justification that works with the skeptic’s reality. The nihilistic perspective’s response goes to an assumption that pretty much floats on thin air. Zuboff is describing self refuting theories. But he assumes (as many neo-classicists do) that there is no room for them in philosophical inquiry - that is in the face of a reality that can often be contradictory, ironic, and paradoxical. And, existentially, isn't Neo-Classicism just as self refuting in its claim to dominion over reality while insisting on some absolute truth it has yet to produce?
Last edited by d63 on Sun Mar 15, 2015 4:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Theories That Refute Themselves
This is it, guy's! This is the way it goes in. I need tomorrow to respond to an old friend.