Anti-Philosophy: A Pessimistic Induction

[@KaneB]

Pessimistic induction in philosophy of science: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bIDam6mhmq6tjsU Unconceived alternatives: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jnKxqHWjq8uprJo kzbin.info/www/bejne/iZezZWmlpK2KgaM Why trust experts?: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ioHUZ62Bm5yFh7M Skepticism and self-defeat: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3LGkI2Zr8uqrZo

[@johnmanno2052]

As always, I absolutely loved your video. It sums up many of my thoughts on the matters you touched on. I have one, and only one, observation: Scientific theories are not at all "stable", especially when you consider the scope of the entirety of human civilization. Pliny, Galen, and Aristotle's science (and it was indeed science for a very long time) is complete nonsense now. And even if one should object, and protest that science in our sense of the word began with the modern world, I'd only need to point out that Kepler and Newton were wrong, despite their penetration, and perhaps even what we'd call a bit daft (Kepler was weird... really weird). Finally, in my own lifetime I've seen the destruction of significant scientific theories, the steady state universe, cold blooded dinosaurs that had little to do with birds, static continents (continental drift was a lunatic theory when I was young). And now even Einstein is rather shaky what with galactic rotation and all the problems they're having with it, nevermind all the physicists who are beginning to seriously wonder about that ol' Big Bang itself. In fact, if anything, PHILOSOPHICAL ideas are actually more stable than scientific ones. Actual, real, living philosophers still use and discuss Aristotle's philosophical ideas, or Plato's, or even the pre Socratics. Epicurus still has his followers, and we still feel the influence of Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, Hume, etc. We can't say that any of them hit on "the Truth", but if Truth is something that constant through time and independent of place, then science seems to lose, and philosophy (weak as it may be) has at least a fighting chance (though we probably can't say anything more than that)

[@Izerion]

You referred to the self-defeating element on the 'large scale', i.e. that the anti-philosophical argument is itself a philosophical argument. But there is another layer where the argument is self defeating: if we consider that any philosophical beliefs we hold will have unknown, serious objections and on that basis we must be skeptical of every belief we hold, surely each of those objections themselves have unknown, serious objections? In history, there have been plenty of counterexamples or objections to philosophical arguments which have later been parried or refuted. If we apply anti-philosophical argument consistently, must we also question our beliefs in the validity of all of these unknown objections themselves?

[@KaneB]

Yes, the pessimistic argument will apply to the unconvinced objections as well, since for almost every philosophical argument that I found convincing in the past, it turned out to face objections to I had no convincing response at the time. So I begin by holding some philosophical theory T... then I realise that T probably face serious unconceived objections... but then I realize that there are probably serious objections to those objections, so perhaps I will be inclined to become more confident of T again... but of course, those objections to the objections will themselves face serious objections -- and around we go...

[@bocelott]

Best philosophy youtube channel. Appreciate the content.

[@KommentarSpaltenKrieger]

Fortunately, I think there are lots of objections to this kind of pessimism. 1) Even though all of these philosophical positions of the philosophers mentioned have faced serious objections, these philosophers are still read and people still see value in doing so and teaching their thought. What I draw from this is that, maybe, the relationship between philosophical theories and truth (or usefulness, depending on one's perspective on the goal here) is not as straightforward as thought at first. Some possibilities: Also a false theory can have true elements or it, while being itself false, might still lead to a development in thought that brings one closer to true or at least undefeated beliefs. 2) Also, as with all inductions, we must ask what is left out of the picture. For instance, I can look at 1,000 objections to philosophical theories, but this will not tell me whether there are philosophical theories that are uncontested or which have stood the test of time. I don't expect most endeavours to be successful everytime, so looking at philosophical failings shouldn't make me "lose faith" in philosophy. 3) But maybe most interestingly: Philosophical objections might be paradigmatic examples of good objections to good arguments. Maybe, philosophy is supposed to give me skills and maybe the best skill I can acquire by doing philosophy is raising good objections to propositions and theories. Even if I almost never arrive at the truth by doing so, at least I might refute bullshit. I think, ceasing to believe wrong things is good even if it doesn't involve grasping the truth. For instance: If I cease to believe that eating dirt is good for me, I will be better off, even if I haven't come closer to the "truth" of dirt (that it messes with my intestines or something).

[@KaneB]

Yeah, (1) is an interesting point that turns the argument on its head. In other disciplines, serious objections often lead us to discard the views in question. People who are learning modern science no longer need to know anything about phlogiston, caloric, or fluid theories of electricity. You're only likely to encounter these theories if you're interested in the history of ideas for its own sake. In philosophy, by contrast, it seems that we see value even in positions that everybody regards as refuted. Logical positivism has been dead for decades, yet we still teach the logical positivists -- and some philosophers find this compelling enough that they devote their careers to researching logical positivism. So although I should be pessimistic that the views I defend will face serious objections in the future, I can be optimistic that even once my views have been torn to shreds, people might still find those views fascinating. Whatever my philosophical stance is, I can be confident that I am contributing to a tradition that has staying power. Exactly why these traditions have staying power is a difficult question, but it does seem that they do.

[@KommentarSpaltenKrieger]

@@KaneB Yes. Contemporary physicists don't even bother to "read" Newton or Einstein in the original, they just use the formulas they need, while philosophers still care about what exactly Plato wrote/meant. We can conclude from that that there will always be some motivation to generate philosophical theories. And it is at least plausible that their staying power means that they have some utility.

[@neoepicurean3772]

Get well soon Kane. Your content is always appreciated.

[@rogerwitte]

Wishing you a speedy and complete recovery to health! Since I believe all knowledge and belief is tentative and approximate, I see no problem in acknowledging that my beliefs will be subject to correction and refinement in the light of new experience. Even the belief in the previous sentence is not absolute; jst approximate and tentative - this I accept the anti philosophical argument as confirming that even philosophical belief is tentative and approximate (ie I don't think it requires me to alter my opinions). I think the falsehood is the idea that truth should be absolute and immutable but I don't think anything is absolute and immutable, inclding philosophy.

[@aarantheartist]

It seems to me there are three routes one might take in response to this: 1. Reject inductive reasoning in general. 2. Reject Principle J. 3. Accept scepticism about philosophy and possibly also radical scepticism. Since 1 and 2 are both serious forms of scepticism, I’d say most will want to reject Principle J. But Principle J is very plausible to me. It does seem quite odd to think that one ought only consider objections that someone has thought of, even if you know that very likely there are strong unthought of objections. Try: “I know my views aren’t very plausible given all of the possible objections, but nobody has mentioned the strongest objections yet, so it’s fine” (?!). I’d expect anti-sceptical philosophers to be arguing that one is only rationally accountable to conceived objections, regardless of what we know about unconceived objections, but this does seem to me a plainly silly thought process. Plenty to think about. Hope you feel better soon.

[@KaneB]

I reject principle (J) but I agree that it's arbitrary to say that we're rationally accountable only to the conceived objections. My view is that there's nothing irrational about holding beliefs that face serious objections, period. As the saying goes, one person's modus ponens is another's modus tollens.

[@aarantheartist]

@@KaneB Certainly an interesting alternative. My worry is that holding a view such as that makes rational discussion into a meaningless game. What’s the point even bothering to make objections or find counter-evidence if such things have no bearing at all on what I should believe? I’m happier with the sceptical conclusions myself.

[@alfredgaczynski8580]

your content is getting better and better💪

[@lbjvg]

I think Rorty observes that philosophical arguments are never really refuted, they are just forgotten about as a newer generation moves onto different concerns which are often defined by the geniuses of that age.

[@xenoblad]

8:09 Jesus Christ that Segway. 😂

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

There are two conceptions of philosophy and its aims that might possibly fare better against this critique. One can be labeled the "sophistic" view of philosophy: Philosophy is the art of constructing arguments, and practicing it serves to develop our ability to engage in sophisticated discussions. The various philosophical doctrines are mere practice material, textbook examples for students of philosophy to hone their skills on. It doesn't matter if they are true or false, rational or irrational to believe in. The other can be labeled the "contrarian" view of philosophy. On this view, it is the aim of philosophy not to establish doctrines and beliefs, but to question them, to expose all manner of tacit assumptions behind beliefs people hold dear and subject them to criticism, to find ever new potential weak spots in our various intellectual constructions. In both cases, the fact that philosophical doctrines have always faced objections in the past, and that there is no such thing as scholarly consensus in philosophy, is really a feature, not a bug. These are signs philosophy is done properly (and the fleeting consensus that we do find in one subfield or other here and there is rather a sign that there is a problem with that subfield).

[@MochiB4mbi]

Get well soon Kane!🙏🏻 alw fun when u upload

[@leehayes4019]

The real anti-philosophy was the friendships we made along the way! Really my first reaction is the same as your 1st point of blocking the induction. My second was your 3rd point about the nature of philosophy in aims to hold true beliefs. Thank you for the 2nd argument regarding its self defeating nature. That one did not come right to me. Great video thanks!

[@charlescoleman6896]

IT's been a long time since school, but, iirc, in "Meditations" Descartes argues that, since the senses have deceived him, he has to through out all knowledge derived from them in his search for absolutely certain knowledge. Did anyone in the Objections (or later) point out that he could, or should, also argue that since long chains of abstract reasoning have sometimes seemed sound, but have later been shown to have hidden flaws or contradictions, that we cannot use reason in this method of extreme doubt, either? If I have to toss out all sensory experience because a stick placed in water looks bent, this seems only fair.

[@silverharloe]

What if I hold all my beliefs only tentatively? "I'm endorsing idea X until I hear a serious objection to X, at which point I may modify or cease my endorsement" - unconceived objections don't harm this position - they're incorporated into it, aren't they?

[@KaneB]

There are different kinds of tentative belief. In one sense, I might say: "I believe that P, but I might be wrong about P." This is an expression of fallibilism, and I think that most philosophers would be happy to say that their philosophical beliefs are tentative in this sense. Similarly, "I believe that P, but there might be serious objections to P." Again, this seems reasonable. Indeed, there are probably plenty of philosophers who have this attitude not just to their philosophical beliefs, but to many of their other beliefs. Even science is only provisional, after all: we might in principle uncover further empirical evidence that convinces is that water is not in fact H2O or that the Big Bang model is fundamentally mistaken. Now consider: "I believe that P, but I am wrong about P" or "I believe that P, but I have good reason to believe that I'm wrong about P." There's something strange about these statements. Some people would say these statements are just outright incoherent; but even if they do make sense, and they do express a kind of tentative belief, this seems a much weaker kind of belief than the attitude most philosophers hold to their theories. There's not much distance between these statements and the conclusion of the inductive argument: "I believe that P, but I have good reason to believe that P faces serious objections that I can't currently answer." There does seem to be a difference between (1) recognizing that you are not omniscient, and so your belief that P *might* face serious objections and (2) having good reason to believe that P *does in fact* face serious objections. The latter is what raises the skeptical challenge. Here's another way to look at it. You propose holding tentative beliefs of the form: "I endorse P until I hear a serious objection to P." The skeptic will respond that her pessimistic argument argument shows that there probably are serious objections to P; you may not be aware of these serious objections, but the fact that you know that there probably are serious objections is *itself* a serious objection. Suppose, for instance, God were to tell you that P faces serious objections. He’s not going to tell you what those objections are (perhaps because he wants to encourage you to find out for yourself). But he assures you that there are serious objections to P, and you are confident that God is not a deceiver, so you trust him. Well then, shouldn’t you stop endorsing P? Why do you have to wait until you hear those serious objections for yourself before you give up your belief?

[@InventiveHarvest]

This argument isnt a problem if you've read 'Proofs and Refutations' by Lakatos. Every conjecture has hidden lemmas that lead to objections to the conjecture. This includes formally proven conjectures.. Humans are creative and will always he able to come up with new objections. There are two ways to respond to these objections. First, one could bar the objection by definition, which would degenerate the programme. Or, one could incorporate the objection into the belief, which could progress the programme. Of course, humans are still creative and can still object to the new belief, but this is just the cycle of knowledge. The method of proofs and refutation is the cycle that generates knowledge. Emjoy the merry-go-round.

[@dellh86]

I certianly agree with you that philosophical growth does plateau at some point. If it didn't, and we instead experienced exponential growth in wisdom throughout our entire journey, we wouldn't land on any final set of ideas. If this happened, I don't think we would have philosophers lol. Kant, Schopenhaur, and whoever else clearly landed on specific ideas at some point.

[@GottfriedLeibnizYT]

* *LAUGHING IN SCIENTISM* *

[@tangerinesarebetterthanora7060]

Philosophers often can anticipate serious objections to there arguments but they have to find their hill to live and die on.

[@Lmaoh5150]

“A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.” Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari

[@ironbutterflyrusted]

I feel he best way is to never fully commit to what you say...do not believe that it is anything "special". Just play the game of argumentation and flirt where necessary with the current ideas of truths. But never believe that what you have just rationally shown has any real consequence in the universe....you are just a bemused, earthbound misfit...afterall. I dont even see why you have to try and hold an opinion on everything that comes your way ?....the growing trend of today. Your thoughts are rarely unique and the power of influence, only in very rare cases, thrusts you onto the world stage, to briefly entertain an audience. Just adding to the endless, confused, disjointed, babble. Trying to find a way to silence our own deep rooted, intense feelings of doubt.. that we created. Do not believe anything I have said👍

[@ironbutterflyrusted]

@@thotslayer9914 I remember reading Heidegger, liked his approach but difficult at times😁 The problem for me is that the natural things of the universe have no time, no name, no accurate measure and no stability. Yet we have decided to gain knowledge of the grand and the small, using those very things because it is all that we have and is what we are forced to, because of our predicament, to believe. I think, resulting in a vast shifting tale, of properties, bonds and binds,relationships and energies. Aimed at a fleshy, sensory, audience, versed in who, what, why, when, where and how...because they are the only ones that would understand. Is that really enough to justify our subjective/objective beliefs of ourselves and the universe ? The chance of this occurring is verging on miraculous....good job we imagined God, so he can take care of it. Of course everything I have said is based upon rumours....but I do feel that the universe has told us something. While we were probing for answers to our leading questions, it told us that it cannot be aged or measured and that the power and complexity within, is way beyond our reductionist comprehension...but not our imagination....strange that. Hope it covers what you asked👍

[@brandonsaffell4100]

Anti-philosophy and radical skepticism, love them both. Great presentation.

[@rath60]

what if any limit is there to these arguments? Or perhaps I should say this is another argument for radical skepticism. Math famously has Goader's Theorems. Scientist are constantly confronted to arguments against there best theories. Or perhaps I should ask where is the distinction between philosophy and other forms of thought. Today the artist believes there work to be valuable tomorrow they don't.

[@justus4684]

* philosophers breath making rattling noises *

[@andreasvox8068]

Why do philosophers call that "pessimism" when the main argument basically says that they'll never be out of work?

[@LISTENTOtmyMUSIC]

could u link the papers u refering to ?

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

46:00 (and thereabouts): I think the ordinary person with two hands can offer a pretty good rebuttal here: "Those bloody philosophers can't be trusted, by their own admission too. They can't even agree among themselves about anything. Why would I let them muddy the waters and interpose themselves and their useless arguments between me and my hands? I know I have hands, and any philosopher who has a problem with that can shove it. They may claim my belief in having hands depends on philosophical presuppositions, but that's *their* problem, not mine. I ain't done no philosophy to grow those hands of mine, so they should just shut up". Don't know about you, but I find that rather convincing ;-)

[@KaneB]

I'm puzzled as to what the argument there is supposed to be, to be honest. The ordinary person in question is taking it that the belief "I have two hands" does not involve philosophical presuppositions because... what? Because they don't like philosophers? Okay, that's nice for them. Not sure why you'd expect that to be convincing to anybody else though.

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

@@KaneB The argument is that it's the philosopher who tells them that philosophical arguments may somehow be involved. Why would they put any trust in that philosopher's claim, which is, moreover, dubious by the philosopher's own admission? Instead of suspending belief in the existence of their own hands, they can just entirely reject any philosophical encroachments on their beliefs. You can look at that as a Pascal's mugging in reverse. Let's call it the Trump-Onion mega-mugging. It goes like that: According to The Onion, Donald Trump has announced that all the money in the world belongs to him as of yesterday morning. Now, that Donald Trump is a dubious character, and, moreover, The Onion is, by its editors' own admission, an unreliable news source, so he might not even have made that announcement. Nevertheless, we will not be accepting any debit card payments from our customers (not named Donald Trump) from now on, as we are forced to suspend belief in whether or not our customers have any money in their bank accounts. Does that make sense to you?

[@KaneB]

​@@whycantiremainanonymous8091 The philosopher isn't merely telling them that philosophical commitments might somehow be involved. The philosopher is spelling out exactly what those commitments might be, and showing how such commitments are involved in ordinary beliefs. Some people don't even need a philosopher to spell this out for them; some people will reflect on this kind of thing even without any prompting from professional philosophers (perhaps they are prompted to reflect on it by watching "The Matrix", say). So no, while I think it's fine (as in, not irrational) for people to just reject that they are making controversial philosophical commitments, I'm still not seeing anything in the ballpark of a good argument for this.

[@KaneB]

​@@whycantiremainanonymous8091 I mean, we could similarly say: It's the philosopher who's telling them that philosophical commitments *aren't* involved. (Maybe they've been reading some ordinary language philosophy.) Why put any trust in that philosopher's claim, especially given that philosophers are unreliable by their own admission?

[@whycantiremainanonymous8091]

@@KaneB As with all similar arguments, we are biased by our priors. As philosophers, we tend to take philosophical arguments seriously, at least prima facie. But here's another parallel: I can see that your hands have not been amputated. But I'm not a (medical) doctor. My claims on medical mattets are unreliable. Is *this* a good reason to suspend judgment on the question of whether or not you have hands? The argument is analogous in form. The difference is that instead of philisophical reasoning, which we tend to at least respect, you get a weird opinion from some rando on the internet 😃

[@micahbelew8129]

Hi Kane, trying to reach out via email to reschedule our meeting! I am not sure if my emails are getting to you. Please let me know!

[@WolfLeib]

Some remark: seems to me that you evolved from a naturalistic stance in philosophy to a quietist one. Is that fair?

[@EitherSpark]

wonder where you got the thumbnail idea from? seems familiar

[@KaneB]

I typed "philosophy" into Google images

[@EitherSpark]

@@KaneB I meant it looks a lot like joseph schmid's new video's thumbnail kinda

[@KaneB]

@@EitherSpark Huh, so it does. Similar topic as well. It's a coincidence though. (I *wish* I was able to research, write, and record these videos in less than a day!) The problem is that there just aren't many images that are easily recognised representations of philosophy in general. It's pretty much just the Socrates statue or Raphael's "School of Athens"

[@EitherSpark]

@@KaneB fair enough but a funny coincidence nonetheless

[@JackTol]

hey just out of curiosity, do you ever chat in The Philosophy Chat discord server?

[@KaneB]

No

[@starstenaal527]

I've constructed a similar argument against suicide.

[@Craxxet]

Jesus. Take care, friend.

[@starstenaal527]

@@Craxxet ?

[@yyzzyysszznn]

All these problems exist in a world without wittgenstein.. thank god he was there to deliver the philosophers from their sins and show the flies out of the fly bottles 🙏🕊️

[@KaneB]

🤮

[@yyzzyysszznn]

@@KaneB ordinary language is fine as it is bro one day youll realise this (probably the day you reluctantly give my boy ludwig a chance)

[@KaneB]

@@yyzzyysszznn ... which would vindicate much of traditional philosophy, since many traditional philosophical problems are already part of ordinary discourse and ordinary thinking. For instance, one does not need to be a professional academic to notice that all of one's experiences are compatible with this all being a dream. I noticed that when I was about five years old. Also, I did give Wittgenstein a chance, more than once. I came to the conclusion that he sucks.

[@yyzzyysszznn]

@@KaneB Good job for noticing it... shame wittgenstein never considers this (!) - someone needs to do a quick bit of nit picking (in the good old Austinian sense) into what we call 'dreaming' and how we distinguish it from not dreaming.. and how if you were just dreaming, your sceptical hypothesis would be nonsense as it would be by definition a private language (wherein rules for use are nonexistent/apply only when they seem to apply). I would also be very interested in what you did to give wittgenstein a "chance"...

[@KaneB]

@@yyzzyysszznn I was commenting on your claim that "ordinary language is fine as it is." I think that this kind of deference to ordinary language vindicates traditional philosophy. I'm aware that Wittgenstein disagrees with this, and I'm also aware that Wittgenstein gave some garbage arguments (which in my view were based on a whole lot of theoretical speculation that had little to do with ordinary language and ordinary thinking) against skepticism. As for what I did to give him a chance: I read Wittgenstein's work, I read the work of people responding to Wittgenstein, I took courses where we covered Wittgenstein, etc.

[@feruspriest]

Man this feels like you can see his larger argument, but because he didn't couch it in socialist shibboleths/language, you're trying to reconcile how you found value in a way of approaching relatioms outside the "leftist" milieu.

[@KaneB]

Huh? This video doesn't have anything to do with socialism/leftism or politics in general.

[@feruspriest]

@KaneB ack! Ignore this comment. I had the KZbin app and KZbin open in Chrome on my cell phone. I was responding to a video that was on my watch later list prior to this video. I mixed up which instance of KZbin I was typing on. Apologies for confusion.

[@ExistenceUniversity]

Without Ayn Rand's Objectivism, you will be lost forever. As an Objectivist myself, none of this applies to me. None of my philosophical arguments have any serious objections.

[@ahuk]

foundametalism