Re: [Critical-Realism] rts2-11

["Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus@xxxxxxxx>]

Hi Mervyn--

> Since all knowledge on your fallibilistic account is provisional, imo you
> are being inconsistent when you then turn around and say that knowledge 
> and
> provisionally accepted propositions are different. Of course some are more
> provisional than others.

That some propositions are more provisional than others is the point: as I 
said, all propositions are not created equal.  There's a significant 
epistemological difference between saying "All available evidence indicates 
that the sun consists mainly of hydrogen" and "As a sheer guess, Mervyn's 
maternal grandfather's middle name was George."  It doesn't make sense to 
call both propositions "knowledge."  Likewise, the fallibilism of the former 
theory is not the same as the fallibilism of the latter.  There's no 
inconsistency: these are different animals.

> Imagines? First she believes it to be true that she's the only thing in
> existence, and then she arrives via trial and error at a corrected
> provisional truth, that the bar exists besides herself.

Imagines, believes, hypothesizes, conjectures, whatever: the point is that 
propositions of this type can't reasonably be called knowledge.  Is the 
belief in talking frogs knowledge?

> Your phrase 'The world isn't what I supposed' secretes a provisional
> positive epistemic conclusion, that besides herself the bar exists.

Which *is* an epistemic gain, in fact the crucial one to my argument, so 
I'll correct my previous analysis.  I'll still maintain however that not all 
errors lead to an epistemic gain.  However, my central point is in your own 
phrasing: it's a conclusion, not a premise.

T.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mervyn Hartwig" <mh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Continuation of the Spoon Bhaskar List" 
<critical-realism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, June 21, 2007 5:41 AM
Subject: Re: [Critical-Realism] rts2-11


> Hi Tobin
>
> Since all knowledge on your fallibilistic account is provisional, imo you
> are being inconsistent when you then turn around and say that knowledge 
> and
> provisionally accepted propositions are different. Of course some are more
> provisional than others.
>
>> In the case of the newborn's mind, she needs only to
>> imagine "I'm the only thing in existence," but then bumps her arm into 
>> the
>> crib and concludes, "Well, apparently that's not right."
>
> Imagines? First she believes it to be true that she's the only thing in
> existence, and then she arrives via trial and error at a corrected
> provisional truth, that the bar exists besides herself. No-one is saying
> that correcting error is unimportant, but it's by no means the only thing
> involved here.
>
>> When you said in your earlier email that the arguments from the
>> possibility
>> of knowledge and from the possibility of error are the same
>
> I haven't said that. What I've said is that both the possibility of error
> and the possibility of non-error are involved in the transcendental
> derivation of a mind-independent world from human intentionality, and that
> while correlative (you can't do it with one alone), the two are precisely
> not the same.
>
>> For my argument, you don't even have to have epistemic gain -- you only
>> have
>> to say "The world isn't what I had supposed."  You can then proceed to a
>> different and possibly stupider hypothesis.
>
> Your phrase 'The world isn't what I supposed' secretes a provisional
> positive epistemic conclusion, that besides herself the bar exists.
>
> Time to move on, I think.
>
> Mervyn
>


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