Ian wrote: >>>... who, pray tell, gets to define what rational argumentation is? :-) <<<
I responded: >>The meaning is pretty clear if you pay attention to the context of what I wrote: [#1] there's a difference between arguing with someone (using words, references to logic, perceived empirical reality, etc.) and _forcing_ a view on to someone (as with a privileged class using indoctrination in order to legitimate its power).
>> In addition, there's [#2] a difference between rational argumentation and irrational argumentation (e.g., those that appeal to authority, engage in _ad hominem_, mysticism, ambiguous language, illogic, etc.)<<
Ian replies: >... The second part of your first sentence [labelled #1 above] is what has led to the large literature on the pedagogy of the oppressed, anti-colonialist critiques of 'western science-epistemologies' and the like. <
Yes, using indoctrination is a bad thing. One way to fight back is via rational argumentation. We need to have the oppressed do pedagogy on the oppressors.
>That one could not enjoin those cultures to accept western norms of rationality without the conquering occurring in the first place is what has led to enormous skepticism about the benefits of them. <
I can understand that skepticism, since science (or rather "science") has been misused in so many ways. But scientific criticism of fake-science is quite strong, at least on paper. The power of the Pentagon, the pharmaceutical companies, scientific establishmentarians, and the like mean that it's not so in practice.
BTW, the so-called "western norms of rationality" are really not norms in the so-called "West." As far as I can tell, the main rich capitalist countries (which would best be called the "North") are _in practice_ dominated mostly by irrationality, perhaps even more than the "South" or the "East" is. (To paraphrase Gandhi on "Western civilization," Western rationality would be a good idea.)[*]
>And the very attempt by westerners to separate the issues, is, for many, yet another sign of the serious limitations of western norms of rationality and the normative concepts intimately bound up with social causation <
I don't think labelling me a "westerner" is relevant or helpful. It borders on _ad hominem_. I make no brief for the so-called "West." I do not claim to represent the "West."
It also should be stressed that I recognize that even though I find the distinction between argumentation and force to be very hard to make in practice, it helps to clarify matters. In dialectical thinking, one often looks at the parts (e.g., theory and practice) before looking at the whole, or vice-versa. That doesn't deny the existence of the whole (praxis) -- or the parts.
Ian, you clearly use the word "normative" above, even though it's impossible to make a hard-and-fast distinction between positive and normative thinking. I don't see why I can't follow your lead, to talk about rational argumentation without being saddled with a lot of baggage of "Western" "social causation." That is, just as you can use the word "normative" without mentioning its limitations (and its necessary entanglement with positive beliefs), we can talk about theory without always bringing in the socio-historical context.
>The second sentence [#2] begs the question as to just who makes and how those distinctions are made, especially with regards to logic[s].<
It doesn't really matter who makes the distinction (though obviously there are shades of gray between rational and irrational argumentation). If I make irrational arguments, you should criticize them. (In fact, that seems to be what you're trying to do.) It -- scientific thinking -- doesn't have to come from some elitist "Western" establishment fake-scientist who works for the Pentagon. Again, scientific, rational, argumentation is something that can and should be used by the oppressed (and in their name). To deny them that kind of tool seems elitist.
>> usually, serious rational argument does not involve deciding that some proposition is valid or true (except deductively, i.e., given its assumptions, which themselves may be invalid, of course). Rather, it decides which propositions are invalid (e.g., astrology's claim that the stars affect our individual destinies in a meaningful and nontautological way). The propositions that survive as "non-invalid" aren't really "true" as much as being working hypotheses and the like. These working hypotheses will likely turn out to be wrong later, and to be replaced by new working hypotheses. (It's crucial to remember that more than one working hypothesis may exist at any one point, while they may contradict each other.)<<
> Thank you, Karl Popper. <
Just because Popper was such a pooper doesn't mean that we should reject all of his notions. A stopped clock is right twice a day and all that. So associating what I say with Popper doesn't mean that it's automatically wrong (or right, for that matter).
BTW, I prefer Lakatos to Popper, though of course he has his own obvious limitations.
>It's precisely the sentence in parentheses that causes interminable/irresolvable disputes in the quest for knowledge, which was my point. <
but many disputes are resolved and end. Is there anyone who knows Newtonian mechanics who believes that it applies when particles are moving at near-light speed?
Further, the fact that there are always some irresolvable elements in knowledge is one of the _strengths_ of science. Though there are "truths," serious people know that they are only working hypotheses which can (and likely will) be replaced in the future. The argument is never closed; hypotheses should never become dogmas. (Of course, in practice, scientists often don't live up to these standards. They should be criticized on scientific grounds.)
>Hey, we agree on something at the end of the year, yeah! I was pointing to the issue of when one of the parties
begins the appeal to signifiers such as objectivity and truth etc., as if that settles the issue......<
I never claimed to be objective. I don't know the truth. I only seek (getting near to) it.
also, I am not _trying_ to disagree with you. Since the truth is somewhere "out there," even though we can't see it, it's no accident that we can agree for the new year.
Ian had said: >>> I once saw two physicists, one a Nobel Prize winner, nearly destroy an overhead projector in the course of intense and very abstract/rational argument debating the minutae of Bell's theorem. The invective was palpable in the room.<<<
I responded: >> this was not rational argumentation, except perhaps in name. The only reason this story is relevant is because it shows that those who say that they're rational are often not. We knew that. There's no reason to believe anyone's own self-presentation.<<
Ian now replies: > Well I was there and it was rational argumentation. Both parties were trying to overcome the underdetermination of theory by evidence problem as it related to the interpretation of a physics experiment. What happened was that with each iteration of each parties attempt to make assertions, the speed of the other parties counterassertion accelerated. It was the speed of the dialogue that created the problem, not the logical coherence of each speaker's assertions. Now, we could say that to the extent the accleration of dialogue was driven by adrenaline and ego and a forgetfulness of the lessons of underdetermination the form of the
dialogue was irrational/arational but the content was not. This, of course, raises many many more questions about the sociological context of knowledge claims...........<
people should try to avoid the adrenaline & ego, if they can. When they don't, it distorts thinking.
> Your last sentence would, in all probability, simply lead to global skepticism with regards to large numbers of human beings. <
FWIW, it was a paraphrase of a sentence (which I couldn't find) in Marx & Engels, THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY.
> Self-presevertion necessitating that every one else is an irrational fake or knave unless they pass muster with respect to one's own biases as to what constitutes rationality.<
Just because I don't take anyone's self-presentation as automatically valid doesn't mean that I assume that they're fakes or knaves until proven otherwise. In any event, for me it's individual propositions, hypotheses, etc., that have to "pass muster," not individual people.
> Let's say my criteria of what constitutes a rational person is that they hold a thorough knowledge of neurochemistry or legal theory, or the predicate calculus in addition to all the other attributes that people 'normally' associate with rationality. <
again, I wasn't talking about "rational people" as much as rational thinking. Obviously, you can't have thinking without people (at least on this planet and given current technology), but (almost?) all of us combine rationality and irrationality.
> Am I being irrational? How could you possibly prove it and how do you know you wouldn't engage in errors in reasoning in attempting to demonstrate the irrationality of my criteria?<
One way I could tell if I am engaging in errors in reasoning would be to listen to what others say about what I'm saying. (Non-listening is unscientific, BTW. But of course, everyone has to shut their ears to some information, e.g., astrological "forecasts." Unfortunately, no-one can be totally scientific, taking in all data. The real world isn't ideal.)
> An ecologist's criteria of rationality with respect to [the] environments are far different from 'the head' of a large organization producing some 'good', even one working for an electrical engineering company or oil company who have to have a pretty thorough knowledge of said environment[s]. Which one is irrational?<
it's impossible to answer without the specific information about what's being discussed. My bias favors the ecologist: I would predict that the industrialist would leave out a lot of information, refuse to ask major questions, make illogical leaps, etc., etc. But sometimes the "good guys make false assertions (or even turn out to be bad guys). Who was right on the specific issue would have to be decided following scientific criteria.
> Is the contested rationality of environmental regulation an imposition if those who disagree with it for scientific as well as business reasons have substantive grounds for disagreeing with the axioms, methodologies and conclusions which set the context for drawing up the regulation? Bureaucratic existence is filled with such problems and to chalk up all disagreements as the result of at least one of the parties being irrational is not helpful.<
again, I wasn't trying to split the world between rational and irrational people. I don't know where you got the idea that I was.
> "Paradoxically, a peculiarly American belief in rational decision-making and scientific determinacy, has often produced a paralysis of regulatory decision-making on issues such as setting threshold limits on carcinogens. Decision processes tend to be taken over by interminable disagreement over the 'real' risk." [Sajutha Raman]<
I don't know why this is relevant. In reality, decision-making is typically dominated by issues of power, not rationality.
I had written: >> No "consensus" is needed. Such a consensus is impossible, anyway, since there will always be mystics, dogmatists, fools, etc.<<
Ian answers: > Consensus on an enormous number of normative issues may be impossible without anyone being a dogmatist, fool or mystic. That was my point.<
normative issues are typically more subject to debate than logical or factual ones. It was the latter that was my concern. In any event, I was arguing that consensus wasn't needed.
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[*] I don't know if this is from Gandhi or from the movie "Gandhi," or both. It'd be nice to know.
------------------------ Jim Devine jdevine at lmu.edu & http:/bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine "Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." -- Richard Feynman.