Category: Commentary, Critique, and Response

DON’T PLAY IN THE DEEP END WITH THE BIG BOYS UNLESS YOU CAN SWIM

(example of refuting the use of rationalism as a means of deceit)

Andy Edwards Jay Dyer,

—” …when we speak of the three main branches of philosophy, we think ethics, epistemology and metaphysics.”—

This statement is a tautology. When we use the term “philosophizing”, we use it in the sense of the purposeful use of reasoning to develop general rules of decidability and action: “choice”. When we discuss western philosophy in the intellectual tradition we traditionally use aristotle’s categories. Today we rely upon the languages of science, economics, and law and not on philosophy. We use philosophy to explain in western intellectual terms why science (speaking truthfully), economics (ethical cooperation) and law (enforcement of cooperation) succeeded where philosophy failed.

This more sophisticated language addresses the process of sensation, observation(perception), free association(creativity), hypothesis (guess), theory(due diligence), Law (survival). Where theory consists of performing acts of due diligence:

identity, internal consistency, external correspondence, limits, parsimony and full accounting.

This more sophisticated process ignores all metaphysical and epistemological traditions of western philosophy as archaic forms of moral justification.

–“These branches make up what is commonly called a worldview, our basic lenses of interpretation that form our understanding of the world.”—

This is to grant philosophy necessity that it demonstrably does not possess. And it is to conflate the justification and explanation with the cause. Man must choose, and the method by which he chooses is something that we understand. man acquires. and he acquires under the general rule of the greatest return, for the least effort, in the shortest time, at the lowest risk, with the greatest certainty. There is no human behavior that cannot be explained by this (very) parsimonious theory. Man is not logical in the sense that he is aware of the consequences of the rules that he uses for decision making. But he is rational in that he pursues a goal within the limits of the physical universe, with the rules that he has discovered, to the best of his rational ability to deduce consequences from those rules. (Albeit this appears very limited especially in matters of high causal density).

We used archaic philosophical categories in order to attempt to explain our understanding of the world by separating it into categories. But we did not develop categories in order to develop our pattern of decision in the world. If this was true all men would have developed such categories. They did not.

We all possess various methods of decidability. We do not have any cognizance of archaic categories. in fact, there appears to be no reason why we require these categories at all. Because they are used in the archaic process of justificationism, and we know justificationism to be false, just as we know creationism to be false. Instead we have evolution in biology, and criticism in science.

—“Like it or not, and admit it or not, we all have a worldview….”—

We all collect methods of decidability through experience. Some groups create a broader narrative. Others do not. See “the people without history”.

—“you cannot coherently build or construct a theory of knowledge apart from metaphysics or ethics.”—

One does not need a justification for knowledge one only needs to observe and document the process by which we eliminate error, bias, wishful thinking, suggestion, obscurantism, and deceit. Knowledge performs it need not be justified. Ergo one does not need a theory of that which can be demonstrated only a theory of that which must be justified. And we know that what can be justified is irrelevant.

We evolved justification out of a tradition moral and legal reasoning before the jury. Both of which exist in response to tacit(moral) and explicit(law) contractual provisions in any polity. But truth is not bound by prior contract made in an earlier state of ignorance.

—“implicit in every logical epistemic claim is the assumption of a value claim.”—

This is likely false but its unclear. I can use logic in an effort to improve my reasoning, so that I may improve my decision making. Value is only implicit in the use of logic in an act of persuasion is an attempt to eliminate ignorance, error, or deceit from another (or conversely to lie to him by the abuse of his ignorance, by suggesting error, bias, wishful thinking and deceit) for the purpose of obtaining cooperation. man cooperates because it is disproportionately more rewarding than any other actions that he can take. Moreover, if different groups are working toward different ends, and it cancels the value of one another’s productivity then, persuasion can benefit both parties as well. In either case it is not the logic that influences the other but his perception of the change in value that is conveyed by the logical organization of knowledge for the purpose of improving reasoning.

—” … implicit in the operation of logic itself is the assumption that one should be logical and bound by objective truth claims.”—

This is not true. One should satisfy one’s wants. Logic either assists in obtaining those wants or it does not. Logic assists us in cooperating, or it does not. We cannot reason with a fool. We cannot reason with faith. Our reason may err. Our reason may be disguised as deception. Likewise our faith may be a method of non-cooperation. Our faith may provide us with rules that are non logical but produce beneficial outcomes anyway. The problem with faith is that it is as resistant to advantageous adaptation, as it is to disadvantageous adaptation. Largely faith was ‘invented’ to divide people into groups with different cooperative strategies, and to eliminate different strategies between small groups of people allowing them to cooperate on irrational grounds. In these matters faith is advantageous because free of defeat by reason and science, the cooperative strategy can persist.

If you want to say that logic is a strategy, just as science is a strategy, and that there exist other strategies not directly dependent upon logic and science then this is true. It however appears that given that science has a higher correspondence with reality and greater adaptability to reality, then those who practice science will defeat those that dont as long as they possess the will to defeat those who don’t. Truth, logic, science, technology, internal consistency and external correspondence are a competitive advantage against which mysticism cannot prevail except in the minds of the frail who need such things.

—“Shoulds” are the domain of values and judgments and ethics, and so the assumption that one’s opponent in a debate, for example, should submit to the better argument is a shared assumption by both participants that truth itself has a claim on both parties.”—

This is not true. Logic does not determine preference. All preference is subjective. However, if we are engaged in debate we are engaged in cooperation. And if your preference imposes a harm upon me, then we are no longer engaged in cooperation because you have broken the contract for negotiation. you are expanding a common western and jewish fallacy, that we can choose not to cooperate without consequence. Yet we can choose not to engage in exchange without consequence. But if you impose a cost on another and state that you are free of the logic of cooperation (morality) then you are not worthy of the benefit of cooperation, and your opponent my take up arms against you and punish you outside of such negotiation or jury. There are no free rides on one’s fantasies. We are all bound by the fact that if one does not cooperate then one is no benefit. If one provides competition without benefit then one is an enemy. It has nothing to do with your opinion or values. It has to do only with the opinion or value of your competitions.

–“Yet again, that one should submit to truths is not the domain of pure logic or pure epistemology, but the realm of value judgments – ethics.”—

We do not act as we should. We act in our interests. Doing as we should is a matter of acting in our interests when others will retaliate against us if we don’t.

We use logic if it is useful. We use faith if it is useful. we use deceit if it is useful. and often we use all three in tandem (which i suspect you are guilty of).

—“modern empiricist-based approaches which can never justify any coherent ethics, as they must all be situational and/or utilitarian.”—

Empiricist ethical analysis tells us that people respond positively to productive, fully informed, voluntary exchange, limited to externalities of the same. And that other people try unproductive, asymmetric , involuntary coercions including externalities of the same to others.

Which is what you appear to be doing: using obscurantism and error to create a complex deceit by which you can evade bearing the cost of cooperation yet cast it as moral and that you are somehow free of retaliation. In other words, a free rider. A thief. A fraud.

—“any claim about knowledge or ethics will necessitate some beliefs and assumptions about metaphysics and ontology.”—

That would entail embracing a falsehood. Since we do not make such claims, we make the claim that you possess knowledge or not, or engage in ethical and moral action or not.

— the superstitious character of the positivist—

Positivism requires theory. It consists of stating general rules. However, we need no general rules to demonstrate that you engage in error, bias, wishful thinking, obscurantism or deceit. We just need to empathically ascertain your motives – what you seek to acquire or what cost you seek to escape, and inquire into each of them until only moral and ethical remains.

The reason to avoid logic is to increase the cost of that inquiry such that it is uncertain whether you engage in error or deceit. By avoiding logic you increase the cost of ascertaining the truth or falsehood, ethical or unethical, moral or immoral, cooperative or uncooperative, nature of your actions just as relying upon obscurant and misrepresentation of philosophical terminology is a mere deceit by which you seek to increase the cost of ascertaining whether you free ride at best, worse that you steal, or worse of all that you compete under the pretense of cooperation and impose upon others your harm.

So the empiricist, the scientist, the truth teller, tries to lower the cost of developing trust and cooperation. The positivist merely errs. But the obscurantist deceives. The justificationist deceives.

—“Meanwhile, they tell us we must submit to “logical analysis.” Yet in their dogmatic inquisition, the positivist empiricist appears to already have an infallible benchmark by which to instruct the rest of the world on how to perfectly determine when a statement or a claim is purely and only logical, and not also ethical or metaphysical!”—

Ah but no. We submit to logical analysis for the same reason we use the language of science to test external correspondence, and analytic philosophy to test internal consistency, so that we demonstrate due diligence, by reducing the cost of ascertaining whether one’s opponent engages in error, bias,

And once we have made that discovery, engaging cooperation, refraining from cooperation, or is an enemy imposing costs upon us.

What we find, empirically, that is the common case, is that one is arguing on behalf of a minority that is tied together through common status signaling and a false sense of moral superiority in order to hide their attempted theft from the commons.

This is what you do. I am fairly certain. For I can find no other reason for you to make such arguments in innocence.

So in case you fail to understand. I do not say that you err. I say that you lie. You are unethical, immoral, and a thief.

The only reason to rely upon archaic philosophy or archaic mysticism is to lie.

Curt Doolittle

The Propertarian Institute

Kiev, Ukraine.