Category: Epistemology and Method

ANOTHER DAMNING CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY I am pretty convinced that the subjective experiential analysis and narration in philosophy is as pseudoscientific as subjective, reported, and deductive projection in psychology. Psychology reformed, by adopting operational language, (they use the term operationalism) because during the 70’s and 80’s the discipline was increasingly cast as a pseudoscience, and the threat from cognitive science, economics, pharma, and medicine threatened all the income of the entire industry from counseling, to medical, to academics, to research – just as philosophy is today threatened. So the subjective narrative of philosophy is the reason for it’s defunding, the reason for the lack of quality of papers published, and the irrelevance of philosophy in the current political debate – leaving philsophy not much more than a flexible personal religion on one hand, a set of habits to correct some subset of our cognitive biases, and the split between subjective, logical, and scientific is nearly complete. Now I can understand that if you spend enough time in the language of any pseudoscience, or any discipline(law), or any literature, or any mythology, or any religion, that you might adopt the framing of that discipline. But the cross-disciplinary frame – the universal language, the language that has the greatest truth content regardless of frame, is the one that is: 1 – categorically consistent (identity) 2 – internally consistent (logically consistent) 3 – externally consistent (empirically consistent) 4 – existentially consistent (operationally stated) A good scientist will also attempt to bound his arguments against selection bias, and overreach by defining: 5 – Limits, and Fully Accounting for activity within them. (Parsimony) And a good lawyer, financier, or social scientists will attempt to ensure his arguments against liability for harm by defining: 6 – fully informed, productive, reciprocity. (morality) So no, just as psychology could produce some insight despite the entire framework from freud onward being pseudoscience for the purpose of authoritarian demand for (false) homogeneity, casting deviation from compliance as illness. And just as Frued was writing in response to Nietzche. And just as Boazian anthropology was a pseudoscience invented purposely to combat Darwin. And just as Marx was writing his extremely complex deception to counter the classical liberal empiricism; … each of these pseudosciences could produce some insights. However, each of them caused tragic harm, each was a pseudoscience, and each was reformed by science. And even science reformed by the simple technique of adopting operational language. Conversely, the great lies, pseudosciences, pseudorationalism, political correctness, and all other major deceits of the twentieth century were carried out through subjective narration. So my view is that almost no good philosophy is written. If it is it doesn’t use introspective voice. It uses operational language, existentially consistent, and free of projection, manipulation, suggestion, overloading, framing, error, bias, and deceit. And so yes, it’s a damning criticism of the failure of 20th century philosophy. Because empirically, it’s been a disaster for humanity on the scale of the conflation of law and religion in the great deceits of scriptural monotheism.  

(comments)The question is not whether it’s a personal philosophy (means of PREFERENTIAL or UTILITARIAN choice) but whether its a method of universal DECIDABILITY independent of preferences and utility. (truth). In other words, is it a “Law” of nature, as in a “Natural Law”. Propositions need only be reciprocally decidable . If they are decidable, then the question is why one would attempt to demonstrate that they are not?As in law, which is the origin of western philosophy, not until late conflated with religion, decidability is provided by (a) deception and (b) involuntary transfer. As far as I can tell, this is the purpose of most UNDECIDABLE philosophy, like religious law before it: fraud.Which is not what I expected when I started working on these issues.

if you want to inspire, inform, and rally, i think that’s a domain of ‘MEANING”, whereas if I want to scrutinize your use of inspiration, information, and rallying that’s a question of ‘TRUTH’ as in DECIDABILITY (science).Since I think the jury is in, and that the past century was lost as Hayek suggested to social pseudoscience for the purpose of conducting theft on a previously unheard of scale, then we have the questions of golden (meaning) and silver (truth) rule.We attempt to advoicate and inform, and prohibibit and prosecute.As far as I know, truth requires criticism not justification. So at this point we are pretty clear that religion is positive and aspirational and justificationary for the purpose of rallying, and law is negative, prohibitive, critical for the purpose of preventing parasitism>And if we wish to unite philosophy science, morality and law, then at this point we have done so.Some of us inspire and explore and some of us prosecute and judge. And it is the competition between innovation and prosecution that we find truth and utility and morality.

Davin Eastley: You’re turning into Nietzsche 2.0, Curt – the anti-philosophy philosopher!Curt Doolittle:  I’m just trying to eliminate room from lying from philosophy. And when I do that it turns into science.

Patrick Martins: That being said, who’s your favorite philosopher?Curt Doolittle: Hmm. Interesting question. I don’t have high opinions of many. I can say I have been most influenced by Hayek and popper. But I tend to read science, not philosophy.

ANOTHER DAMNING CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY I am pretty convinced that the subjective experiential analysis and narration in philosophy is as pseudoscientific as subjective, reported, and deductive projection in psychology. Psychology reformed, by adopting operational language, (they use the term operationalism) because during the 70’s and 80’s the discipline was increasingly cast as a pseudoscience, and the threat from cognitive science, economics, pharma, and medicine threatened all the income of the entire industry from counseling, to medical, to academics, to research – just as philosophy is today threatened. So the subjective narrative of philosophy is the reason for it’s defunding, the reason for the lack of quality of papers published, and the irrelevance of philosophy in the current political debate – leaving philsophy not much more than a flexible personal religion on one hand, a set of habits to correct some subset of our cognitive biases, and the split between subjective, logical, and scientific is nearly complete. Now I can understand that if you spend enough time in the language of any pseudoscience, or any discipline(law), or any literature, or any mythology, or any religion, that you might adopt the framing of that discipline. But the cross-disciplinary frame – the universal language, the language that has the greatest truth content regardless of frame, is the one that is: 1 – categorically consistent (identity) 2 – internally consistent (logically consistent) 3 – externally consistent (empirically consistent) 4 – existentially consistent (operationally stated) A good scientist will also attempt to bound his arguments against selection bias, and overreach by defining: 5 – Limits, and Fully Accounting for activity within them. (Parsimony) And a good lawyer, financier, or social scientists will attempt to ensure his arguments against liability for harm by defining: 6 – fully informed, productive, reciprocity. (morality) So no, just as psychology could produce some insight despite the entire framework from freud onward being pseudoscience for the purpose of authoritarian demand for (false) homogeneity, casting deviation from compliance as illness. And just as Frued was writing in response to Nietzche. And just as Boazian anthropology was a pseudoscience invented purposely to combat Darwin. And just as Marx was writing his extremely complex deception to counter the classical liberal empiricism; … each of these pseudosciences could produce some insights. However, each of them caused tragic harm, each was a pseudoscience, and each was reformed by science. And even science reformed by the simple technique of adopting operational language. Conversely, the great lies, pseudosciences, pseudorationalism, political correctness, and all other major deceits of the twentieth century were carried out through subjective narration. So my view is that almost no good philosophy is written. If it is it doesn’t use introspective voice. It uses operational language, existentially consistent, and free of projection, manipulation, suggestion, overloading, framing, error, bias, and deceit. And so yes, it’s a damning criticism of the failure of 20th century philosophy. Because empirically, it’s been a disaster for humanity on the scale of the conflation of law and religion in the great deceits of scriptural monotheism.  

(comments)The question is not whether it’s a personal philosophy (means of PREFERENTIAL or UTILITARIAN choice) but whether its a method of universal DECIDABILITY independent of preferences and utility. (truth). In other words, is it a “Law” of nature, as in a “Natural Law”. Propositions need only be reciprocally decidable . If they are decidable, then the question is why one would attempt to demonstrate that they are not?As in law, which is the origin of western philosophy, not until late conflated with religion, decidability is provided by (a) deception and (b) involuntary transfer. As far as I can tell, this is the purpose of most UNDECIDABLE philosophy, like religious law before it: fraud.Which is not what I expected when I started working on these issues.

if you want to inspire, inform, and rally, i think that’s a domain of ‘MEANING”, whereas if I want to scrutinize your use of inspiration, information, and rallying that’s a question of ‘TRUTH’ as in DECIDABILITY (science).Since I think the jury is in, and that the past century was lost as Hayek suggested to social pseudoscience for the purpose of conducting theft on a previously unheard of scale, then we have the questions of golden (meaning) and silver (truth) rule.We attempt to advoicate and inform, and prohibibit and prosecute.As far as I know, truth requires criticism not justification. So at this point we are pretty clear that religion is positive and aspirational and justificationary for the purpose of rallying, and law is negative, prohibitive, critical for the purpose of preventing parasitism>And if we wish to unite philosophy science, morality and law, then at this point we have done so.Some of us inspire and explore and some of us prosecute and judge. And it is the competition between innovation and prosecution that we find truth and utility and morality.

Davin Eastley: You’re turning into Nietzsche 2.0, Curt – the anti-philosophy philosopher!Curt Doolittle:  I’m just trying to eliminate room from lying from philosophy. And when I do that it turns into science.

Patrick Martins: That being said, who’s your favorite philosopher?Curt Doolittle: Hmm. Interesting question. I don’t have high opinions of many. I can say I have been most influenced by Hayek and popper. But I tend to read science, not philosophy.