My initial interpretation of EY’s original post is that he was explicating a scientific standard of belief that would make sense in many situations, including in reasoning about the physical world (EY’s initial examples were physical phenomena—trees falling, bowling balls dropping, phlogiston, etc.). I did not really think he was proposing the only standard of belief. This is why I was baffled by your insistence that unless a mathematical fact had made successful predictions about physical, observable phenomena, it should be evicted.
However, later in the original post EY used an example out of literary criticism, and here he appears to be applying the standard to mathematics. So, you may be on to something—perhaps EY did intend the standard to be universally applied.
It seems to me that applying EY’s standard too broadly is tantamount to scientism (which I suspect is more-less the point you were making).
I think I see where you are going with this.
My initial interpretation of EY’s original post is that he was explicating a scientific standard of belief that would make sense in many situations, including in reasoning about the physical world (EY’s initial examples were physical phenomena—trees falling, bowling balls dropping, phlogiston, etc.). I did not really think he was proposing the only standard of belief. This is why I was baffled by your insistence that unless a mathematical fact had made successful predictions about physical, observable phenomena, it should be evicted.
However, later in the original post EY used an example out of literary criticism, and here he appears to be applying the standard to mathematics. So, you may be on to something—perhaps EY did intend the standard to be universally applied.
It seems to me that applying EY’s standard too broadly is tantamount to scientism (which I suspect is more-less the point you were making).