Critique is often disproportionally easy, and additionally beyond that, because it tends to have a low correct-positive rate, difficult to evaluate. Generation is often disproportionally hard and, as long as its in a domain in which overall performance can be measured, relatively easy to verify[1].
Of course. It’s just difficult to make a correct positive claim, because there are too many theories for more than a few of them to be right, and because there are multiple objections to most of them. But if you recognise that,you can at least adopt the right meta level approach , which is epistemic modesty—the opposite of the approach officially recommended here [*] The fact that philosophy is difficult doesn’t have to keep coming as a nasty surprise.
The most generic and easy criticism is “it ain’t necessarily so...”..but it’s true! On a practical level, if you acknowledge the standard problems with a claim in advance—write modestly—don’t claim that it is necessarily so—there is no need for anyone to annoy you by pointing them out. There are rational and irrational ways of avoiding criticism. Getting better at rationality is the rational way.
Whether or not it’s relevant the person making a criticism has the right credentials depends on the kind of criticism… ranging from “you’re wrong, trust me I’m an expert” to “here’s an explicit disproof, who cares where it came from”. (Even @private_messaging)
[*]
The versions of modest epistemology I hear about usually involve deference to the majority view, to the academic mainstream, or to publicly recognized elite opinion
The version I am talking about is “it’s, hard to be right , even for experts”. It can still make sense to defer to experts, because experts can be the least bad option, in a Churchillian sense. And they can still be bad in an absolute sense, because of the general difficulty of being right.
Of course. It’s just difficult to make a correct positive claim, because there are too many theories for more than a few of them to be right, and because there are multiple objections to most of them. But if you recognise that,you can at least adopt the right meta level approach , which is epistemic modesty—the opposite of the approach officially recommended here [*] The fact that philosophy is difficult doesn’t have to keep coming as a nasty surprise.
The most generic and easy criticism is “it ain’t necessarily so...”..but it’s true! On a practical level, if you acknowledge the standard problems with a claim in advance—write modestly—don’t claim that it is necessarily so—there is no need for anyone to annoy you by pointing them out. There are rational and irrational ways of avoiding criticism. Getting better at rationality is the rational way.
Whether or not it’s relevant the person making a criticism has the right credentials depends on the kind of criticism… ranging from “you’re wrong, trust me I’m an expert” to “here’s an explicit disproof, who cares where it came from”. (Even @private_messaging)
[*]
The version I am talking about is “it’s, hard to be right , even for experts”. It can still make sense to defer to experts, because experts can be the least bad option, in a Churchillian sense. And they can still be bad in an absolute sense, because of the general difficulty of being right.