Why is deductive logic trustworthy? (Serious question, I think it illuminates the nature of foundations)
It is not “trustworthy”. But I don’t have a criticism of it.
I second here Khoth’s comment. How do you decide about validity of a criticism? There are certainly people who don’t understand logic, and since you have said
You can criticize any idea you want. There’s no rules again. If you don’t understand it, that’s a criticism—it should have been easier to understand.
doesn’t it mean that you actually have a criticism of logic? Or does only count that you personally don’t criticise it? If so, how this approach is different from accepting any idea at your wish? What’s the point of having an epistemology when it actually doesn’t constrain your beliefs in any way?
A technical question: how do I make nested quotes?
You conjecture standards of criticism, and use them. If you think they aren’t working well, you can criticize them within the system and change the, or you can conjecture new standards of criticism and use those. Note: this has already been done, and we already have standards of criticism which work pretty well and which allow themselves to be improved. (They are largely not uniquely Popperian, but well known.)
Different aspect: in general, all criticisms always have some valid point. If someone is making a criticism, and it’s wrong, then why wasn’t he helped enough not to do that? Theories should be clear and help people understand the world. If someone doesn’t get it then there is room for improvement.
doesn’t it mean that you actually have a criticism of logic?
I don’t regard logic as ‘rules’, in this context. But terminology is not important. The way logic figures into Popperian critical discussions is: if an idea violates logic you can criticize it for having done so. It would then in theory be possible to defend it by saying why this idea is out of the domain of logic or something (and of course you can point out if it doesn’t actually violate logic) -- there’s no rule against that. But no one has ever come up with a good argument of that type.
All criticisms have some kind of point, e.g. they might highlight a need for something to be explained better. This is compatible with saying no one ever came up with a good argument (good in the context of modern knowledge) for the Earth being flat, or something. If someone thinks the Earth is flat, then this is quite a good criticism of something—and I suspect that something is his own background knowledge. We could discus the matter. If he had some argument which addresses my round-earth views, i’d be interested. Or he might not know what they are. Shrug.
I second here Khoth’s comment. How do you decide about validity of a criticism? There are certainly people who don’t understand logic, and since you have said
doesn’t it mean that you actually have a criticism of logic? Or does only count that you personally don’t criticise it? If so, how this approach is different from accepting any idea at your wish? What’s the point of having an epistemology when it actually doesn’t constrain your beliefs in any way?
A technical question: how do I make nested quotes?
You conjecture standards of criticism, and use them. If you think they aren’t working well, you can criticize them within the system and change the, or you can conjecture new standards of criticism and use those. Note: this has already been done, and we already have standards of criticism which work pretty well and which allow themselves to be improved. (They are largely not uniquely Popperian, but well known.)
Different aspect: in general, all criticisms always have some valid point. If someone is making a criticism, and it’s wrong, then why wasn’t he helped enough not to do that? Theories should be clear and help people understand the world. If someone doesn’t get it then there is room for improvement.
I don’t regard logic as ‘rules’, in this context. But terminology is not important. The way logic figures into Popperian critical discussions is: if an idea violates logic you can criticize it for having done so. It would then in theory be possible to defend it by saying why this idea is out of the domain of logic or something (and of course you can point out if it doesn’t actually violate logic) -- there’s no rule against that. But no one has ever come up with a good argument of that type.
Isn’t this
contradicting this
?
I mean, if you can judge arguments and say whether they are good, doesn’t it mean that there are bad arguments which don’t have a valid point?
All criticisms have some kind of point, e.g. they might highlight a need for something to be explained better. This is compatible with saying no one ever came up with a good argument (good in the context of modern knowledge) for the Earth being flat, or something. If someone thinks the Earth is flat, then this is quite a good criticism of something—and I suspect that something is his own background knowledge. We could discus the matter. If he had some argument which addresses my round-earth views, i’d be interested. Or he might not know what they are. Shrug.
This works for me. However, I want to quote something inside a quote and then continue on the first level, such as
The text in italic should be one quoting level deeper.
Yields
Thanks!