hibbsa
2013-03-28 13:02:01 UTC
The principles produced by the philosophy are immune to all forms forms
of criticism involving data, evidence, real-world-events contradiction,
and so on. The only acceptible criticism is heavily constrained and
entirely in the hands of the philosophy itself, and there are a host of
rules and priorities that aren't made explicit to people seeking to make
a criticism, which often completely neutralize their whole category of
criticism in the eyes of the adherents of the philosopy, effectively
making the criticism a pointless pursuit.
For example, look at the debate with Steve Push over in BoI. To all
intents and purposes I think he won that debate on the terms he was led
to believe could result in a genuine criticism being landed, should he
prevail. But that wasn't the case. Deutsch, Temple, Forrester and others
engaged Push on his chosen terms, but in reality never had any intention
whatsoever of conceding a major criticism of their philosophy.
The reason was that, if they lost on the implicitly agreed terms, they
could simply back things off to making ever more impractical demands for
'source' material such as specific details of the experiments to be
provided by Push. Then if that didn't work, arguments could follow about
scientism.
Then if that didn't work arguments could follow that ultimately asked
whether he had a better over all explanation of epistemology and
science. And if he didn't, then by the rules of the philosophy, the
philosophy would stand.
That's the reality on the ground of how the philosophy works. Criticism
is effectively massively protected against in explicit ways that aren't
made clear. No effort is made to direct criticism to key points that
need to be broken. It just doesn't happen.
Besides everything else, there's an issue of integrity. Is it honest,
intellectually, to tell someone you are open to criticism, and then
engage with them in the criticism they want to make, implicitly
indicating that if they can establisht their criticism you will accept
it in good faith, when actually that is not true.
of criticism involving data, evidence, real-world-events contradiction,
and so on. The only acceptible criticism is heavily constrained and
entirely in the hands of the philosophy itself, and there are a host of
rules and priorities that aren't made explicit to people seeking to make
a criticism, which often completely neutralize their whole category of
criticism in the eyes of the adherents of the philosopy, effectively
making the criticism a pointless pursuit.
For example, look at the debate with Steve Push over in BoI. To all
intents and purposes I think he won that debate on the terms he was led
to believe could result in a genuine criticism being landed, should he
prevail. But that wasn't the case. Deutsch, Temple, Forrester and others
engaged Push on his chosen terms, but in reality never had any intention
whatsoever of conceding a major criticism of their philosophy.
The reason was that, if they lost on the implicitly agreed terms, they
could simply back things off to making ever more impractical demands for
'source' material such as specific details of the experiments to be
provided by Push. Then if that didn't work, arguments could follow about
scientism.
Then if that didn't work arguments could follow that ultimately asked
whether he had a better over all explanation of epistemology and
science. And if he didn't, then by the rules of the philosophy, the
philosophy would stand.
That's the reality on the ground of how the philosophy works. Criticism
is effectively massively protected against in explicit ways that aren't
made clear. No effort is made to direct criticism to key points that
need to be broken. It just doesn't happen.
Besides everything else, there's an issue of integrity. Is it honest,
intellectually, to tell someone you are open to criticism, and then
engage with them in the criticism they want to make, implicitly
indicating that if they can establisht their criticism you will accept
it in good faith, when actually that is not true.