[FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Dave, 

 

What you write below is awfully Peircean, no?

 

Nicholas Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology

Clark University

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Saturday, March 7, 2020 2:15 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Acid epistemology - restarting a previous conversation

 

Steve,

 

I really hope that I have not advanced any of the three types of false
dichotomy you note.

 

I cite "authority" or "dead white guys" only because I think they have
expressed an idea in a manner far more eloquently than I am able to express
it, and my intent is never to say "this is so" but to always say, "if we
take this seriously, these questions seem to arise, and might answers to
those questions lead to interesting explorations and conversations?"

 

I would plead guilty to holding "rigorous science" to the same
deconstructionist analysis as "vigorously asserted religion." But I would
expect that analysis to reveal that "Science" does indeed have its dogma and
that interferes with its own professed value system and "Method;" while
"Religion" is almost totally Dogma and that creates so much interference
that what little "method" is lost in the noise.

 

Is there a way to sift and sort a plethora of "radical ideas" into those
worth further consideration and those that can safely be dismissed out of
hand. Pushing them through the sieve of "established science" is not
sufficient.

 

davew

 

On Thu, Mar 5, 2020, at 8:01 PM, Steven A Smith wrote:

Dave -

As for me, I'm not irritated with your keeping these discussions going.  

I *am* irritated with the larger (cross-domain, national/global) discussion
of "Truthiness" and the various bimodal fallacies introduced thereby. 

Science and the Scientific Method, for example, have built into them a
certain kind of contingency which is as absolute as Religion's *lack of
contingency* (Absolute Truth).  This leads
Creationists/PseudoSciencers/AntiSciencers/FlatEarthers/Deniers to use the
truism from science "It's just a theory" as a bludgeon to beat out a hole in
the conversation to plop down their received-knowledge and/or made-up-shit
into, as if it were made of the same stuff as what it is displacing.

Conversely (and I think this is where you are prone to harp), the
Establishment (you pick your domain: Science, Religion, Politics, Society
and subdomain:Physics/Chemistry/Biology, Ibrahamic/Vedic/Pagan/Animist,
Red/White/Blue/Green/Purple,  Authoritarian/Libertine/Egalitarian/Anarchic)
vs radical/progressive views on the same subjects yields a whole other
false-dichotomy.    

1.	Just because an established authority said it doesn't make it right.
2.	Just because an established authority said it doesn't make it
*wrong*.
3.	Just because all scientific breakthroughs were presaged by "radical
ideas" doesn't mean that all "radical ideas" represent incipient genius.

Yet I often hear these arguments (barely concealed?) in the larger
discourse...   

I will try to follow this up with some questions/observations about
PostModernism and a reflection on the ways it has been "weaponized" by the
unlikely? folks like Stephen Bannon?

- Steve

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