Book/Philosophical and Cultural Consequences of Amnesic Knowledge
Philosophical and cultural consequences of amnesic knowledge and communication: big words and magic words
Actual communication. Context amnesia and content amnesia. Testing for the presence of tautological content by rewriting the words to restore the definitions and contexts.
The pieces of a mosaic form an accepted, if not confused, kind of coherence. I call content amnesia the independence of this coherence from the content it is based on. It is typical of reviews.
The other form of amnesia, context amnesia, is not peculiar to reviews. It affects knowledge in general.
At first sight, it seems as though these patterns of relationships are separate from elements. Think of the aisle of the cathedral. It is parallel to the nave, and next to it, it shares columns with the nave, it runs east-west, like the church itself, it contains columns, on its inner wall, and windows on its outer wall. At first sight, it seems that these relationships are “extra,” over and above the fact of its being an aisle.
When we look closer, we realize that these relationships are not extra, but necessary to the elements, indeed a part of them.
We realize, for instance, that if an aisle were not parallel to the nave, were not next to it, were not narrower than the nave, did not share columns with the nave, did not run east to west, … that it would not be an “aisle” at all. It would be merely a rectangle of space, in gothic construction, floating free… and what makes it an aisle, specifically, is just the pattern of relationships which it has to the nave, and other elements around it.
When we look closer still, we realize that even this view is still not very accurate. For it is not merely true that the relationships are attached to the elements: the fact is that the elements themselves are patterns of relationships.
❞The expression “at first sight” is indicative of our natural inclination toward amnesia. Take the following introduction to the concept of door:
When open, doors admit people, animals, ventilation, and light. The door is used to control the physical atmosphere within a space by enclosing the air drafts, so that interiors may be more effectively heated or cooled. Doors are significant in preventing the spread of fire. They also act as a barrier to noise. Many doors are equipped with locking mechanisms to allow entrance to certain people and keep out others. As a form of courtesy and civility, people often knock before opening a door and entering a room.
❞The context of a door is the coming and going of its users. So an essential part of the door is accessibility. If “doors normally consist of a panel that swings on hinges,” I expect the panel to be tall enough to let people through without crouching. I also expect it to be planted at or near floor level, otherwise it’s a window. But the Wikipedia description of the door doesn’t mention any of that. In fact, this description applies to windows for the most part.
We could describe as amnesic the gap between the intuited idea of what a door is and what the description actually communicates. Sure, we implicitly know how the door is in relation to its context (the door frame, the house, the people and their activities). But what we know and take for granted is not always what we actually communicate or involve in our conscious thought processes. It is not just a particularity of the concept of door that makes us forget. We forget all kinds of relations and easily get tricked, as in the Mars Climate Orbiter crash fiasco, where teams of software engineers from different countries were mixing up units of measurement when manipulating numbers—i.e., they forgot the implicit units of measurements.
Putting a door in relation to its context (including its users) won’t teach you how to construct a perfect door, or even a great door, but it will certainly help you reinstate the basics of a functional door.
When it’s not a door, but words, context amnesia takes on a particular quality. When one “forgets” that some words originally refer to other things, this can lead to words being “thingified”; that is, to them not needing any kind of context to exist. I alternately call them either “big words” when the words in themselves acquire such a value that they create debates regarding what they ought to mean, or “magic words” when they lead to believe in the real and practical implications of their conventional or tautological meanings. For example, defining “philosophy” a certain way is believed by Popper to inhibit people from thinking forward:
of the world. The self-mutilation which this so surprisingly persuasive definition requires does not appeal to me. There is no such thing as an essence of philosophy, to be distilled and condensed into a definition. A definition of the word ‘philosophy’ can only have the character of a convention, of an agreement; and I, at any rate, see no merit in the arbitrary proposal to define the word ‘philosophy’ in a way that may well prevent a student of philosophy from trying to contribute, qua philosopher, to the advancement of our knowledge of the world.
❞The lack of context is the basis of many artificial philosophical problems which have distracted generations of literature and counter-literature, such as the quest for the “core” of things (for example, Kant’s “thing-in-itself”), although all things only exist in a proper context.
Context has implicit and explicit elements. In literature, the explicit elements of context are provided by the text itself. For example, the context of a mathematical theorem might be provided in the same paper in the form of definitions, lemmas and other theorems. While the explicitation of context is expected of serious mathematics papers, the expectations are much lower in other domains (even non-mathematical science). In fact, reading a philosophical paper with a mathematical level of rigor will reveal all its problems. In maths, every inference can be verified by tracing back every part of it to a definition, previously proven lemma or theorem. We could describe this process as “restoring the actual context”, with “actual” in the sense of “as written.” Restoring the actual context that surrounds big words and magic words—i.e., most of philosophy and politics, really—is an exercise in revealing tautologies and arbitrary statements, often expressed in the form of misleading syllogisms, which are essentially consequences of ad hoc definitions or assumptions. One famous example is the ontological proof of God: “if God is perfect, then He must exist. Since He is perfect, He exists,” which is about as eloquent as saying: “let’s assume that it is true, therefore it is true.”
Sure, authors might have “forgotten” to rigorously provide all the contextual details that would put an end to the accusations of tautology and triviality. But since we can only rely on what’s written, what we have is a belief in words. It may even happen that the author freely acknowledges the value judgment supporting their use of the big word. Such is the case with Popper’s proposal for a falsificationist science, the big word here being “science:”
Thus I freely admit that in arriving at my proposals I have been guided, in the last analysis, by value judgments and predilections. But I hope that my proposals may be acceptable to those who value not only logical rigour but also freedom from dogmatism; who seek practical applicability, but are even more attracted by the adventure of science, and by discoveries which again and again confront us with new and unexpected questions, challenging us to try out new and hitherto undreamed-of answers.
❞But even the “freedom from dogmatism” and “practical applicability” that Popper so desires, despite being well-defined, don’t save the author from centering their communication around not just their usefulness, but rather their usefulness in defining “the aims of science.” For what it’s worth, the latter could well be rewritten as “the aims of Karl Popper,” as Popper has, for whatever reason, this compulsion to define what the big words “aims of science” ought to mean.
Big words
Art
All discussions on the value of individual works of art invariably culminate in the resigned acknowledgment that “it’s just a matter of taste.” The same fate befalls Art.
“What is Art?”
“Is is Art?”
“It’s not <insert here>, it’s Art!”
Nothing new should ever be expected of a discussion or debate on what is Art. There should always be a courteous agree-to-disagree posture before the debate is even engaged—the famous “I respect your opinion,” which basically means “but no thanks, I’ll keep mine.” Nonetheless, people like to talk and have passionate arguments for the sake of having them. Each participant comes with their own definition of Art. Naively, one would expect every debate to start with a tacit agreement on the meaning of the terms before they are used. While the “tacit” part is fulfilled, the “agreement” part is not. People never base their usage of words strictly on dictionary definitions (not even mentioning the fact that the dictionary definitions themselves have their own problems like circularity). Otherwise, there would hardly be any room for most philosophical debates. For example, are video games art? In a blog article from Roger Ebert’s Journal, Ebert first contends that video games aren’t “worthy” enough:
But, what were we talking about exactly?
Plato, via Aristotle, believed art should be defined as the imitation of nature. Seneca and Cicero essentially agreed. […]
Santiago now phrases this in her terms: “Art is a way of communicating ideas to an audience in a way that the audience finds engaging.” Yet what ideas are contained in Stravinsky, Picasso, “Night of the Hunter,” “Persona,” “Waiting for Godot,” “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?” Oh, you can perform an exegesis or a paraphrase, but then you are creating your own art object from the materials at hand.
Kellee Santiago has arrived at this point lacking a convincing definition of art. But is Plato’s any better? Does art grow better the more it imitates nature? My notion is that it grows better the more it improves or alters nature through a passage through what we might call the artist’s soul, or vision. Countless artists have drawn countless nudes. They are all working from nature. Some of there paintings are masterpieces, most are very bad indeed. How do we tell the difference? We know. It is a matter, yes, of taste.
❞It is worth noting that, had the definition of art been asked first, the debate would have become boringly trivial. It would amount either to quoting some source and cordially agreeing that video games are art according to definition, or to convening that whether this is art is a matter of value, which is the equivalent of asking, “Are video games great?” Instead, we are treated to passionate debates that seem “profound” but in fact are disguised value debates and taste contests as to what meaning some word ought to have—i.e., a “convincing definition of art,” as if art were not only a human-crafted word, but a thing beyond the conventions and powers of mankind; a thing with its own ontological definition and that mankind tried to “convincingly” transcribe. The debate therefore shrivels to no more than an emotional argument about the meaning of the word “art,” with Ebert casually dropping the humble acknowledgement that “it is a matter, yes, of taste.” Meaning that the whole article was for nothing. The fact that something is bound to be liked or disliked is not very interesting, particularly when one agrees that arguments from authority are void. It is as profound as two scientists battling over whether one should call the blue color “blue” or “red.” The decision doesn’t affect the scientific value of the statements the word appears in, as long as the word usage is consistent—e.g., if we decide to say that the blue sky is “red,” then we would also say that “red has a shorter wave-length than green, which explains why the sea and the sky appear red to the eye.”
The reason for the farce of inconsequential debates is easy to root out. When people talk art, they don’t talk about actual content.
- When it is about Art, it is actually about the magic word “Art.” At stake is whether a definition of the word is deserving of the word itself.
- When it is about some work of art, the question becomes whether it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as what people would call ’Art’.
“Art” becomes a noble, sacred, high-spheres word that shall not be tainted by the lowly things one doesn’t like. The word finally becomes a thing in itself that predates its definition. Relate this to the word “good.” To mean anything concrete, the word “good” would have to amount to something like a recommendation. If I say “this thing is good,” and mean it as “I recommend it to you,” and if someone hears it as such, then the word would be at least useful. But today, this meaning is reversed: the word becomes the justification of the recommendation—“I recommend it because it is good”—thus losing all substance. “It is good” doesn’t mean anything unless one can elaborate. In fact, only the elaboration means anything objective. The word “good” has as much substance in itself as the statement “It is good because it is good.” The emptiness of the word brings to mind parents who insist on teaching their kids that “this is not a good thing to do” until the kids don’t listen anymore, because, well, if there is nothing to back it up (e.g., a punishment or a convincing reason), then it is just the echo of an empty threat.
As for the content, most talks gravitate toward some mosaic of external factors: taste, comparisons, historical context, effort, merit, etc. In short, they beat around the bush, always in movement throughout the entire space of ideas but as though steered away from the content by centrifugal force. The discussed artworks are as valuable as what the reviewer puts into them, however bland the work. As Théophile Gautier said of Mona Lisa: “an open text into which one could read what one wanted; probably because she was not a religious image; and, probably, because the literary gazers were mainly men who subjected her to an endless stream of male fantasies.” I’d even argue that people get so bored by what is arguably as interesting as a selfie, that they feel the need to conduct infrared scans to see what’s behind the boring surface.
Reconnecting the word “Art” to the content appears all the more interesting and serious when one has bought into the magic of the word. With “Art” believed to be an autonomous entity, it looks like a non-trivial but interesting exercise, although one’s “good“ will ultimately dictate what is “art,” and one’s “bad” what is “non-art.” For example, the Anus.com Heavy Metal FAQ makes an objective distinction between Art and non-Art, then makes a case for the strict righteousness of Art by relying on the consensus among metal fans:
Understanding the related nature of structure brings an understanding of the function of nature, and in doing so, can address the pain and suffering and more importantly, the fear thereof that cripples before the disease hits, and bring a calm and peace to human existence.
The varied reactions people have to art confirms this. Despite a storm of protest, the only coherent comments are usually those who originate from the people who have identified with the art - who find ideas in the art or metaphorically similar ideas in the art that are constructive to their own.
Don’t get us wrong - the tools of art are always abused. Advertising, as an industry of convincing people to give up their own free will, uses artistry to convey simple messages. Political propaganda does the same, wrapping a bundle of thoughts around a single spindle and firing them off wildly in an emotional reaction. But art does not stoop this low.
And what is amazing? Metal fans at least can tell the difference. Consistently the albums that are pure cheese are popular for a few years, and fade, where the creations of the distinctive and bold and intelligent stand forth as classics for years. The ones that fade have a material significance: at that time they were new, and fulfilled a need for music with something plausible.
[…]
What Separates Art from Non-Art?
[…]
Art has no material objective. It is about abstract communication and nothing more. Propaganda is always directing different interests in a linear path to a physical world accomplishment.
❞“Art” never “stoops” to “having a material objective”: instead it is the “tools of art,” “artistry.”
But why would there be now an argument among “the metal fans,” they who “at least can tell the difference?” This is of course because Metallica’s … And Justice for All, and any other album for that matter, are subjected to taste. So the discussion enters into a blurry zone where arguments about who’s got better taste pose as “deep” arguments. That’s why we might be slighly better off with a “what is good art?” debate than a “what is art?” debate, since the former is at least openly subjective.
Now, not just “Art,” but “science,” “reason,” “nature,” “reality,” “truth,” “beauty,” and so on are all magic or big words, too.
Science
The “scientifically proven” or “clinically proven” tagline is ubiquitous nowadays. So is the tendency to explain things away by switching to a scientific rephrasing of the same thing. For example, one might explain the sky’s blue color by the scattering of the shorter wavelength light as it passes through atmospheric gas. But, to the layman, until they know why the scattering doesn’t yield green or red, this is just rephrasing the terms of the question in technical jargon—i.e., the blue color is defined by “the scattering of the shorter wavelength light.” It’s also kind of obvious that the scattering has to do with the sky, which is, by definition, atmospheric gas. Also, the answer just begs another question: why is the shorter wavelength light scattered? To demonstrate why this is just rephrasing to the person who accepts the answer, I would argue this person couldn’t do anything with it. Could they, for example, explain why the sun doesn’t look blue, too? In fact, one could re-purpose the previous answer, and say the sun looks yellow because of the scattering of shorter wavelength light when it passes through the atmospheric gas. Most people who accept this kind of answer cannot do anything with it. Actually, the people providing the answers are usually as incapacitated, meaning their answers are pedantic. The only way then to arrive at a non-cosmetic understanding is to continue asking why, as children (rightfully) do. If people stop asking, it’s because the answers use “big enough words.”
Much of the big words phenomenon can be attributed to the idea of science as an authoritative thing. But experiments made in the name of science are not equal just because they’re “scientific.” From one formulation of the problem and hypotheses to another, from one experimental protocol to another, there are fundamental differences in the believability and practical applicability of the conclusions. These differences do not depend on what one puts into the word “science.” This leaves the definition of “science” and what is science or not, to magic debate. Of course, not all classification attempts can be reduced to magic debate. When Popper says “psychoanalysis is not falsifiable,” he doesn’t do magic. Falsifiability is a well-defined term that has practical implications. On the other hand, the claim that “psychoanalysis is not science” is likely referring to science as a big word, and is typically aimed at discrediting psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis itself is both a big word (which is why it is being attacked) and a magic word. When one would naively believe that psychoanalysis is, by definition, what the psychoanalysts make of it, others are willing to challenge that belief:
So, according to Steve Farrant, it’s not only the psychoanalysts that are doing bad science, but the inventor of psychoanalysis himself “finding workarounds” to make his theory work (proving non-falsifiability, by definition). Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, is science. Oh well.
Beauty
Despite being subjective, “beauty” is often appropriated and accessorized by claiming a scientific foundation which, of course, is “a good thing” because “science” is the Big Thing. Take a propaganda article advocating sexual freedom from patriarchal monogamy:
- The beautiful female has “feminine” features, harmonious and ample curves (breasts for feeding, hips for delivery). These are signs of fertility, health and survival ability, thanks to the right concentration of sexual hormones.
- The beautiful male has a prominent jaw, large shoulders, a certain hairiness, a manly body… These are signs of fertitily, health and survival ability, thanks to the right concentration of sexual hormones.
Therefore, beauty is a general sign of genetic health. Males are instinctively programmed to impregnate as many females as possible, by choosing the most beautiful ones, therefore the ones with the better genes. Females are instinctively programmed to pass down the better genes, therefore to accept the semen of the more beautiful males. Through this natural aesthetic selection, the genetically healthiest males and females reproduce. The genetic health of a population is thus maintained. Sexual freedom (multiple and unconditional relationships) is therefore necessary in order to preserve the genetic health of a population.
❞But as much as features, curves, fertility, etc. are objective characteristics, the concept of “beautiful female” encompasses more, and possibly subjective, details. The only way to define a perfectly objective beauty is to define the beautiful female as the female having “feminine features, harmonious and ample curves,” and nothing more. But then, rewriting the text with this definition of the word “beauty” in place of the word alone immediately shows a tautological discourse:
- The female with “feminine” features, harmonious and ample curves has “feminine” features, harmonious and ample curves (breasts for feeding, hips for delivery). These are signs of fertility, health and survival ability, thanks to the right concentration of sexual hormones.
- The male with a prominent jaw, large shoulders, a certain hairiness, a manly body has a prominent jaw, large shoulders, a certain hairiness, a manly body… These are signs of fertitily, health and survival ability, thanks to the right concentration of sexual hormones.
Therefore, having signs of fertility, health, and survival ability is a general sign of genetic health.
❞The text only tells something non-tautological if the word “beauty” is used with other connotations which contradict any claim to scientificity.
Another example: beauty implies a “right concentration of sexual hormones.” What is the definition of “being right?” It is susceptible to the rewriting technique: the concentration of hormones is “right” if and only if it entails fertility, health, and survival ability. Rewriting the text, we get that beautiful people show “signs of fertility, health and survival ability, thanks to the concentration of sexual hormones that entails fertility, health and survival ability,” which is tautological. The evocation of “hormones” brings nothing but a scientific coloration to the discussion.
As a result of the claims to scientificity and its reliance on “scientific” beauty, sexual freedom gains an objective, scientific foothold, as a “sign of genetic health.” But scientificity only stands if beauty is entirely objectivized; i.e., if sexual freedom is exactly about pursuing fertility, health, and survival ability. If that was the case, the statement that “sexual freedom is therefore necessary in order to preserve the genetic health of a population” would be a tautology rather than the inference ostentated by the adverb “therefore.” It would be the same as saying that the freedom to pursue genetic health is necessary in order to preserve the genetic health of a population.
How this scientifically moralized sexual freedom effectively applies to real life is something else altogether, but revealing. Those adhering to it are not always saying to themselves, “I want to have the most genetically healthy babies” when they are dating. A beautiful woman with small breasts and a narrow waist, even sterile, will perfectly do as a mate for many advocates of sexual freedom. Tellingly, the article I quoted begins with 2 photographs, one of a classy-looking woman, and the other of a nerdy-looking woman wearing glasses and braces. Of course, the reader is supposed to agree that the classy-looking woman is obviously the beautiful mate any man would prefer to date, thus siding with the article’s political conclusions. But to say that the first woman is more beautiful, and therefore has more chances to be fertile (more fertility genes, in pseudoscientific jargon) than the second, would be as unscientific as the claims of physiognomy to “detect male homosexuality by looking at hair whorls in the scalp” (English Wikipedia, Physiognomy). It makes one wonder what the article would be worth to a Westerner, if the photo of the beautiful woman were of one of those very fertile, big-breasted, very fat African women, who had at least 10 children, but whose beauty strays far from the Western canon. Add to this that it is quite possible for the nerdy-looking woman to have a voluptuous body more ready for childbearing than the skinny classy-looking woman, and you get the idea that the big word “beauty” is big precisely in how it seduces the theoretician into confusing the scientific concept with the subjective concept.
As in many other fields, when the theory becomes practice, the scientific justification will be forgotten, and the only thing that will be retained from the article is that “beauty” is an essential criterion to build society around, without retaining the precise arguments that were leveraged in the article. Later, if the associated political movement ever gains traction, the concept of beauty will likely fall back to its more common definition. The main message is: marriage, monogamy, and patriarchy are bad, so we remove them. Now you can sleep with multiple partners. They don’t say, “sleep only with the most genetically healthy.” Who spoke about genes, hormones, fertility, genetic health, or survival ability?
Myriad variations of this big-word discourse exist. An ecologist will say that a green Earth is beautiful, and that beauty has a scientific justification. Another will defend against racial interbreeding, saying that racial and cultural diversity are beautiful and natural, while others will claim the exact opposite: racial interbreeding is beautiful and natural because it benefits from a wider gene pool with more combinatorial opportunities, meaning a better chance for survival. In general, value judgments shape the words to the argumentator’s liking. Going natural is the way to go when it is about diet, health, etc., but magically becomes a negative when one farts or when the law of survival of the fittest is too cruel to bear.
Some magic debates
Like the interpretation of the average value, debates about magic words are built on an amnesic foundation. Remarkably enough, this amnesia can reconstituted from the text, just as you can identify a mosaic as you read it. The only prerequisite is to use your memory while reading. This suggests that a non-amnesic style of interpretation will equally address both fiction and non-fiction content such as philosophy and scientific papers.
The debates about what the unconscious is (or should be)
Any object can always be considered under two aspects: as a finished product, or as something constantly being produced. For example, a pen can be seen as forces constantly exerting themselves to hold the atoms of the pen together. In a way, it is “constantly being produced” by forces. The same kind of consideration applies to the unconscious. However, psychoanalysts and philosophers made a point of talking of the unconscious as the one and only “unconscious,” which doesn’t go well with Deleuze and Guattari:
So the unconscious is being equated to its productions rather than to its representations. The “replacement” of the productions with the representations is the object of the authors’ criticism. But in the same text, one can read that (œdipian) representations, as part of “social repression,” can also be unconscious:
Even if it is “fake” or lacks “independence,” the representation “ceases to be conscious.” So the representative unconscious that “can only express itself” coexists with the productive unconscious, but this relation of coexistence is overshadowed by a relation of replacement subject to multiple value judgments sprinkled throughout the book: “The great discovery of psychoanalysis,” “unconscious that could only express itself,” “fake image,” knowing that the latter expression is a pleonasm, since all images and representations are fake by definition in the Deleuzian universe.
As a result, the whole book is oriented toward the thesis that “unconscious” should be designated as the “unconscious as factory” rather than the “unconscious as theater.” The whole edge of this magic debate would evaporate if the book only posited that there is an unconscious production that is about production itself rather than what is being produced. As it is, the debate is about as interesting as criticizing the word “pen” because it designates more the object itself than the atomic forces that give it solidity. The reasoning is only saying something insofar as it creates an edge from nothing, in the sense that the authors take the expression “unconscious as…” to mean “unconscious should be considered as…” Not only is the claim only supported by value judgments, but it can always be made independently of any clinical material, including material that validates Œdipus, to the authors’ own admission:
The magic debate of empirical science: the epistemological “problem” of induction and the so-called “direct” opposition between inductivism and falsificationism
As David Hume argues in his Treatise of Human Nature, “even after the observation of the frequent constant conjunction of objects, we have no reason to draw any inference concerning any object beyond those of which we have had experience.” Or, as Karl Popper puts it:
Now it is far from obvious, from a logical point of view, that we are justified in inferring universal statements from singular ones, no matter how numerous; for any conclusion drawn in this way may always turn out to be false: no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white.
The question whether inductive inferences are justified, or under what conditions, is known as the problem of induction. The problem of induction may also be formulated as the question of the validity or the truth of universal statements which are based on experience, such as the hypotheses and theoretical systems of the empirical sciences. ❞Since it is indeed impossible to logically justify universal statements, induction cannot demarcate science from metaphysics. Instead, Popper identifies falsifiability/testability as the criterion of demarcation of science. He “directly opposes” his “deductivist” theory to induction:
But empirical testability is not at all incompatible with inductive science. As I already quoted: “It is usual to call an inference ‘inductive’ if it passes from singular statements (sometimes also called ‘particular’ statements), such as accounts of the results of observations or experiments, to universal statements, such as hypotheses or theories.” Of course, “observations” and “experiments” are forms of testing, and obviously, testing implies testability and falsifiability, unless the test is not really a test. So Popper’s proposal amounts to little else than insisting that one should only test what is testable, which is kind of a given. The so-called “direct opposition” actually shows the deductive method doesn’t remove the problem of induction in practice. Despite that, Popper never acknowledges that induction is haunting his characterization of empirical science, at least as ubiquitously as the principle of causality. Let’s see what he makes of the latter:
He further develops his stance on the principle of causality as a method:
He has “excluded [the principle of causality], as ‘metaphysical’, from the sphere of science.” But in his own words:
So methodology “characterizes” empirical science, and so does the proposed methodological version of the principle of causality, although he “excluded [the latter] from the sphere of science.” So we moved from “excluding A from B” to “characterizing B with the methodological version of A.”
Now, just as the principle of causality is metaphysical, so is induction, leading us to the fact that it “can be re-interpreted as a problem of method:”
The method representing the principle of causality is “the simple rule that we are not to […] ever give up our attempts to explain causally any kind of event we can describe.” Analogously, the method representing induction would be the simple rule that we are not to abandon the search for universal statements. And—surprise!—the search for universal statements, of the kind induction is enamored with, is precisely what helps science for Popper:
But although universal statements, the search for which is induction as method, are “both useful and fruitful,” Popper thinks induction “does not help us:”
I noted that Popper criticizes the impossibility of positive corroboration through induction (the logical justification of universal statements). This means that the inductivist makes sure his theories must be, in Popper’s words, “justified,” “valid,” “verified,” “established as true,” and/or “conclusively decidable.” By contrast, the deductivist scientist make sure his theories are “tested,” “corroborated,” “able to stand up to the demands of practice,” “accepted,” and so on. How similar. And if Popper claims that his insistence on falsification rather than logical justification—a theory cannot be conclusively proved, but only conclusively disproved—saves him from dogmatism, it doesn’t, by his own admission.
Note the precision in “but only in so far as we may desist from justifying them by further arguments (or by further tests),” which perfectly applies to the dogmatism of induction. But what is interesting is that Popper claims that there is “no question of trying to prove any statements by means of it.” Yet the act of falsifying is already to try to prove (positively corroborate) a “falsifying hypothesis:”
So the scientist must, if not “prove” or “logically justify,” at least “reproducibly” “corroborate” a universal statement, as, says a footnote, a falsifying hypothesis is universal: “the falsifying hypothesis can be of a very low level of universality (obtained, as it were, by generalising the individual co-ordinates of a result of observation […]).” This is as challenging as practical induction, which is arguably as legitimate as Popper’s “practical falsification.”
Even if inductionists did think highly and dogmatically of their inductive inferences, and did believe that induction was truly “logically possible”—e.g., they would say all swans are white if an awful lot of observations confirmed it—they necessarily did it non-logically, since it is not logically possible! And thus, they somehow had to do as Popper prescribes. And conversely, Popper himself has to face the problem of induction (as a methodology) in his method. For example, what would it take to falsify the assertion that all ravens are black?
To Popper’s criticism that “no matter how many instances of white swans we may have observed, this does not justify the conclusion that all swans are white,” wouldn’t it be nice if the inductivist could respond with: “in some cases, we don’t need to observe even once”?
Popper’s magic debate comes from the “direct opposition” between actually complementary concepts (inductivism and deductivism), and its presentation as a mutually exclusive choice. And it directly feeds into the part where Popper wishes to identify “empirical science” with the anti-inductivist definition, while admitting to value judgments and to the big word syndrome:
Thus anyone who envisages a system of absolutely certain, irrevocably true statements as the end and purpose of science will certainly reject the proposals I shall make here. And so will those who see ‘the essence of science… in its dignity’, which they think resides in its ‘wholeness’ and its ‘real truth and essentiality’. They will hardly be ready to grant this dignity to modern theoretical physics in which I and others see the most complete realization to date of what I call ‘empirical science’.
The aims of science which I have in mind are different. I do not try to justify them, however, by representing them as the true or the essential aims of science. This would only distort the issue, and it would mean a relapse into positivist dogmatism. There is only one way, as far as I can see, of arguing rationally in support of my proposals. This is to analyse their logical consequences: to point out their fertility—their power to elucidate the problems of the theory of knowledge. Thus I freely admit that in arriving at my proposals I have been guided, in the last analysis, by value judgments and predilections. But I hope that my proposals may be acceptable to those who value not only logical rigour but also freedom from dogmatism; who seek practical applicability, but are even more attracted by the adventure of science, and by discoveries which again and again confront us with new and unexpected questions, challenging us to try out new and hitherto undreamed-of answers.
❞How can endowing the big words “empirical science” with a certain definition help anything? Independently of the accepted definition of science, scientists can always agree on their own “choice of purpose” and put it into practice. It’s not an accepted definition that would change the level of critical predisposition that “people who value logical rigour” should require of any self-proclaimed scientific paper anyway. Sure, one may prefer to claim: “the Bogdanov papers are not science,” rather than just “the Bogdanov papers are not logically sound.” Sure, there may be a heightened sense of nobility and tradition involved when one claims to do “science” rather than “rigorous testing.” But it’s just for the sake of talking big.
The ubiquity of big words may be a real problem, insofar as words, like insults, do indeed cause real problems, even though they are “just” words. But a “solution” that consists of agreeing upon a word or a its definition will always be as sterile as wearing a white lab coat for show.
Absolute space
In The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Newton treats his readers to an “absolute space [which], in its own nature, without regard to anything external, remains always similar and immovable.” But one can only move relatively to something. This is context amnesia leading to the magic of absolute space. Tellingly, Newton writes the following contorted demonstration:
But even Newton concedes that absolute space is untenable for human purposes:
The intrinsic flaw of the absolute space concept is contained in the impossibility when Newton first writes: “But because the parts of space cannot be seen, or distinguished from one another by our senses, therefore in their stead we use sensible measures of them,” and then later: “in philosophical disquisitions, we ought to abstract from our senses, and consider things themselves, distinct from what are only sensible measures of them.” So, if I try to piece things together, from being unable to see things, we use sensible measures of them, but then we ought to get rid of them to get to the things themselves…
And even though Newton has the tactfulness to warn that « it may be that there is no body really at rest, » it doesn’t prevent him from forgetting one in his famous bucket experiment designed to showcase absolute motion. If a bucket containing water is hung by a twisted cord and the cord is released, the bucket rotates and communicates its motion to the water, until the water is at rest relative to the bucket. However, although the water does not move relative to the bucket, how does one explain the concavity of the surface of the water while the bucket rotates? For Newton, “the true and absolute circular motion of the water, which is here directly contrary to the relative, discovers itself, and may be measured by this endeavour.” For Ernst Mach (and most careful observers), « Newton’s experiment with the rotating vessel of water simply informs us that the relative rotation of the water with respect to the sides of the vessel produces no noticeable centrifugal forces, but that such forces are produced by its relative rotations with respect to the mass of the earth and other celestial bodies. » Of course, Newton knew that, but he somehow had a fit of context amnesia. As already quoted from him: « For from the positions and distances of things from any body considered as immovable, we define all places; and then with respect to such places, we estimate all motions, considering bodies as transferred from some of those places into others. »
Noumenon
An object always occurs in a context—i.e., it takes up space. Even in the wildest imagination, it must be differentiated from surroundings, however empty, and it must include the observer. When this context is lost in thought, we suddenly recover the concept of external world/reality, e.g., Kant’s noumenon, or “the thing we can never know [with our senses],” although, strangely enough, we have a word for it, and some philosophers even managed to tell what it was, e.g., Schopenhauer’s “Will.” Some might recognize it in Nietzsche’s description of the evolution of the “true world:”
(The oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple, and persuasive. A circumlocution for the sentence, “I, Plato, am the truth.”)
2. The true world — unattainable for now, but promised for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man (“for the sinner who repents”).
(Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, insidious, incomprehensible — it becomes female, it becomes Christian. )
3. The true world — unattainable, indemonstrable, unpromisable; but the very thought of it — a consolation, an obligation, an imperative.
(At bottom, the old sun, but seen through mist and skepticism. The idea has become elusive, pale, Nordic, Königsbergian.)
4. The true world — unattainable? At any rate, unattained. And being unattained, also unknown. Consequently, not consoling, redeeming, or obligating: how could something unknown obligate us?
(Gray morning. The first yawn of reason. The cockcrow of positivism.)
5. The “true” world — an idea which is no longer good for anything, not even obligating — an idea which has become useless and superfluous — consequently, a refuted idea: let us abolish it!
(Bright day; breakfast; return of bon sens and cheerfulness; Plato’s embarrassed blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.)
6. The true world — we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.
(Noon; moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.)
❞However, this evolution is not parallel to science, and the “unattained true world” persists in one form or another (e.g., absolute space), which is why philosophy can sometimes teach something to scientists.
The race between big words
Classical oppositions (of which we just saw a small sample, e.g., absolute/relative space, or phenomenon/noumenon) often end up furthering the hegemony of the big word. In Of Grammotology, Derrida did as much while exploring oppositions such as nature/culture, source/supplement, southern language/northern language, in order to rehabilitate “writing” w.r.t. “spoken language,” as the former fell out of favor in Rousseau’s Essay on the Origin of Languages. Derrida criticizes phonocentric “writing” as “vulgar:”
Schematically, Derrida criticizes a “vulgar concept of writing,” leading him to reform the plain “concept of writing.” This can be seen in a quiet shift from “writing” to “archi-writing” in the following passage:
So “archi-writing” is not exactly “vulgar writing.” But why would Derrida want it to be called “writing” in his desire to “reform” the latter? He says that “archi-writing” is a “language.” So, how about “archi-language,” as archi-writing is actually not essentially graphical:
So we have an “archi-writing,” or “writing” as Derrida likes to call it, that is not graphical. Nonetheless, this doesn’t diminish Derrida’s “urgency” to reform the big word “writing:”
The magic doesn’t stop at the big word. It also powers the word “man,” with some ethical consequences:
So if we now say that “writing” is a “certain type of writing” that is “archi-writing,” then we, the occidental people, may need to treat these primitive people as men, and finally become aware of the fact that they use forks and cook their food. Conversely, if we say that “writing” is Rousseau’s (phonetic writing), then the primitive people who, by this definition lack “writing,” suddenly seem very primitive. That is magic for you.
One might want to cut Derrida some slack, and maybe venture into saying—and ironically disregarding Derrida’s own precepts—that the word “writing” has some sort of extrinsic power that can make definitions more “meaningful” only in a “certain” “world”. The following passage suggests as much:
But even then, Derrida shows how easily one does away with the necessity of a certain “world with a certain concept of the relationships between speech and writing:”
All it takes is a “moment that one considers” and an “if.” Of course, one can do a lot of language tricks when one starts to consider taking the “irreducible kernel of the concept” as the whole concept of writing itself. For Derrida, this isn’t a first, and he is notable for his propensity to equalize everything in the high abstract, which Richard Wolin is keen to point out in Derrida’s arguments painting Heidegger as a non-Nazi by abstracting away the distinction between humanism and anti-humanism:
The far-fetched and illogical conclusion we are left to draw from the line of argument pursued by both Lacoue-Labarche and Derrida is that it was a surfeit of metaphysical humanism (later abandoned) that drove Heidegger into the Nazi camp! But in the end, this interpretive tack amounts only to a more sophisticated strategy of denial. The entire specificity of the relationship between Heidegger’s philosophy and National Socialism is theorized away once the distinction between “humanism” and “anti-humanism” is so readily blurred. The “Volk” for which Heidegger became the spokesman in 1933 is an eminently particularistic entity, unlike the category of “mankind” or “humanitas” with which one associates traditional humanism.
❞Force, power, necessary connection
Dating back to Newton and refuted by David Hume, there have been arguments about forces being “real things” and not only mathematical vectors, and this leads to questions as to what the “true nature of force” is. Proponents argue that the force can be perceived, e.g., through muscular sensation. But this line of argumentation is not only unnecessary with regard to Newton’s work; it is also contrived without regard to it. Newton’s “forces” are defined through indeterminate expressions such as “power” and “that by which:”
[…]
A centripetal force is that by which bodies are drawn or impelled, or any way tend, towards a point as to a centre.
❞Later, he makes “forces” a synonym for “measured quantities:”
The accelerative quantity of a centripetal force is the measure of the same, proportional to the velocity which it generates in a given time.
The motive quantity of a centripetal force is the measure of the same, proportional to the motion which it generates in a given time.
These quantities of forces, we may, for brevity’s sake, call by the names of motive, accelerative, and absolute forces; and, for distinction’s sake, consider them, with respect to the bodies that tend to the centre; […]
❞Such quantities as “the velocity which the force generates in a given time” are obviously “perceptible”, i.e., “real.” There is no debate there. The fact that “muscular sensation” was brought up as some kind of scientific proof of existence is more a sign of Newton’s definitions being over-determined. As to forces being “things” or a kind of “matter,” let’s just quote Newton:
Says Hume about the dilettantism of the “new philosophy” with respect to Newton’s work:
Exchange-value versus use-value as the basis of capitalism
In The Capital, Marx draws a line between capitalism and other economic formations, such as the “patriarchal family,” based on the concept of exchange-value as opposed to the use-value.
In use-value–based societies, surplus-labour is “limited by a given set of wants.” What Marx didn’t specify here but later does, is that the use-value is always the use-value for someone:
So even capitalist exchange-value–based societies need to pay attention to the use-values anyway. Surplus-labour may not be “limited by a given set of wants” in non-capitalist societies, but it is certainly limited by the “wants of others.” Therefore, the amnesic foundation of Marx’s formal distinction between non-capitalism and capitalism basically reflects the virtual difference between “use-value” and “use-value for someone” respectively. Whether intended or not, conscious or not, a virtual difference is not virtual anymore if people believe in it enough to make it count in their life.
Numbers without counting
Numbers are an intuitive representation of the counting act. While it is fundamentally indifferent whether the word “cat” denotes a cat and not a bat, there would certainly be objections if the number system were to be reformed in such a way that “1” is greater than “111 111.” That is because numbers abide by intuitive rules such that, for example, the magnitude of a number—i.e., how long it takes to count up to that number—can be intuited in the length of its representation.
Now it is easy to forget the counting act. Since a number cannot be talked of without the representation which reflects the counting, Frege’s definition of the number as a concept without observable properties treats us to an awkward philosophical moment akin to someone looking for the glasses he is wearing:
But isn’t the representation “777 864” the very “special fact” he is looking for, and a “[large] collection of things which can be split up” as well? More precisely, “777 864” is a collection of decimal digits representing a collection of 777 864 1’s, which obviously one can split up for oneself. Indeed, Frege treats 777 864 like it was an x or α. The quote would be valid if rewritten as follows:
A man who calculates with arbitrary letters representing actual physical facts would, indeed, be a thing of wonder.
The intuitive nature of 777 864, or rather the convention that allows it, is the context that Frege forgets. The magic is in the process of making 777 864 independent of its context.
But Frege doesn’t forego the context only for the pleasure of foregoing it. Because Frege only talks of 777 864 in the high abstract, Frege could conceptualize it as something untainted by any “observed” meaning implied by the lowly “mechanical” counting, and could finally argue in his book The Foundations of Arithmetic that numbers appeal to the highest intellectual faculties of mankind, beyond the reach of animals.
