tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post3236877072593543613..comments2023-03-25T07:06:19.540-07:00Comments on Nathan Oseroff: A brief response to Dr Eugene EarnshawAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16559979564116567012noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-2217132755881115362022-03-05T06:46:23.137-08:002022-03-05T06:46:23.137-08:00apple watch 6 titanium - iTanium-ART
Apple Watch F...apple watch 6 titanium - iTanium-ART<br />Apple Watch Features: An <a href="https://www.titanium-arts.com/titanium-hammers.html" rel="nofollow">nipple piercing jewelry titanium</a> 8-pin USB <a href="https://www.titanium-arts.com/titanium-industries.html" rel="nofollow">titanium scrap price</a> plug-and-play hybrid with 85,000 RPM speed. It <a href="https://www.titanium-arts.com/damascus-titanium.html" rel="nofollow">grade 23 titanium</a> includes <a href="https://www.titanium-arts.com/titanium-hair-trimmer-as-seen-on-tv.html" rel="nofollow">titanium dive watch</a> a 3.5mm, <a href="https://www.titanium-arts.com/buy-metal-online.html" rel="nofollow">trex titanium headphones</a> 3-inch cable with a 9mm magnet.quandahwaaghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13991883354050175461noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-68967607852602043052020-07-14T06:44:17.750-07:002020-07-14T06:44:17.750-07:00I enjoyed reading your critique. I'm still und...I enjoyed reading your critique. I'm still undecided about the success/failure of Williams' 'Direct Inference' approach to the problem of induction. There are a few published papers by Campbell and Franklin and by Tim McGrew (none of which were listed in your bibliography) which seem to address your concerns about this approach, but I'm still on the fence.YFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06353112342089566468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-367213308994164842017-05-05T20:11:22.964-07:002017-05-05T20:11:22.964-07:00I'm not a professional philosopher, but in rea...I'm not a professional philosopher, but in reading Earnshaw's original at Massimo Pigliucci's site, Goodman immediately jumped into my mind. And, I assumed that, even though Earnshaw was tongue-in-cheek, even a bit snarky at points, he was ultimately making a serious argument — one that's been shown to be, er, invalid, by Oseroff.Gadflyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13075757287807731373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-11826507711849159052017-04-17T08:44:25.249-07:002017-04-17T08:44:25.249-07:00Hi Nathan,
No need to edit the post on account of...Hi Nathan,<br /><br />No need to edit the post on account of my feelings: as I said, I try not to take criticisms personally. I do think that maybe your responses come across as more dismissive than intended -- if so, maybe editing is in order. But that's your call. I'd rather have a critical response to my stuff, than be ignored -- at least if someone explains why they don't agree with me, I have an opportunity to try and set them straight!Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00903952413098080954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-73521220374198643732017-04-14T03:15:49.515-07:002017-04-14T03:15:49.515-07:00(cont.)
Continuing on to the substance of your re...(cont.)<br /><br />Continuing on to the substance of your reply, if you believe I have only addressed Williams' and Stove's arguments, and not your own, I am then confused, since one of two things must be true: either (1) your argument is not a variation of their statistical sampling argument (the only argument they both advocate that plausibly fits the structure of your own argument), in which the suppressed premise is made explicit or (2) their statistical sampling arguments are merely more refined versions of your argument. <br /><br />You say, 'such arguments show that it is necessarily the case that the conclusion of an argument follows with probability from its premises'. You claim further that your argument was 'beaten to the punch' by Williams and Stove, and 'the substance of [your] argument can be found' in their respective books. If 1, why claim your argument is a variation of their argument when it is not? If the latter, your argument is a variation on Williams and Stove's, and is shown to prove too much on similar grounds. If it proves too much, it addresses your rebuttal.<br /><br />Furthermore, your claim that your argument is tautological is in line with Mayberry's reply to Williams: '... the probability syllogism is highly misleading, since its form suggests that some significant claim can be made concerning the probability of the single case, but the interpretation of the conclusion has to be such that it does not exceed the information provided in the premises. Thus it has to be a compact statement which when expanded merely summarizes the information provided in the premises' (Mayberry, 1968, 211), that is, the statistical sampling argument, if valid, is trivial. Or, in your words, 'tautological'. Of course it is.<br /><br />In addition, I do not understand why you believe the arguments I address are not relevant to your argument, since it is in a generally accepted form and applies to your argument. If it bothers you so much, other formulations can be made about the likelihood of a member of a population having a property based on the distribution of the property within the population without any substantive difference or about the past being like the future in important respects. See my formulation of P1, P2* and C* and compare it to your example of bugle blowers.<br /><br />With these issues out of the way, if you would like to respond to the second section of my post, 'Goodman's new riddle of induction', I would be happy to amicably have a discussion about the substance of your article.<br /><br />Lastly, I'm sure you're quite busy, so I would like to thank you once more for taking the time to respond to my post, as well as clarify your position and address any issues of offensive material in the post. I hope you have an enjoyable Easter weekend.<br /><br />Warmest regards,<br /><br />NathanAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16559979564116567012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-37415719317987057442017-04-14T03:15:30.278-07:002017-04-14T03:15:30.278-07:00Dear Dr Earnshaw,
I apologise for the lateness of...Dear Dr Earnshaw,<br /><br />I apologise for the lateness of my reply. Yesterday was far busier than I had anticipated.<br /><br />I must note that there is a minor mistake in your article: you say, 'D.C. Williams felt himself to be in this unfortunate position. ... His [Williams'] book includes a chapter entitled "Why these arguments do not convince"'. There is no such chapter in Williams' book, 'The Ground of Induction'. Your article mistakenly attributes a section of Stove's book, 'The Rationality of Induction', to Williams' book. See: Stove's 'The Rationality of Induction', Ch. VIII: Why These Arguments Do not Convince, 99-109. I suggest contacting the editors of Philosophy Now to make the necessary revisions to the online version of the article.<br /><br />(cont. below)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16559979564116567012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-27521628187444901472017-04-13T00:19:31.510-07:002017-04-13T00:19:31.510-07:00Dear Dr Earnshaw,
If you are offended, and believ...Dear Dr Earnshaw,<br /><br />If you are offended, and believe I have misrepresented you, I will edit the post to reflect your recent comments. <br /><br />Furthermore, I think you are due an apology for any implication that you are 'bullshit and ... [have] no idea what [you are] talking about'. I apologise if I misrepresented your familiarity with the problem of induction.<br /><br />Best wishes and thank you for your comments,<br /><br />NathanAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16559979564116567012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-45317473656104854722017-04-12T20:06:57.518-07:002017-04-12T20:06:57.518-07:00"Earnshaw follows Stove and Williams' mod..."Earnshaw follows Stove and Williams' modus operandi: insult the intellectual and cognitive faculties of individuals that do not accept his argument."<br /><br />This is the sort of thing that I mean when I said you are being uncharitable. Where do I insult anyone in the article? Where do I recommend insulting anyone? Your concerns about social shaming are drawn from one very short section, which I quote in full:<br /><br />"Maybe this means that the progress of philosophy can’t just rely on logic; it must resort to rhetoric. The arguments have to be dressed up prettily, or the objectively confused must be socially shamed and pressured. Or something: I don’t really know."<br /><br />Not only is that nothing remotely like an insult to anyone, to read that and conclude, as you do, that my modus operandi is to insult the intellectual and cognitive faculties of anyone who doesn't accept my argument, is, frankly, incredible. And yes, uncharitable. <br /><br />Regarding sources: yes, a popular philosophy article and a blog post have different standards. My point was indeed that your long discussion of responses to Stove and Williams, and your assertion that "Earnshaw does not address any of these rejoinders in his article for Philosophy Now. In fact, he does not appear to be familiar with the relevant literature responding to statistical sampling arguments" would have been an appropriate rejoinder for an academic article, but not for a popular one. <br /><br />Also, I say this not because I am offended (I try not to get offended on the internet), but it is a pretty harsh charge to make in any intellectual context that the other guy "does not appear to be familiar with the relevant literature". Rhetorically, it is a slightly more polite way of saying 'this guy is bullshit and he has no idea what he is talking about'. Now, again, if I had published an academic paper that didn't discuss any criticisms of Stove and Williams, fine, complain I'm ignoring the subsequent debate. But for you to then say, as you just did "I would not want anyone to infer from my writings that I believe you have read nothing but their two books', well, what else does "does not appear to be familiar with the relevant literature" mean in context? Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00903952413098080954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-74290505296347204082017-04-12T13:07:28.615-07:002017-04-12T13:07:28.615-07:00'Reading between the lines' of my post, I ...<br /><br />'Reading between the lines' of my post, I hoped it would be seen as a cautionary warning for anyone that should take 'social shaming' to involve any shaming in a social setting. <br /><br />I fully accept that either you simply misspoke (something we all do) or I misunderstood what your intent was in using such language (again, a price we pay for communication).<br /><br />My greatest concern (and therefore, the greatest amount of space dedicated in the blog post) was due to the fear that cavalierly advocating 'social shaming' in a publication meant for non-academics (even though you meant to catch the flies with honey, not vinegar), in which, one presumes, any intent you may have would likely not be read between the lines by non-academics, would lead to reading words plainly. <br /><br />In short, the reader may take you seriously. This is a responsibility every writer has, especially when writing for the public. Several layers of irony may be appropriate, but given the audience, I imagine more than a few readers may take what you say to have been what you meant.<br /><br /><br /><br />On the subject of sources: this is a blog post on my website, and your article article is published in a popular magazine. The two have different standards, and I decided that dredging up as many relevant reviews of Stove and Williams was appropriate. I also decided to provide sources for all of Stove's incendiary comments if one were interested in seeing how an attempt at social shaming worked out in real life: it was not pretty.<br /><br />I also thought it relevant to include sources for the consensus in philosophy, and show how the consensus responded to the two of them. <br /><br />(By the bye, if I should find any sections in 'The Ground of Induction' tomorrow in which Williams makes similar claims or calls the inductive sceptic malicious or someone who legitimates evil, I may edit my post to include the relevant quotations as well. Williams' work on induction is, for better or worse, almost nonexistent on the internet.)<br /><br />Lastly, I would not want anyone to infer from my writings that I believe that you have read nothing but their two books; far from it. Rather, I wanted to make it clear that the dialectic did not end at the publication of their books: it was an interesting (but ultimately flawed) idea was brought up, and then summarily shot down twice, and nothing more.<br /><br />Warmest regards,<br /><br />NathanAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16559979564116567012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-44336808524281548622017-04-12T13:07:10.740-07:002017-04-12T13:07:10.740-07:00Dear Dr Eugene,
I thank you for taking the time t...Dear Dr Eugene,<br /><br />I thank you for taking the time to respond with your two comments. Due to the time difference, I believe I have time for only one reply this evening, but will attempt to respond to the other comment sometime tomorrow.<br /><br />Charges of uncharitability are fairly strong, but I believe that I read between the lines of your article quite fairly. <br /><br />By way of illustration, this is a short reconstruction of how the non-academic, having finished your article, would have reasoned: in short,<br />a mental image of the philosophical playing field that was more of a fun-house mirror than an accurate reflection. Their mental image may not correspond with your intended paper, but I believe it is a mental image that, while false, is drawn from what you wrote (even if you did not intend it to be so).<br /><br />(As a peace offering, just this afternoon I picked up a used copy of Williams' 'The Ground of Induction', and plan on reading it tomorrow, time permitting.) <br /><br />If you are interested in charitable reading, I suggest you read in between the lines I wrote as well. It was an attempt to grind down the angles of the mirror to properly reflect the philosophical situation: from what research I did into what Williams and Stove wrote in response to reviews of their respective books that argued for statistical sampling arguments, I could find no cogent response from Williams or Stove that addressed the deficiencies in their argument. <br /><br />Instead, as you can see above, what I found was an overwhelming number of insults from Stove and silence from Williams. <br /><br />What are we to infer by your reference to Stove and Williams, especially in light of their response to criticism and your pessimistic conclusion, 'Maybe this means that the progress of philosophy can't just rely on logic; it must resort to rhetoric. The arguments have to be dressed up prettily, or the objectively confused must be socially shamed and pressured'? <br /><br />I do not think such an action would be appropriate from anyone, not the inductive sceptic nor the inductivist. Yet they were your parting words, and fully in line with the 'social shaming' from Williams and Stove.<br /><br />Thus, the innocent reader, would 'fun-house mirror' your article (to verb a noun, as one does) as follows: your argument is (secretly) quite good; here are two philosophers (Stove and Williams) that dealt with similar arguments; now comes a section on how they dealt with disagreement: the best explanation for the inductive sceptic's refusal to accept induction is due to matters of psychology, not philosophical reasons; on a related note, more generally, philosophical disputes cannot be resolved without engaging in a bit of mean-spirited repartee. This fun-house reading, I hope you can agree, is concerning.<br /><br />On this note, I sincerely thank you for clarifying that you do not mean to imply that social shaming involves, well... social shaming; instead you repudiate it. <br /><br />Instead, you favour the 'carrot', which is, if I remember the idiom correctly, the complete opposite form of the 'stick'--that is, not social shaming at all.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16559979564116567012noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-59599614716404727342017-04-12T11:01:13.666-07:002017-04-12T11:01:13.666-07:00Kind of a broader point: I find it a little bizarr...Kind of a broader point: I find it a little bizarre that you're responding to an article that is written for a popular audience in such a... I'm searching for a word here... uncharitable way. This article had to be accessible to lay people. The point of it was not to actually solve inductive skepticism. I mean, wasn't it at least kind of obvious by the tone that I was making fun of myself a little? I couldn't lay out all the details about the broad topic of inductive skepticism, and most of them weren't relevant to the purpose anyway. In writing a popular piece, you have to make compromises everywhere, sacrificing precision for clarity. But I don't think it is really so hard for a trained philosopher to read between the lines of the article to see what I am leaving out, and why, if they approach it with a co-operative attitude, or at least make an effort to read clearly what is and what is not being said. You will notice that your blog post has about 20 more sources than my article. Perhaps that is NOT because I have read only two books on inductive skepticism -- a more charitable hypothesis might be that since the piece was not academic writing, I elided all the discussion that was not relevant to the purpose of the piece. But then, you seem to have missed the purpose of the piece, so the logic behind what was included vs. left out could hardly have been clear. <br /><br />Okay, a final substantive point: I'm sorry that Stove was such a jerk, but _I_ wasn't actually advocating virulent anti-inductive skeptic propaganda. I was speculating a bit about how one could break an intellectual deadlock in philosophy. If logical arguments are insufficient, what else could work? I didn't go so far as advocating a particular approach, but since you assumed I favor calumny, social shaming, and ad hominem attacks, let me take the opportunity to say: no, that is not how I think we should break an intellectual deadlock, if for some reason we really need to. I would prefer the carrot to the stick: seductive, amusing and entertaining persuasion, if we are to use rhetorical methods. Really, what I was interested in was the _intellectual possibility_ of deadlock in philosophy due to the failure to grasp decisive arguments. I am NOT especially interested in actually breaking the deadlock so that I win the war over Hume's argument (or free will and determinism, or whatever else), and the fact that what you took away from my article was so different again suggests that you rather missed the point.<br />Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00903952413098080954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3425820629202538478.post-23909126863976947032017-04-12T10:58:41.340-07:002017-04-12T10:58:41.340-07:00(broken into 2 for length)
Hi Nathan,
Thanks for...(broken into 2 for length) <br />Hi Nathan,<br /><br />Thanks for the response to my article! <br /><br />So, here's the thing: your response isn't really to my article. It's a response to Williams and Stove. I place my own view in the lineage of their approach to Hume's problem, but I (deliberately) don't say that we have the same views.<br /><br />Let me start with what, to me, is the most glaring problem with your response: it misunderstands what my article's main goal was. The main goal was to explain why one SPECIFIC argument for inductive skepticism is flawed. This is the argument that goes: a justification must be either inductive or deductive, but it can't be either, so there can't be one. I note you (much like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) make no mention of this argument, which despite your apparent lack of interest, is fairly widely disseminated -- much more well known and influential (for good reasons) than Goodman's grue stuff. Now, you may not especially care about that particular argument. But unless you can show why THAT ARGUMENT is not, contra what I claim, flawed, you are missing the point. You can argue for inductive skepticism using as many DIFFERENT arguments as you like, but you have not shown that the rebuttal of Hume's argument (distinct from Hume's conclusion) is incorrect.<br /><br />Okay, what about the positive case for inductive arguments? You'll notice I said absolutely nothing in the article about justifying 'inference from the observed to the unobserved'. So your long discussion of this in your response has what relevance to my piece? What I claimed to show was that non-demonstrative inference can be justified. That might not be what you are interested in, but it is not my fault that you wanted me to (and misread me as) doing something I wasn't. I mean, to spell things out a little, doesn't my deductive justification of induction seem a little... tautological? Why yes, yes it is. Of course it is. Sorry.<br />Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00903952413098080954noreply@blogger.com