Introduction to Critical Rationalism

[LMD]

@ActiveMind

So: do one thing → can be success wrt some goals, but there will always be mistakes wrt other goals which we can improve on. And I think “always” is used correctly because it applies to all actions and knowledge we create.

Cool okay. I think I agree with that. In the sense that what a mistake is depends on what our goals are. So an idea A for problem P1 might be a success, but for problems P1 + P2 a mistake, say. That makes sense to me. I recognise this from CF.

@ActiveMind

We make progress by correcting errors, so we can’t have infinite progress if there aren’t always errors present to correct.

I think we could come up with a new goal that our existing knowledge couldn’t solve. That’s not finding a present error to fix. That’s changing the character of our existing knowledge by coming up with new criteria for it to meet? Maybe that is finding an existing error, in a way? It’s asking question, trying to find out what our knowledge can and cant do. I’m not sure. I’m getting a little lost here. I also don’t know how relevant this is to my original point.

I agree that considering things mistakes/errors or not depends on our goal/problem. I don’t know how helpful saying that we always make mistakes is if what a mistake is depends on your goal.

As for my initial point regarding this, my response to actually_thinking, I could’ve been a lot clearer. I read what actually_thinking wrote here (bold added):

@actually_thinking

A is A, or a thing is itself, is as true as one can get. Of course, because I am fallible, I could possibly misidentify something as being what it is not (which would be a contradiction) but just because I can always make a mistake does not mean that I always do make a mistake.

As implying that CR (or Elliot, in characterising CR) had made this very argument (which I disagreed they did). And I read it as actually_thinking pointing out a logical error in an argument that no one was making. How I initially responded, i.e:

@LMD

I don’t think it’s been suggested by CR or Elliot that we always make mistakes.

Was too broad/vague for what I intended. I think you’re right that Elliot (in CF) implies that we always make mistakes if what a mistake is depends on our goal. So what I’m saying here isn’t true.

What I intended was clarified more when actually_thinking pointed out the same thing again in response to something else I said:

@LMD

@actually_thinking

@LMD

I think CR’s reasoning goes the other way. It follows from the fact that for logical reasons we can’t have (absolute) certainty that we are fallible and can always make mistakes.

The fact that we can always make mistakes does not mean that we are always making mistakes. Sometimes we are correct, i.e. what we are saying is true.

I agree with that.

But I don’t think CR or Elliot argue that because we can always make mistakes that means that we are always making mistakes. Do you think they do? Could you quote it?

Any thoughts?