janw@inmet.UUCP (12/30/85)
[Frank Adams ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka] >ALL beliefs can be questioned and discarded. >This is true of empirical evidence, especially. "I see a cloud on the >horizon." "That's not a cloud, that's a mirage." "Oh." >Likewise, if you believe something is self-evident because complicated >analysis led you to conclude that it had to be true, you must recognize >that you might have made a mistake in your analysis. >So I only call "self-evident" those things where is the analysis is so >simple that there is no chance of error worth considering. "One plus >one is two" is self-evident. "I am sitting on a chair" is also self- >evident -- I would have to be far more confused or deluded to be wrong >than is worth taking into consideration. For more complicated cases, >there is more doubt; ranging up to when I believe my analysis is probably >wrong. >The important point here is that there is always an element of doubt and >a bit of analysis in any belief. I agree with Frank on all of the above; except that when there is a lot of doubt, I would not call it belief, but use a weaker word like "acceptance". > ranging up to when I believe my analysis is probably wrong. It can go even further: one can be *dead sure* a theory is wrong and still *accept* it. This actually happens in hard sciences, when a theory predicts *many* experiments correctly, but contradicts *some* experiments. A sufficient reason to *accept* this theory is that all the competing theories predict *less* and contradict *more* experimental results. In a new and unknown situation we are more likely to be right in going with our theory than a competing one, or no theory. And it may yet be made perfectly correct once we demarcate the area of its applicability. In "soft" disciplines like philosophy, ethics in particular - there is even more reason to consider every accepted view *tenta- tive*. Yet it is here that we see the most dogmatism and intoler- ance. I am not suggesting, as an alternative to dogmatism, eclec- ticism or compromise. One should stick to a consistent set of principles - yet understand that a completely different set of principles may also be rationally accepted by someone. But *each* set should be consistent and rigid enough to be *falsifiable*. Jan Wasilewsky