Help! I am Being Assailed by a Bizarre and Shocking Notion Involved in a Theory of History!

Few things can shock the worldly epistemologist. Even those folks who insist the Red Herring is not a proper fallacy of logic must fail to scandalize the man or woman who has seen it all.

Seen the careless confusion of analytic and synthetic propositions. Seen operational definitions rise and fall in faddish favor.  Seen whole and entire epistemologies come and go.

No, the most experienced epistemologists are very much like old sailors who have been to nearly every major port: Not many sights are left to shock either one of those old hands.

Yet, I must confess to being horrified by Hans-Hermann Hoppe's notions of historical truth.  Horrified!

• Hoppe begins his argument by asserting that history "reveals nothing about causes and effects" since "each sequence of empirical events is compatible with any number of rival, mutually incompatible interpretations." 
• He then goes on, "To make a decision regarding such incompatible interpretations, we need a theory. By theory I mean a proposition whose validity does not depend on further experience but can be established a priori."
• And then he follows up his strange argument by reasserting that, "Experience may thus illustrate a theory. But historical experience can neither establish a theorem nor refute it."

If you're like me, you must now -- despite your worldliness -- feel significantly more shocked than if someone were to suggest to you that you might someday wake up with a hang-over in a South China Sea whorehouse to find yourself in bed with a grinning orangutang -- and not a truth-table in sight!  That's to say, Hoppe has suggested a notion of history no less bizarre! 

So, let's put Hoppe's notion in perspective.  Every science in one way or another makes use of experience to test and collaborate its hypotheses. But Hoppe is insisting that experience cannot be used to test and collaborate hypotheses in history.  Why?

Well, Hoppe argues that any sequence of historical events is open to multiple, mutually exclusive interpretations, and that historical experience cannot provide a way to chose between those interpretations.

Now, if that is true -- genuinely true -- then history can tell us nothing beyond mere fact. "In the centuries following Columbus' arrival, many native Americans died from diseases of Old World origin."  Presumably, Hoppe would allow that history could establish the die-off as fact.

But suppose we had an hypothesis: "The presence of Europeans in the Americas brought about a flourishing of native American well-being."  According to Hoppe, no set of facts -- no matter how great their number, nor how relevant their meaning -- could ever establish that hypothesis or refute it.

That's because, for Hoppe, historical facts are always compatible with mutually exclusive interpretations of them.  In other words, for his notion to be more than mere noise, Hoppe must argue that the die-off of native Americans is a fact that is just as compatible with the hypothesis, "The presence of Europeans in the Americas brought about a flourishing of native American well-being", as it is compatible with the competing hypothesis, "The presence of Europeans in the Americas brought about a decrease in native American well-being."

If he cannot show the fact of the die-off is just as compatible with the one hypothesis as it is with the other, then he cannot logically demonstrate his notion that historical experience is unable to provide a means to choose between mutually exclusive interpretations.

For that, and for other reasons, I submit that Hoppe's bizarre notion of history is mere noise.

Yet, why, if it is mere noise, does Hoppe advance his notion of history in the first place?  I am largely speculating here, but I suspect Hoppe does it in order to support his political, social, and economic theories.

You see, Hoppe wants to argue that the "natural order" of humanity is a stateless society of private property owners.  But what we know of history renders that notion absurd -- even more bizarre than the notion we've just discussed.  So -- and here is my speculation -- Hoppe decided to redefine how hypotheses are tested in history, rather than admit his "natural order" is a joke.

Bottom Line: Regardless of his motives for them, Hoppe's ideas are bad enough that, like McDonald's "hamburgers" and Ayn Rand's "philosophy", they are bound to become popular.

"An Honest and Pure Drive for Truth"

"Deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself — in short, a continuous fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity — is so much the rule and the law among men that there is almost nothing which is less comprehensible than how an honest and pure drive for truth could have arisen among them." -- Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense.

I have mentioned previously on this blog the interesting theory of Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber that reasoning evolved -- not to nobly discern truths -- but to persuade our fellow apes to cooperate with us. Thus Mercier and Sperber argue:

"The evidence reviewed here shows not only that reasoning falls quite short of reliably delivering rational beliefs and rational decisions. It may even be, in a variety of cases, detrimental to rationality. Reasoning can lead to poor outcomes, not because humans are bad at it, but because they systematically strive for arguments that justify their beliefs or their actions. This explains the confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reason-based choice, among other things."

In other words, those of us who wish in at least some cases to arrive at rational beliefs and rational decisions are somewhat in the position of a person who must drive screws with a hammer -- the tool we have available to us (reason) did not evolve for the purpose to which we wish to employ it, and only by taking the greatest care can we arrive safely at our goal.

I do not think Mercier and Sperber quite address Nietzsche's question of how any of us could actually have "an honest and pure drive for truth".  Moreover, I'm not sure Nietzsche in his later writings maintained that any of us had such a drive.  But I'm curious what you think: Do any of us -- even the rarest of us -- have what Nietzsche called "an honest and pure drive for truth", or do we always have one or another ulterior motive on those occasions when we actually seek the truth (as oppose to a mere justification for our beliefs or actions)?  

Do You Have Any Idea How Pissed Off I Am?

Do you know how pissed off I am?

As it happens, I am at this very moment pissed off enough to say, "intersubjective verifiability is the core of the empirical sciences" -- say it and mean it!

That's how pissed off I am.

I have just come from a kerfuffle.  Someone (the nerve of that person! The Nerve!) at this very moment is -- despite my protests -- asserting that "objectivity is the core of the empirical sciences".  And they are saying it on the internet -- on the internet, where impressionable children might see it and thus have warped their tender, young epistemologies!

Please allow me to quote the fool: "The basis for science is objectivity, yet the foundational premise for science is based on an assumption (existence of objects)."


DOESN'T ANYONE THINK THROUGH THEIR TERMS THESE DAYS?

I humbly apologize if the sheer emotional violence of my response to that person has caused you to reach for the smelling salts.  I realize I am a man of passions. Strong passions.  And that sometimes my passions might be a tad overwhelming, especially when an epistemology is involved.  But please bear with me while I say this: It is a myth -- it is only a myth -- that in order to do science I must believe in an objective reality.  I am, of course, permitted to believe in an objective reality.  But my belief in an objective reality is not necessary because I can do science even if I do not believe in an objective reality.

I myself favor throwing the concept of objectivity out the door.  We don't need it.  It is unnecessary baggage, and it reeks of the Middle Ages.  Moreover, the concept of objectivity is quite easily and very soundly replaced by the concept of intersubjective verifiability. 

All of us intersubjectively verify things -- even if we do not call it "intersubjective verification".  Someone tells us something is true and we say, "Show me!"  In a nutshell, that's the principle behind intersubjective verification.

Suppose I say to you, "It is snowing outside."  You look out the window, see snow, and say, "So it is!"  You have just intersubjectively verified my statement, "It is snowing outside." 

Again, you say to me, "If you run an electric spark through a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, the mixture will explode, after which, you will be left with some water."  I don't believe you.  So I experiment by running an electric spark through a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.  The mixture explodes, after which I notice some water.  I have just intersubjectively verified your claim.

Imagine thousands of people do the same experiment and almost all of them get significantly the same results.  Would we not have considerable evidence -- a weight of evidence -- that we can rely on a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen to produce water when a spark is passed through it?  I think so.  But have we in any way demonstrated there is some objective world out there -- a world separate from our awareness -- in which hydrogen and oxygen are real things that produce real water when a real spark is passed through them?

Strictly speaking, we have not.

Yet -- and this has a certain beauty to it -- we don't need to.  We do not need to figure out with absolute certainty what the ultimate nature of reality is before we can arrive at reliable facts through processes of intersubjective verification. For example, we can discover that a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen reliably produces water when a spark is passed through it without ever needing to speculate about metaphysics.

In short, science does not crucially rest upon the metaphysical notion that objects really exist.

So take that, Mr. Internet-Child-Corrupting-"The-Basis-For-Science-Is-Objectivity"-Poo-Poo-Head-Man!

Once again, I must apologize to you, my dear readers, on the chance that my strong, vigorous language has caused you to reach for your smelling salts.