If no one can overcome bias, does that make all their professional output useless? Do you want to buy “philosophers are crap” at the expense of “everyone is crap”?
No, for just the reason I pointed out. Mathematicians, “hard” scientists, engineers, etc. all have objective measures of correctness. They converge towards truth (according to their formal model). They can and do disprove wrong, biased results. And they certainly can’t fall prey to a presentation bias that makes them give different answers to the same, simple, highly formalized question. If such a thing happened, and if they cared about the question, they would arrive at the correct answer.
That’s the consistency. What about the correctness?
Consistency is more important than correctness. If you believe you theory is right, you may be wrong, and if you discover this (because it makes wrong predictions) you can fix it. But if you accept inconsistent predictions from your theory, you can never fix it.
Which would make mathematicians the logical choice to solve all real world problems....if only real world problems were as explicitly and unambiguous statable, as free indeterminism , as fee of incomplete information and mess, as math problems.
A problem, or area of study, may require a lot more knowledge than that of simple logic. But it shouldn’t ever be contrary to simple logic.
Because correct results or forecasts are useful and incorrect are useless or worse, actively misleading.
I can use a theory which gives inconsistent but mostly correct results right now. A theory which is consistent but gives wrong results is entirely useless. And if you can fix an incorrect theory to make it right, in the same way you can fix an inconsistent theory to make it consistent.
Besides, it’s trivially easy to generate false but consistent theories.
No, for just the reason I pointed out. Mathematicians, “hard” scientists, engineers, etc. all have objective measures of correctness.
Within their domains.
They can and do disprove wrong, biased results. And they certainly can’t fall prey to a presentation bias that makes them give different answers to the same, simple, highly formalized question.
So when kahneman et al tested hard scientists foe presentation bias, they found them, out of the population, to be uniquely free from it? I don’t recall hearing that result.
You are not comparing like with like. You are saying that science as a whole, over the long term, is able to correct it’s biases, but you know perfectly well that in the short term, bad papers got published. Interviewing individual philosophers isnt comparable to the long term, en masse behaviour of science,
A problem, or area of study, may require a lot more knowledge than that of simple logic. But it shouldn’t ever be contrary to simple logic.
You are not comparing like with like. You are saying that science as a whole, over the long term, is able to correct it’s biases, but you know perfectly well that in the short term, bad papers got published. Interviewing individual philosophers isnt comparable to the long term, en masse behaviour of science,
Where is the evidence that philosophy, as a field, has converged towards correctness over time?
Where is the need for it? The question us whether philosophers are doing their jobs competently. Can you fail at something you don’t claim to be doing? Do philosophers claim have The Truth?
Socrates rather famous said the opposite...he only knows that he does not know.
The claim that philosophers sometimes make is that you can’t just substitute science for philosophy because philosophy deals with a wider range of problems. But that isnt the same as claiming to have The Truth about them all.
Consistency shouldn’t be regarded as more important than correctness, in the sense that you check for consistency, and stop.
f you believe you theory is right, you may be wrong, and if you discover this (because it makes wrong predictions) you can fix it. But if you accept inconsistent predictions from your theory, you can never fix it..
But the inconsistency isnt in the theory, and, in all
likelihood, they are not .running off an explicit theory ITFP.
Exactly. And if philosophers don’t have such measures within their domain of philosophy, why should I pay any attention to what they say?
So when kahneman et al tested hard scientists foe presentation bias, they found them, out of the population, to be uniquely free from it? I don’t recall hearing that result.
I haven’t checked, but I strongly expect that hard scientists would be relatively free of presentation bias in answering well-formed questions (that have universally agreed correct answers) within their domain. Perhaps not totally free, but very little affected by it. I keep returning to the same example: you can’t confuse a mathematician, or a physicist or engineer, by saying “400 out of 600 are white” instead of “200 out of 600 are black”.
You are not comparing like with like. You are saying that science as a whole, over the long term, is able to correct it’s biases, but you know perfectly well that in the short term, bad papers got published. Interviewing individual philosophers isnt comparable to the long term, en masse behaviour of science,
What results has moral philosophy, as a whole, achieved in the long term? What is as universally agreed on as first-order logic or natural selection?
A problem, or area of study, may require a lot more knowledge than that of simple logic. But it shouldn’t ever be contrary to simple logic.
Even if it’s too simple?
If moral philosophers claim that uniquely of all human fields of knowledge, their requires not just going beyond formal logic but being contrary to it, I’d expect to see some very extraordinary evidence. “We haven’t been able to make progress otherwise” isn’t quite enough; what are the results they’ve accomplished with whatever a-logical theories they’ve built?
Exactly. And if philosophers don’t have such measures within their domain of philosophy, why should I pay any attention to what they say?
The critical question is whether they could have such measures.
You are not comparing like with like. You are saying that science as a whole, over the long term, is able to correct it’s biases, but you know perfectly well that in the short term, bad papers got published. Interviewing individual philosophers isnt comparable to the long term, en masse behaviour of science,
What results has moral philosophy, as a whole, achieved in the long term? What is as universally agreed on as first-order logic or natural selection?
That’s completely beside the point. The point is that you allow that the system cam outperform the individuals in the one case, but not the other.
The critical question is whether they could have such measures.
Do you mean they might create such measures in the future, and therefore we should keep funding them? But without such measures today, how do we know if they’re moving towards that goal? And what’s the basis for thinking it’s achievable?
That’s completely beside the point. The point is that you allow that the system cam outperform the individuals in the one case, but not the other.
Is there an empirical or objective standard by which the work of moral philosophers is judged for correctness or value, something that can be formulated explicitly? And if not, how can ‘the system’ converge on good results?
No, for just the reason I pointed out. Mathematicians, “hard” scientists, engineers, etc. all have objective measures of correctness. They converge towards truth (according to their formal model). They can and do disprove wrong, biased results. And they certainly can’t fall prey to a presentation bias that makes them give different answers to the same, simple, highly formalized question. If such a thing happened, and if they cared about the question, they would arrive at the correct answer.
Consistency is more important than correctness. If you believe you theory is right, you may be wrong, and if you discover this (because it makes wrong predictions) you can fix it. But if you accept inconsistent predictions from your theory, you can never fix it.
A problem, or area of study, may require a lot more knowledge than that of simple logic. But it shouldn’t ever be contrary to simple logic.
I think I’m going to disagree with that.
Why?
Because correct results or forecasts are useful and incorrect are useless or worse, actively misleading.
I can use a theory which gives inconsistent but mostly correct results right now. A theory which is consistent but gives wrong results is entirely useless. And if you can fix an incorrect theory to make it right, in the same way you can fix an inconsistent theory to make it consistent.
Besides, it’s trivially easy to generate false but consistent theories.
Within their domains.
So when kahneman et al tested hard scientists foe presentation bias, they found them, out of the population, to be uniquely free from it? I don’t recall hearing that result.
You are not comparing like with like. You are saying that science as a whole, over the long term, is able to correct it’s biases, but you know perfectly well that in the short term, bad papers got published. Interviewing individual philosophers isnt comparable to the long term, en masse behaviour of science,
Even if it’s too simple?
Where is the evidence that philosophy, as a field, has converged towards correctness over time?
Where is the need for it? The question us whether philosophers are doing their jobs competently. Can you fail at something you don’t claim to be doing? Do philosophers claim have The Truth?
That’s basically what they’re for, yes, and certainly they claim to have more Truth than any other field, such as “mere” sciences.
Is that what they say?
ETA
Socrates rather famous said the opposite...he only knows that he does not know.
The claim that philosophers sometimes make is that you can’t just substitute science for philosophy because philosophy deals with a wider range of problems. But that isnt the same as claiming to have The Truth about them all.
Consistency shouldn’t be regarded as more important than correctness, in the sense that you check for consistency, and stop.
But the inconsistency isnt in the theory, and, in all likelihood, they are not .running off an explicit theory ITFP.
Exactly. And if philosophers don’t have such measures within their domain of philosophy, why should I pay any attention to what they say?
I haven’t checked, but I strongly expect that hard scientists would be relatively free of presentation bias in answering well-formed questions (that have universally agreed correct answers) within their domain. Perhaps not totally free, but very little affected by it. I keep returning to the same example: you can’t confuse a mathematician, or a physicist or engineer, by saying “400 out of 600 are white” instead of “200 out of 600 are black”.
What results has moral philosophy, as a whole, achieved in the long term? What is as universally agreed on as first-order logic or natural selection?
If moral philosophers claim that uniquely of all human fields of knowledge, their requires not just going beyond formal logic but being contrary to it, I’d expect to see some very extraordinary evidence. “We haven’t been able to make progress otherwise” isn’t quite enough; what are the results they’ve accomplished with whatever a-logical theories they’ve built?
The critical question is whether they could have such measures.
That’s completely beside the point. The point is that you allow that the system cam outperform the individuals in the one case, but not the other.
Do you mean they might create such measures in the future, and therefore we should keep funding them? But without such measures today, how do we know if they’re moving towards that goal? And what’s the basis for thinking it’s achievable?
Is there an empirical or objective standard by which the work of moral philosophers is judged for correctness or value, something that can be formulated explicitly? And if not, how can ‘the system’ converge on good results?