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The Beginning of Infinity

Notes on Popper

It’s clear that Deutsch is influenced by Popper in this book, he’s pretty much the most referenced author, although I haven’t checked.

Deutsch takes the Popperian line of science. Essentially noting the problems of induction, praising the advancements the empiricists made for science. However where he is distinctly Popperian is where he is in to fallibilism.

To Deutsch the ‘proper’ use of experience was not properly understood in the sciences until Popper came about. He emphasises the idea of science being theory laden.

He holds justificationism against fallibilism.

He holds strongly to poppers criterion of demarcation. Which he claims as the essence of science and scientific testing.

He is anti:

  • Instrumentalist
  • Positivist
  • logical positivist
  • Lamarckian

He applies the idea of theory ladeness to the instruments of measurement as well.

He makes a distinction in the differences of enlightenment. That between the continental and the british englightenment. Where the british enlightenment was more fallibilist and the continetntal utopian and idealist. He prefers the gradual change and it being unbounded in to the future. As opposed to the utopian massive change which makes much more of a claim to authority.

The progress of science is found in the continuity of good explanations.

The influence of the open society on his thinking is quite clear. He points out that much of political philosophy is focussed on he qyestion of ‘who is to rule’. Which he believes is the same as the question how are scientific theories derived from experience. This seems to be more generally saying that political philsophy which rejects poppers critical dualism is the same as the arguments for reasoning for induction in science. So both of these belong to the problem of induction.

He thus takes the view of science as an institution. In the political sense, Poppers open society takes the view that the proper purpose of democracy is to protect against the possibility of things going terribly wrong. This is the fat tails type thinking. Where you cannot be certain about what is going to correct, but that ‘everyone can agree on a dictator’ I believe is the sentiment.

He stresses the ‘duty to optimism’ that Popper essentially called for. I’m not sure what exactly he’s referring to here. It’s something about the duty to civilisation which is probably from the open society. Here are some quotes from the open society referencing optimism

Many of the weak have been helped, and for a hundred years, slavery has been practically abolished. Some say it will soon be re-introduced. I feel more optimistic ; and after all, it will depend on ourselves. But even if all this should be lost again, and even if we had to return to the almost perfect man-beast, all this would not alter the fact that slavery once, for a short time, disappeared from the face of the earth. This fact, I believe, may comfort some of us for all our misfits, mechanical and otherwise ; and to some of us it may even atone for the fatal mistake our forefathers made when they missed the golden opportunity of arresting all change ofreturningtothecageoftheclosedsocietyandofestablishing,for ever and ever, a huge zoo of almost perfect monkeys. - Chp 10 Note 70

It has been said, only too truly, that Plato was the inventor of both our secondary schools and our universities. I do not know a better argument for an optimistic view of mankind, no better proof of their indestructible love for truth and decency, of their originality and stubbornness and health, than the fact that this devastating system of education has not utterly ruined them. Chp 7

He also makes references to optimism in the poverty of historicism. Here he talks about how historicist attitudes need not always be pessimistic. Plato was a pessimist, Marx and optimist. However he makes a point on optimism that is a bit more nuanced. The historicist can be making humanitarian points of view, just in the way it has been done in various parts of Christianity for example. However Popper argues that despute being inclined towards optimism, it is defeated by its historicist tendencies.

Popper says this

The historicist may even go further. He may add that the most reasonable attitude to adopt is so to adjust ones system of valuesas to make it conform with the impending changes. If this is done, one arrives at a form of optimism which can be justified, since any change will then necessarily be a chnage for the better, if judged by that system of values.

By this he means it is a historicts attitude to argue that the morally good is the morally progressive. This could be described as moral modernism or moral futurism

More in conjectures and refutations

Thus the optimistic epistemology of Bacon and of Descartes cannot be true. Yet perhaps the strangest thing in this story is that this false epistemology was the major inspiration of an intellectual and moral revolution without parallel in history. It encouraged men to think for themselves. It gave them hope that through knowledge they might free themselves and others from servitude and misery. It made modern science possible. It became the basis of the fight against censorship and the suppression of free thought. It became the basis of the nonconformist conscience, of individualism, and of a new sense of man's dignity; of a demand for universal education, and of a new dream of a free society. It made men feel responsible for themselves and for others, and eager to improve not only their own condition but also that of their fellow men. It is a case of a bad idea inspiring many good ones.

Pessimistic and optimistic epistemologies are about equally mistaken. (The pessimistic cave story of Plato is the true one, and not his optimistic story of anamnēsis (even though we should admit that all men, like all other animals, and even all plants, possess inborn knowledge).

Now I come to the word 'Optimist'. First let me make it quite clear that if I call myself an optimist, I do not wish to suggest that I know anything about the future. I do not wish to pose as a prophet, least of all as a historical prophet. On the contrary, I have for many years tried to defend the view that historical prophecy is a kind of quackery

There is a whole chapter concerning optimism in Conjectures and refutations.

It seems that on the whole, Deutsch takes the following ideas from Popper here.

  • The criterion of demarcation and criticism of Induction
  • The assymetry of falibilism coming from the criterion
  • Theory ladenness and the inability to derive theories from sense data.
  • The institutions of science are meant to prevent bad explanations about the world. It makes incremental improvements that are not bounded by some limit.
  • Optimism about the future → Which I believes comes from the idea that there is no upper bound in the amount of knowledge we can derive.

Deutsch writes more comprehensively in his book the fabric of reality.