Re: Justificationism

On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 8:05 PM, Anonymous Person
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> I don't understand this debate about Deutsch being a justificationist.
> Doesn't Deutsch openly declare himself in favor of justificationism in
> The Fabric of Reality? Here are some quotes:
>
> > Most contemporary philosophers are crypto-inductivists. What makes
> > matters worse is that (like many scientists) they grossly underrate the role
> > of explanation in the scientific process. So do most Popperian
> > anti-inductivists, who are therebys= led to deny that there is any such thing
> > as justification (even tentative justification). This opens up a new
> > explanatory gap in their scheme of things>
> In this passage, Deutsch says rejecting all justification creates any
> explanatory gap in the thinking of Popperian anti-inductivi


 FWIW my reading would be Deutsch is saying is if you underrate the
role of Explanation there will be ramifications down the line. In the
case of Popperian's the outcome may actually be worse, because
popperians know justiciationalism is refuted (i.e. if get it about
justification but don't get it about explanation, you put yourself In
the position of not having justification and not having Explanation in
its place. Or not fully...there will be gaps.

Which kind of puts the spot onto whether the philosophy would regard
justificationalism as better than nothing. It's a silly question in a
lot of way,  but the answer still has to be yes.

> > I believe that we can justify our expectation that the Floater would be
> > killed. The justification (always tentative, of course) comes from the
> > explanations provided by the relevant scientific theories. To the extent
> > that those explanations are good, it is rationally justified to rely on the
> > predictions of corresponding theories.
>
> An additional point in this passage is that it mixes up the difference
> between justifying an idea and justifying a course of action. First it
> talks about "justify our expectation". Then "the justification". But
> then "it is rationally justified to rely on". An expectation is ano
> idea, that first sentence is about justifying an idea. Relying is an
> action, the third sentence is about justifying an action. The middl
> sentence doesn't specify either way.

I think he's trying to help the reader to to an understanding of
justificationalism at a deeper more subtle level. It's a shame he
hasn't done this more frequently because there is definitely a need .

He's demonstrating that's not about the word...this isn't about
banning words and hissing at those who transgress. I think he's
extending guidance and help to people who are trying to learn.  It's
not a linguistic matter,  which means that just jumping on  people
when they use the word isn't going to work, and people need to keep an
eye on themselves about that, because if tthey catch themselves doing
that,  the meaning will be there are still gaps in their own
understanding.

The philosophical position is that Justification, that word, that
concept is a problem *when* when the logic or reasoning or argument
depends on that justification. Where he uses it above, it is
redundant. It is used illustratively


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