Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Excellent. So, David, do you wanna get us started?
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Sure. Yeah. I'm uh, the topic today is described in the, uh, notice is induction and deduction. Uh, these are two broad categories of logical inferences, uh, fundamental distinction in logic. It goes back, I think at least to Aristotle and many people are familiar with this. Uh, some people I occasionally run into people say, okay, remind me, which is which so I'm, I'm gonna start by explaining the distinction briefly. Um, and then onto my main interest, which is how does this distinction, excuse me? How does the distinction apply to objectiveism? So lemme start with induction in deduction here's here are two examples for deduction classic or classic example. Uh, all men are mortal. Socrates was a man, therefore Socrates was mortal. Okay. That's deductive. And I'll explain why in a moment. Um, second example of induction, two flowers of the same cultivar were planted adjacent plots.
Speaker 1 00:01:17 The first one was fertilized with miracle grow and it flourished. The second one was not, and it didn't. So therefore miracle grow causes plant growth. Now the operated distinction here is, um, the measure of deductive arguments is validity. A deductive argument is either valid or invalid. Uh it's all or nothing. Validity means that the conclusion follows necessarily from the premises. You can't accept premises and deny the conclusion without contradiction. Uh, in the Socrates example, if you, um, accept the premises that all men are mortal and Socrates was a man, but say, oh, but wait a minute. Socrates was imortal. Um, you can't that's the contradiction because it contradicts the, uh, major premise that all men are mortal. So, um, by contrast, if the argument were cast, as some men are mortal, Socrates was a man, therefore Socrates was mortal. That would not be valid. That would be invalid because it doesn't follow.
Speaker 1 00:02:28 You can coherently without contradiction deny the conclusion. Um, and it doesn't contradict the premises because the premise says only that some men are mortal, okay, for induction, the standard is not validity, but strength and strength means the degree of support that the premises give to the conclusion. And that degree of strength can often be increased. Um, by providing more evidence, for example, with a plant example, you could vary some other factors, um, increase the sample size, um, look at the lighting conditions. Were they really identical and so on and so forth? So another angle on this is that in deductive arguments, the conclusions, in a sense, just spell out what is already contained in the premises. The conclusion follows, regardless of any other information, it is not sensitive to a wider context. Now I'm gonna, if epistemological, I'm gonna say, yeah, well the major premise has to be supported by something typically induction.
Speaker 1 00:03:38 So there is a wider context, but we may come back to that. But the point is, um, just taking the argument as it as stated, um, it is in a sense, a contextual, whereas inductive conclusions, um, go beyond what is stated in the premises. They are what magicians call ample, uh, they amplify the, um, the, the claim that's being, uh, supported by the premises. For example, in our, uh, the example about plants, um, the premises were all about the particular plants that were tested in this, um, agricultural experiment. Um, but the conclusion is about all plants. So you're, there's a, what some people have called a logical leap here from, um, the premises to the conclusion. There's still some gap between premises and conclusions. And as a result, inductive arguments are sensitive to context. I mean, the first suppose the first plot in our flower example was in sunlight.
Speaker 1 00:04:46 The second one in shade. Well, we could strengthen the argument by keeping the lighting constant, as I said, or varying other factors. Um, so that's the basic distinction. Now it's sometimes said that reduction applies a general statement like Allman or mortal to a particular case like Socrates, whereas induction moves in the opposite direction from particular to general, from these cultivars in these to all plants, there's a gr of truth in this, um, which I come back to, but it is not strictly correct in a logical sense. There are deductive arguments that don't involve do not involve a movement from general to particular, for example, um, one, here's an example from schlock Holmes story. If robbery had been the motive for the crime, the victim's wallet would not be full of cash, but the wallet was full of cash. So robbery was not the motive that has the form.
Speaker 1 00:05:46 If P then Q not Q therefore not P it's a inference form note as Motus Tolin. And that's a deduct argument. Uh, everything I said about the Socrates example is true of this. You can't accept the premises and deny the conclusion without contradiction and in the same way, uh, not all inducive arguments move from particular to general, uh, argument by analogy, for example, uh, is the, as normally formulated, um, moves from one set of particulars to anus set of particular or set of particulars. And, um, so it doesn't move from particular to general. Uh, so I just wanna make that point because this is such a common, um, common view. All right. So, um, that's induction induction, um, a quick lesson in logic. Now I want to get onto the main topic, which is how does that distinction apply to the objectives? Ethics I'm gonna give you a, a really whirlwind tour, a logical tour of the objectives.
Speaker 1 00:06:58 Objectiveist ethics showing how inductive and deductive inferences combine in philosophical reasoning. The particular point in the objectiveist ethics I'm gonna focus on is the principle that rationality is a virtue. Okay. Now rationality is only one ethical principle I could use as an illustration. And ethics is only one branch of our philosophy to which the pattern applies. The pattern is quite pervasive. And in that respect, I want to, uh, mentioned that I'm drawing partly on a work, um, that William Thomas and, uh, that I produce called the logical structure of objectiveism. Um, it is, uh, on our website, uh, it is known to its friends as LSO, and, um, we have not published it for various reasons, but it's, uh, published on our website and, um, it's a great teaching tool. So anyway, what is the evidence for rationality? I'm gonna review it in three stages. I told you this is gonna be a whirlwind tour.
Speaker 1 00:08:02 Stage one. Life is the basis of value at the very foundation of the objectiveist ethics is the principle that for any organism, the life of the organism is the ultimate value that determines what other things are values or just values for it. Net principle is based on induction, the concept, we start with the concept of value that something that you act to gain and, or keep, well, that means that we're talking about purpose of action. Where do we find purpose of action in nature in the world? Uh, yeah, only in all living things, but only in living things. When we act as, as individuals, um, in our, our human lives, uh, we're acting for something that makes a difference to us, um, that we conceive of as you know, we're aware of as making a difference, but, um, even, uh, non-conscious things like simple organisms or plants nevertheless are alive and they can initiate gold directed action, unlike a rock or a mountain, and that all but only living organisms face the alternative of existing or not living or dying, which is at then, then which you can't get more fundamental in terms of making a difference.
Speaker 1 00:09:32 So the, we have the inductive generalization drawn on a vast amount of knowledge, uh, and observations about the biological world that an organism's life is conditional. It depends on the organism's action to acquire and maintain the conditions of its own existence.
Speaker 1 00:09:58 So, um, there's a lot more to this. I'm taking a lot of shortcuts here in the argument, and I'm skip among the steps I'm skipping, skipping. Some would, you know, could easily be cast as deductive, but the point is the whole objectives, ethics, the whole foundation of life as the ultimate value is based essentially on inducive observation of living things. Okay. So that was 0.1 0.2, stage one, stage two, every type of organism has its own specific needs that it has to meet if it's going to maintain itself. And it has specific capacities for self generated action to meet those needs. So obviously, um, what a, uh, a jellyfish has to do to maintain its existence in the ocean is quite different from what Alliant on the African Savannah has to do to maintain its existence. And so on across the, uh, the entire range of biological things, trees have to get chloro filled.
Speaker 1 00:11:08 They have to have means of acquiring the ch fill the need as well as water and other things. Y we could multiply examples, um, in more or less indefinitely. The point is that for each species, there is a distinctive set of needs. It has to meet and capacities that it can exercise to meet those needs and identifying those needs. And capacities is inducted. I mean, think of ology in the life sciences, um, ologists like Conrad Lawrence, and, um, Carvan PR wanted to understand animal behavior, not in terms of approximate causes such as reflex or conditioning, but rather in terms of the, the teleological function, um, that, that, um, ex described and explained the animal's, uh, behavior in its natural environment. The goal was to understand the mode of life, of the mode of life, of each species, its particular way of surviving in the, in its particular environment, given its particular needs and capacities. Well, the same is true of human beings. I think ran saw ethics as the kind of humanology the concept of man's life called men is really an ecological concept of man's mode of living.
Speaker 1 00:12:36 So we identify human needs and capacities the same way we do for other species by observing human nature and actions and drawing, you know, mostly, uh, inductive generalizations it's of course, much more complicated because our needs are vastly more extensive and our capacity is vastly more extensive than for other species that we know of. Um, but the fact is the general principle of identifying what an organism needs and what it, what capacities it has to meet those needs, applies to human being needs, apply steam with beings just as it does to any other species. And we do, we identify that in the same way by observing human nature and drawing inductive generalizations. So by the way, despite what I said earlier, um, these generalizations typically do move from the particular to the general, these inductive generalizations. That's, that's actually part of the nature of an inductive generalization.
Speaker 1 00:13:38 That's only one type of induction, but it's a very important part. Um, so that's a large brain of truth that I referred to earlier. So with human beings, though, let's move to the human case. Um, the inductive evidence comes from a huge, huge variety of sources, not just from biology and medicine about our physical needs, for food, food, uh, air, water, and so forth, but across the range of our psychological needs. Um, we learn about, um, those needs and capacities from introspection, as well as psychology. We learn about them from history, uh, how human beings have acted and flourished or failed to flourish in the past from economics, which tells us about how, um, the trade in the social realm, uh, one aspect of the social realm, how that works, political science I could go on, but you get the point. All of this, um, has to come back to observations and, um, uh, the conclusions that we can draw from those observations. So it, it is remains largely inductive. Uh, once we have a certain amount of inductive conclusions that we're confident of, um, there are things we can deduce from those gen those broader principles. Um, and I'm gonna give you a couple of examples in a moment, but the point is, uh, identifying needs and capacities is, uh, basically an inducive procedure.
Speaker 1 00:15:13 And it, this is not, um, as clear as it might have been in iron ran zone writings. Um, she lays out a set of conclusions in the objective ethics and those conclusions fit together, you know, in a way that some people can say, well, it's all deductive. It's not, um, one of the things that will Thomas and I have tried to do in, um, the logical structure book is to break apart some of those conclusions and ask what's the real basis using, uh, a diagramming technique, but also with a lot of attention to the inductive versus, uh, deductive, uh, stages of each component argument, all right, so much for needs and capacities. Now let's get to the third point reason and rationality.
Speaker 1 00:16:03 Um, well, reason I is essential capacity that we have <laugh>. So, um, and all the fields I mentioned before support that principle as do many other features of human life. I mean, you look at the role of law, of language, of science technology all over. Those are reflections of a rational capacity and possible only to, to preachers that have such a capacity. So that is, uh, that's, that's a conclusion that we draw on in terms of capacities. We could also say that human, there are many, many needs that humans have. I said before that there are much more, um, extensive and, um, complicated than typical needs of, of even animals for along plants. One thing, one interesting thing is that because our rash reason is such an important core capacity. It has its own needs to function properly. So we have, some of our needs are not direct needs for physical survival, but for spiritual survival, for our maintaining our, uh, our ability to think and guide our actions by reason, one of them is a need for self-esteem.
Speaker 1 00:17:24 Um, you can talk about that later, but, uh, because we're, self-conscious, we need a sense of ourselves and, um, the confidence that our minds do work and that, um, and that our lives are worthy of support. So that's a kind of, uh, indirect need, but no less important than the direct physical needs of air, water, and food and so forth. Okay. So what about rationality? Um, here we have to take an counter free will you can establish that reason is an important human, uh, capacity simply by the kinds of ecological investigation of the human mode of life. But rationality is reason doesn't operate automatically. And as far as we know, only humans have this capacity of choosing or not choosing to exercise that capacity. Uh, we have to act by choice. So, um, that's what makes rationality a virtue, not simply a value, but a virtue, um, and a moral virtue, because the Mor moral realm deals with the scope of choice. And, um, again, that that's succinct to human beings. So you could, you could formulate this actually as a detective, uh, inference exercising reason is required for life exercising reason. I E rationality is voluntary, voluntary actions required for life, our moral virtues. So rationality is a moral virtue.
Speaker 1 00:19:16 Um, so I, any, any of the points I've made so far, um, could be elaborated much, much, and I hope we will have a chance to do that in the question, but I want end with two broader points, uh, first about deduction, most of what I've summarized at each stage of the derivation stages, one, two, and three focused on in inducive evidence. And that's in part, because objectiveism has often been mischaracterized as a rationalist system of pure deduction, like a mathematical proof, or like, cause of, you know, the history of philosophy, uh, OSIS ethics, which we modeled on, uh, uh, Euclids geometry as a truly deductive system. And that's not true. That objectiveism is empiricist and it is every conclusion has to be supported at some level by inductive evidence, as well as deductive derivation. I'll come to that in a minute. Um, other in fact, I'll come to it now deduction, however, it does have a really important role.
Speaker 1 00:20:27 And, uh, for example, just to give one example, we could cast the entire summary I've presented in terms of a single CISM where any organism, the life of the organism is the ultimate value that determines where other things are values or disvalue for it. Human beings are living organisms. So the life of a human is the ultimate value, et cetera, what this, this summarizes a vast amount of, um, evidence, um, which I've, you know, summarized only in, um, in, in broad essence, well, it does have a value this deductive bargain because it shows it integrates everything it, and it shows us in particular that the objective is biocentric. It is deeply grounded in the nature of life across all its forms. It is the ethics is not a self-contained body of knowledge. Uh, as many philosophers treat it, it is, uh, a, a body of knowledge and practical and guidance knowledge as well as theoretical knowledge that, um, has a profound, deep naturalist basis in the world.
Speaker 1 00:21:45 And that's one of the main functions, important functions of deduction. It helps us unite and keep integrated our knowledge across wide spheres of, uh, of, of knowledge. And finally, I wanna say, um, about an induction second point induction is I mentioned earlier it's amive, uh, inductive inferences are typically open to further evidence. And the point here is that the point I wanna make now is that we strengthen our conclusion, not just by acquiring more confirming cases, for example, more plants that grow well with miracle growth, but also, and even more importantly, by actively looking for disconfirming cases to test the strength of the conclusion. Um, when we, the harder we look for disconfirming cases, the better off we are in, um, uh, the more confident we can be in the conclusion that we've drawn from the positive cases. And this is especially important in philosophy because we don't have many methods of science, of measurement experimentation and so forth that, uh, scientists can use to, um, form additional hypotheses test, additional OB, uh, possible causal factors and so forth.
Speaker 1 00:23:07 We have to go by basically qualitative reasoning. And so it's all the more important we can put together. A very strong case. I think the objective case is, is super strong. That's why I believe it, but, um, we should always be open to finding, um, and considering cases like that. So let me just a end by putting this as a kind of challenge to you and, you know, as a homework assignment, but, um, we can start by, I can say it's due right now. Um, what challenges could be mounted to the principle that rationalities of virtue, what exceptions, what things would such a principal have to deal with to be fully verified and for us to be totally confident of in order to strengthen all the inductive evidence that I've provided. So, okay. I'll stop there. Uh, I know I've been moving really, really fast through, um, a huge landscape, but I hope, uh, I hope this clarified some things and let's go to questions
Speaker 0 00:24:13 Or just great. Thank you, David. Um, I also first, I just want to thank those of you quite a few of you who have shared this room, um, and encourage others to use a little share button down below, share it on clubhouse, share it, uh, on your social media. So I appreciate that. I wanted to, uh, recognize that we have, uh, two others in your scholars, in the room, both the professor, Richard Salzman, as well as, uh, professor Jason Hill on their travels. Um, and, uh, also thank my co-host Scott and of course our friend Roger. Um, and yes, so as David mentioned, uh, please raise your hand. We'll bring you up on stage. And, uh, and then David, also, maybe if you wanted to introduce Debbie and will, um, and, uh, invite them to offer any additions or reflections on your remarks.
Speaker 1 00:25:14 Uh, yes, let, I'd be happy to do that. Debbie Hutchins is, uh, my co-author for the logic text, the art of reasoning, which we, uh, just, uh, year and a half ago or so, uh, produced the fifth edition of that. And so, you know, if you wanna know more about induction in deduction, you can check the book out or listen to Debbie. Who's the real expert on Dr. Logic and will Thomas, um, is the, my co-author for the logical structure book. And so, uh, we spent many, many hours, days, weeks, uh, producing that and thinking through, um, all the arguments and paying special attention to the indoc versus the doctor. So I'm, I'm delighted to you both here and, uh, uh, please jump in, um, with any comments
Speaker 0 00:26:15 Just to unmute yourself if you're muted, but otherwise, um, maybe I'll
Speaker 2 00:26:28 One, I enjoyed the summary, um, the issue, I very couple of very strong things are in support of David's comments. He made one, I just gotta say on the love that you list that consider rationality a moral, because introduces the notion of having responsibility to be rational. And I like that, but the idea of ethics being based on the nature of the thing seems obvious, at least from a certain sort of philosophical view. I, I know in, uh, I've worked at schools where we took curriculum very seriously at, uh, a previous, uh, job I had all students were required to take four courses of philosophy regardless of major. Um, and they were designed in a very specific way. And we had to defend our contention that you had to take the sophomore course philosophy of human nature before as a prerequisite for ethics and part of our justification.
Speaker 2 00:27:56 We came up with to know the correct behavior or the best life for a human being. You have to have thought about the nature of the human being, the human person, um, because the ethics can't be disconnected from that. And I think in the broader sense, one thing David and I have in common that isn't as common in philosophy as it used to be. Although since I'm assuming the majority of people in this meeting are probably objectiveist, this is going to apply to you, whether you've thought about it this way or not. David and I are both metaphysical realist. And if you're a metaphysical realist, metaphysics questions about the natures of things are prior to are, um, what should I say, foundational to how they should be behave ethics? Um, so if you're a metaphysical realist, if you believe there are certain, just certain brute facts of the universe, um, then any creature, any rational creature is, should be able to see that you're going to have to deal with those facts.
Speaker 1 00:29:16 Yeah, thanks, Debbie. Uh, and I'm glad for the reminder that, um, this, the broad contours of the <inaudible> ethics basing the ethics on a prior analysis of human nature is, um, is something that is common also in the AIAN tradition, they have different maybe conclusions about aspects of human nature and aspects of ethics, but that broad, um, issue of dependence is, um, is something that has a history in philosophy. So thanks for that
Speaker 0 00:30:02 On stage.
Speaker 3 00:30:04 Yeah. Um, thank you. Great conversation. I'm just curious about, um, kind of intuition, you know, or, or even Rand was kind of against instinct, but there's just sometimes a sense before we're able to process, uh, everything that that's going on, but we're, we're making, you know, like lightning fast decisions just based on what we do know, even if we can't put it into words.
Speaker 1 00:30:36 An example of the question I asked, right at the end, what, what apparent counterexamples to rationality as a virtue choice or a comprehensive, you know, virtue that, uh, should dictate every, um, choice. Uh, every conclusion we reach every choice we make in life. Um, one of the tasks for an objectiveist, um, philosophy, people in philosophy and psychology is to explain how, uh, the, the many forms in which reason works and whether or not, for example, what you say described as intuition, um, is, uh, uh, is a, is a form of irrational, inter rational integration, but subconscious, so not, um, as deliberate as a, um, conscious logical derivation or whether it's something else altogether, motion driven, which reads Lisa the wider question. What about emotions as a guide to action? Um, that's another question that would have to be addressed. Objective is due, but, um, Rand does, but it's still, um, that's one of the arguments that you run into all the time and talking about rationality. Um, instinct is another really interesting one because, um, question is whether, um, it involves any inborn innate knowledge or whether it's simply a built in mechanism of action, uh, at the perceptual level. Um, so I'm, I'm, I'm just raising these, I'm not gonna address them. Um, cuz that would be a long, pretty long thing, some of these worthy of their own clubhouse session or more, but, um, yeah, that, those are great examples to think about, uh, when you're considering the case for rationalities virtue,
Speaker 4 00:32:41 Richard.
Speaker 5 00:32:43 Yes. Thank you. This is great. Uh, David and great to hear from Debbie, I think evolutionary biology, which is, uh, so has become so prominent, uh, of late last decade or so is another alternative here. I, I don't endorse it, but you've heard this. I think David, the idea that whatever works over time must be right. Must be good. Must be true. If we, if it's as a survival, this is somewhat close to objectives. If it has their survival value for human beings. So, you know, they try to describe a cooperation among humans as a virtue. And why is it a virtue? Not because we chose it rationally, but because that just seems to have worked over time. If we don't cooperate, we kill each other off. If we do, we survive that kind of thing you probably heard. Uh, so I just throw that out there.
Speaker 5 00:33:31 But my real question was I'm, I'm really intrigued by the induction side of what you're talking about and I'm reminded of how sometimes one of the ways Aristotle's ethics is, uh, critiqued is that it only looked out at Athenians or, or the Greeks and found what were presumed to be good traits or good men. And he, you could say he induced and said, then now these are the virtues and it wasn't a bad result, but it wasn't a fundamental argument. And the reason I think of that is the objectives, ethics draws somewhat on Aristotle, but I also think it from the standpoint of, does this make it difficult, David, to induce today? Meaning we don't have Greek citizens today. I, I don't think of the kind of virtue <laugh> of the high virtue we see. So is it a challenge to today's whoever students, professors to get them to induce the kind of virtues, uh, we highlight because they can't see them or they can't see them consistently because, and I'm just stipulating.
Speaker 5 00:34:45 I dunno if this is true or not because the constellation of virtues and vices out there today are such a mixed grab bag of things and I'll just leave it as this. The, the analogy to me is when I try to explain to people what is good or bad in the mixed economy, right. And to get them to see, well, the bad part is the status part. And the good part is the capitalist part. So don't blame crises on the capitalist part. <laugh>'s very difficult. It's very difficult to ha get them to disentangle this mix. And I'm just wondering whether you think that's also true in getting them to try to disentangle, uh, virtue from vice in today's context. I hope that's not too convoluted, but
Speaker 1 00:35:29 No, I, and this is why I think history, uh, is a really important, um, source of, of information and why I think it's so important. I think as I, as I recall, Rand was a history major in her college years in St. Petersburg. And, um, to see how, you know, how people, uh, and how people lived best, how and what society flourished. So that, that's one thing I think, um, people should, this is the grain of truth, um, kind of a small one in the circumstances, but the grain of truth in, uh, multiculturalism that the more posters you know about, um, the more inductive evidence you have to draw from. And, um, the, so I'm all in favor of that. And along with history, but the pro the problem I have with, with one of the other examples you mentioned is, well, let me just go back students today, have conceptual problems, uh, that anyone in teaching, you know, has, has noticed.
Speaker 1 00:36:35 And, um, actually thinking through the evidence about human nature and, uh, values. I mean, it's, you know, you can't do this in a 32nd TikTok video. You've gotta, um, you have to read, observe, think, go to school. Um, and there's, there's such a large, um, amount of information there brand once said something to effect that, you know, I, everything humanities and I would add the social sciences are almost all about, um, human life. That's, you know, over half a normal curriculum. So, um, it, this is not easy. And, you know, I think having a philosophy like objectiveism that, um, points us in such good directions, um, is an enormous, enormous, uh, set of shoulders to stand on, to use Newton's analogy. Um, but it ha takes work. And, um, there's no, I, I don't think there are any real shortcuts, but it, let me just say about the, uh, a little evolutionary psychology.
Speaker 1 00:37:50 I've read a lot, although I'm not an expert. And my problem with it is that in as you, you put it well, uh, it's the idea that, that we adopt modes of life, not because we chose them, but because, um, they were genetically, uh, selected by success or failure, um, that still uses life as a basic standard, but it also relies on determinism. It says that we, um, take one of the typical examples. Why do, why do men tend to be more promiscuous than women, at least in feelings? Well, because the explanation being, um, they can generate more, uh, babies, uh, multiply their genes faster than a woman can, who has to bear the, um, the fetus. And, um, and during the birth of the child needs help and support. Well, there may be something to that, but we have free will, and we can question all of these things and like, you know, some people, um, including some men don't have children, they don't care about their genes.
Speaker 1 00:39:02 Um, some people, um, you know, are thoughtful enough to avoid S like predation, most of the prehistoric, uh, modes of, of human survival, involved a lot of war, bear and conflict among tribes. And, um, well, we'd learn and we've discovered things like rights and contracts and trade. Um, and you know, I've never seen an evolutionary, um, a remotely plausible evolutionary explanation. Well, the reason that, um, people like in the us, you know, most by and large, um, uh, have property rights and, um, respect contracts is because they were genetically conditioned to do so, uh, over the two centuries or three centuries that this, uh, culture, the modern economics has existed. That that is so it's hard even to take that an idea like that seriously. Um, so I, I don't subscribe, I don't put much plausibility in, uh, evolutionary psychology, except for some, you know, fringe things like maybe some aspects of sexual preference or, um, some desire to have children and, um, nurture them. I don't know. Um, but they're, I, I, I don't mean to say these are not important, but they're not, they're not the kinds of, uh, ethical decisions that we make and are perfectly capable of thinking through and choosing you really have to deny free will, uh, in order to, you know, get evolutionary psychology off the ground.
Speaker 0 00:41:03 All right. Um, and, uh, Roger, I know I pulled you up on stage because I wanted you close. Um, but if you had a question you wanted to ask, go ahead and unmute yourself. Otherwise I was gonna turn, go ahead, Roger.
Speaker 6 00:41:19 I do have a question, but I, I would love to go to Jason first. I, I always like to hear from the scholars
Speaker 0 00:41:24 First. All right. Um, professor hill, I know you might be in route in your travels, but if you're someplace where like to unmute and
Speaker 7 00:41:36 Sure. Thank you. Uh, thanks, Jennifer. And thank you, David. Uh, David, I, there's a question I wanted to ask you, um, piggybacking off of what Richard to said about Aristotle, and that is the stuff, the raw material that provided the basis for induction for the Greeks was something that was called do cell, which was opinion. It was sort of like the received wisdom that came from, um, pretty smart people. The thing is that in a sort of homogeneous society of, of very smart people, that received wisdom, that docile, uh, was not subject to any kind of philosophical, philosophical meaning test. So, um, sort of extrapolating from that to a heterogeneous society where we have a lot of, should I say, stupid people, deplorables, dumb, dumb people. Um, people who think that their sophomore high school opinions ought to be elevated to the level of human knowledge, um, and that they're uninformed judgments, um, are the final, uh, conclusive, um, you know, forms some, some pro final conclusive, um, um, thought that should be taken quite seriously.
Speaker 7 00:42:59 How do we deal with doc cell? I mean, how do we, how do we deal with that, that stuff that, that Aristotle talked about that is the basis that opens up the, the Nain ethics that, that forms the basis out of which, um, induction really, really begins today. Um, what's your thought on that? Um, I mean, I'm, I gave a talk to leadism, I'm a, I'm a old fashioned elitist in the sense that I do not think that is the common that the common man has some sort of coercive monopoly on truth. I'm, I'm very suspicious of the, the, the common man having some, some kind of, but at the same time, I don't believe that that narrowly educated PhDs also, um, have any kind of coercive monopoly on truth. I remember when I was doing my PhD, I went to, um, uh, someone who does KT and I asked him something about Ks, um, epistemology. And he said, I'm sorry, you cannot ask me that question. I only for focus on the third Anin and I said, are you serious? He said, yes, <laugh>. And, uh <laugh>. And he said, uh, I said, just a basic question about what the categories. And he said, I only do the third Enin. I spent my entire 35 years working on the third Enin. So, uh, so what do you think, David?
Speaker 1 00:44:20 Well, I just let me respond to the, the last point you mentioned about the third, um, one of the problems with, uh, uh, I think a lot of analytics so-called philosophy today, uh, is precisely that people get so specialized that they lose any sight of a broader picture and including their premises and the assumptions they're making methodological as well as substantive. And they, you know, I've had, I've had people tell me that, you know, colleagues in philosophy and reading so much stuff, they say it's breathtaking, you're flying at 30,000 feet. And I say, no, I'm just telling, I'm just providing the broad context. Um, anyway, but to, um, uh, on, on Aristotles Don said, there's a difference here. Aristotle could look around and observe, um, attaining society, which was at, at the time was a highly successful society, despite a lot of problems. And, um, look at the, what seemed to be the grounds for success, both individually and politically, but those observations are different from DASA, DASA are opinions and, um, induction.
Speaker 1 00:45:43 We can take account of the opinions of wise people who've, um, reflected on things before, but they're not the standard. The standard is reality. Um, I, I, in this respect, we have a years ago, we published, uh, will Thomas and I, uh, were, um, created a series called objective studies. And one, one of, one of the monographs in that series was by Roderick long where he precisely argues that, um, we have to rely on dosa, not on direct. We can't do everything down to observations, um, of reality. And I, you know, he, he was a smart guy and he good Aris Gillian scholar. Um, that would be interesting. It might be interesting to, to read if we haven't seen it already, and this is it's called reason and value Aristotle versus Rand. Um, and I, I'm sure that's on our website somewhere. It's certainly available.
Speaker 1 00:46:41 Um, so the, but you know, the, the broad picture here is that is, uh, very much along the lines of what I've been saying. You expand your, your, the support that observations and inductions provide that observations provide to generalizations by expanding your evidence base and actively looking for counter examples. So I don't know how possible this was for the Greeks, but, um, some of them looked to Persia. Some of them, they were great traders across the Mediterranean, and there were many philosophers other than Aristotle, um, who, you know, called into question Greek beliefs because they had, um, the, you know, the Levant Israel and Palestine, Palestine now, or, um, the black sea, um, civilizations and, or the Persian empire like ERO, um, did a lot of observing of that. And you went to Egypt as well. So there, there were grounds. And I think Aristo was just, um, kind of limited, um, in, in that respect, despite his genius, he, but today we have so much more knowledge. And, um, again, going back to what I said about multiculturalism, the more, you know, about different ways people have chosen to live, and the more you can, um, uh, gain information and draw conclusions from their experiences and, uh, which ones have been productive, which ones, you know, by the normal standards of wealth and prosperity health, longevity, and so forth. Um, you can, you can expand these, um, the inductive basis for your conclusions. Again, it's hard work, but it's, uh, it's the only way.
Speaker 7 00:48:47 Right? Right. Thanks. Thanks. That's helpful, David,
Speaker 8 00:48:51 Roger. Roger.
Speaker 6 00:48:53 Yeah. I allow me to ask a spicy question if you will. Um, I typically don't like doing that, but, um, I've got David Kelly here and I have to ask this, uh, it's a reason why this room really caught my attention is when I think of, uh, you know, inductive reasoning, uh, and being able to, um, to rely on reason, uh, you know, to, to, and your perception to be able to, to determine what reality is. The first thing that comes to my mind is this in 2022, there's a growing number of people that, whether they know it or not, they're embracing these floating abstractions. And if we were to get specific about this, just something as simple as knowing what a woman is. Um, you have people that are denying science and, and saying silly things like science is racist, um, and, and, and sexist and all of these other things, and just denying, you know, any, uh, semblance of, of, of reason. And my question would be, how do you philosophically, if you had a student in your class that, that, um, was, was operating with these floating abstractions, how would you try to walk them through a grounding through this inductive process to figure out something as simple as what a woman is?
Speaker 1 00:50:29 Well, gosh, um, we have some teachers, uh, uh, uh, in this session and I should, uh, appeal to them for their comments cuz they have to deal with this every day. Uh, and I will, but I would just say the first question I almost always ask is, um, what would you take as an answer? What, what do you mean by X, like equality or, um, in this case, uh, gender, what do you mean by it? Um, let's talk about that concept and get them to do what they should have done informing the concept, which is to ask what they're contrasting with, what, what they're their in technical terms, what measurements they're omitting, um, and, um, and put the burden on them to make the case that to, to make it, to root their, what they're saying in some kind of reality. Um, but it's and philosophy is philosophy, I think is generally a good training on this, even, you know, on the part of doesn't matter almost what the philosopher's own point of view is.
Speaker 1 00:51:51 Philosophers tend to be asked this kind of question and, um, promote discussion. Um, but Richard, for example, um, said earlier that in teaching about the mixed economy, he's trying to separate out, um, get people to see, well, what's a mixture. Um, there's some free enterprise initiative, voluntary trade there's, some government mandates. And, um, how do they differ? I mean, Richard did, I, I, I shouldn't, uh, put words in your mouth here or techniques in your mouth, but, um, that's the only way I know, I, again, I'm, I wish I had a magic wand and I could just transfer intelligence, uh, just wave a wand and, and have, you know, my brain or your brain, um, you know, communicate correctly with theirs and allow em to see what we see, but that's not how it works. I know Debbie, Debbie and, and, um, I think will, will still teaching economics, Aren will,
Speaker 0 00:53:03 Will, will, might have a hard time unmuting. Um, but, uh, I did wanna hear from Jason on this because he is teaching and he is our resident expert on, um, you hear me critical theory. Oh yeah.
Speaker 9 00:53:19 This as well.
Speaker 1 00:53:20 Hey, well, sorry.
Speaker 9 00:53:22 I thought the, I thought the mute signal. Nevermind. Yeah. David, what was your question about economics? I mean, I don't get any,
Speaker 1 00:53:33 Well the question
Speaker 9 00:53:34 Correct stuff really.
Speaker 1 00:53:38 Oh, okay.
Speaker 9 00:53:38 I teach at a Catholic college. I, I, I mean, they're, the Catholic college is pretty colonized by politically political correctness, but in economics not so much.
Speaker 1 00:53:49 Okay. Well, I was just wondering the que I was answering the question. How do you, uh, in, as a teacher, how do you get people to, um, get past their floating concepts that they have? Um, and I think, uh, uh, Roger's question had to do specifically with the question, what is a woman, um, you know, in the transgender debate these days? Uh, I don't know if that comes off in economic, but,
Speaker 0 00:54:20 Well, David, I,
Speaker 9 00:54:22 I mean, sorry. I was just gonna say that no, my students don't challenge that way sometimes I wish they would, but, but they don't really
Speaker 1 00:54:33 <laugh>.
Speaker 9 00:54:35 And, uh, I just wanna say, I might have an, I might have another comment about the general topic, but I'll let, uh, Roger go on.
Speaker 0 00:54:45 Well, why don't you go ahead? Cause we've got, uh, we've got four more minutes and, um, I am, I've got a hard stop because, uh, in a half an hour, we're going to be interviewing James Lindsay. Um, he's the author of cynical theories and race Marxism. And, um, actually, Roger, I'll bring you a question up to him, um, because it, it seems that a lot of the critical theory is, is aimed towards actually, um, denying science and, and denying reason as, um, as concepts, uh, valid concepts in enough themselves. So, well, if you wanna just close us out
Speaker 9 00:55:28 Well sound well, I, I, I may close with a bomb. You hear me? Okay.
Speaker 1 00:55:34 Yeah.
Speaker 9 00:55:37 Um, my bomb is just that the virtue of rationality and objectiveism is a totalistic virtue saying, and, and it's connected to objectiveism object's atheism, for example, uh, just one of those things. But if we observe people, we notice that many people compartmentalize and, uh, people use white lies a lot where they go to, you know, avoid, uh, difficult situations. And then there's indeed people with doctrines that, yes, well, maybe you should use some practical rationality, but you should follow your emotions to be happy in what you're doing. And, um, anyway, that's the bomb.
Speaker 1 00:56:32 Well, thank you. I thank you. Well, I, that that's, those are exactly the kinds of things I was, um, uh, fishing for at the end of my talk and the question, the challenge I posed there are so many questions and so many, um, uh, objections to, um, uh, rationality as a, as a, you know, total virtue that, um, they need to be addressed. Some of them, uh, have been addressed many times, uh, others are more new and, um, this is why I believe that, um, and they keep coming along. And this is one of the reasons that I think, um, objectiveism has to be an open philosophy. I'm gonna talk about that next month, but, um, that we, we need to be open to, uh, consider the, keep on the lookout for possible problems. Uh, possible objections. Many of them are, are, are, you know, fallacious, but we don't know that until we understand them. So I, I, I think this is a great question and, um, invitation to continue, uh, continue this inquiry together or on our own. Uh, so I appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 9 00:57:55 If I can. Thank
Speaker 0 00:57:56 You.
Speaker 9 00:57:57 One final comment that virtue is notable for being hard and rationality turns out to be hard to.
Speaker 1 00:58:07 Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:58:09 Great. Uh, well thank you, David. And thank you, Debbie, and will, um, wanna also special thanks to our senior scholars, Richard Salman, and Jason. And, um, if you are interested in hearing my interview with James Lindsay, that's gonna be happening in 30 minutes. Uh, it'll be live streamed across all of the ATLA society's social media accounts. And, uh, please check out the events section of our site so that you can get a full rundown of, uh, our future interviews. And also we've got some really terrific clubhouses coming up and, uh, we'd love to have you.
