Chapter dzǵ: Tacit Preachments are the Worst Kind ȁȂȄfollows.... Anything not derived from “first principles” does not count
as knowledge. You are not allowed to talk about money if you have not
derived from “first principles” a specification of all the items which are
money. Ļis methodological position is quite untenable and conflicts with
the reality of our cognitive progress over history. Science rarely progresses
by working “down from first principles”; it progresses and expands the
other way. We begin with empirical regularities and go backward to more
and more complicated hypotheses and theories. Adherence to the Carte-
sian principle would condemn science to stagnation. Ļere are, moreover,
as Karl Popper properly emphasized, no first principles. (Karl Brunner
interviewed in KlamerȀȈȇȂ, p.ȀȈȄ; compare BrunnerȀȈȇȈ, pp.ȁȁȄ–ȁȁȆ.)
Ļe Cartesian fallacy appears linked with what W.W. BartleyIII
(ȀȈȇȃ) called “justificationism.” An often unrecognized trait running
through the history of philosophy, justificationism is the expectation that
all propositions be justified (demonstrated, proved, warranted) by appeal
to some authority, whether reason in the style of Descartes, empirical
observation, divine revelation, or some other definitive source. But no
interesting propositions can be justified in such a way. Ļe demand for
justification is a piece of ancient methodology carried forward uncriti-
cally into modern discussion (ȀȈȇȃ, p.ȁȁȀin particular). Bartley rejects
justificationism in favor of the Popperian process of conjectures and refu-
tations. Scientists invent laws and theories and devise ways of winnowing
out wrong ones. It is reasonable to accept, tentatively, laws and theories
not yet rejected on logical or empirical grounds and not yet displaced
by more attractive alternatives. Accepting them in that way is not the
same, however, as holding them to have been justified or proved; for pos-
itive justification is downright impossible. We cannot criticize all of our
beliefs all at the same time. Criticism of particular propositions or theo-
ries must employ others—notably, standard logic—taken as valid for the
purpose at hand. But none of these is exempt from criticism in all con-
texts. Although we cannot criticize everything at once, nothing is prop-
erly immune against any criticism in all circumstances and contexts. (See
the many pages on justification and justificationism cited in the index to
BartleyȀȈȇȃ.)
ōŚśŠŔőŞ ŠŔőřő: řśŐőŘş
Years ago a graduate-student advisee reported to me the expectations of
another of his advisors: he must build his dissertation around a model.