Abstract
In this paper, I try to show how the ambition of William Bartley, the founder of comprehensively critical rationalism, can be realized, i.e. how critical rationalism can be comprehensive. I argue that the alleged paradox of comprehensively critical rationalism, formulated, among others, by Bartley himself, depends on a faulty understanding of criticizability. I therefore propose a new understanding of criticizability, and argue that under the new understanding there is no paradox of comprehensively critical rationalism. Finally, I try to explain how critical rationalism can be comprehensive, i.e. without any concession to irrationalism, or to any dogmatic faith, including the faith in reason.
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Notes
Both, the paradox of comprehensively critical rationalism and Bartley’s attempts at resolving it are discussed e.g. in (Radnitzky & Bartley, 1987, part II), where Bartley (in chapter XV) also replies to his critics.
I shall not to argue what type of critical rationalism is a better (or even the best) one. Diller (2013) prefers Popper’s critical rationalism to Bartley’s pancritical rationalism, but he does not say how to solve the paradox (if there is one) to which the “principle that everything is open to criticism” (Popper, [1945] 2013, p. 493) leads. He only articulates his agreement “with those who do not think the self-applicability of Popper’s principle leads to inconsistency” (Diller, 2013, p. 140).
The points a) to c) were formulated by an anonymous referee who considered them to be false and asked me to respond to this problem, for which I am much obliged.
Of course, the irrationalist does not have to produce the violence; he can also suffer from it. In both cases, it is no consolation to morality that violence is present in society. This is to recall that Popper compared the choice between critical rationalism and irrationalism to “a moral decision” because it “will deeply affect our whole attitude towards other men, and towards the problems of social life” (Popper, [1945] 2013, p. 437).
I neglect another difficult problem, alluded to by Cíntora (2002, p. 32) as well, to which Miller’s approach leads, namely the question of how we are to unambiguously distinguish positions from statements. (See also the next footnote.).
This is the reason why I do not think that the otherwise interesting debate about positions or stances, as started by B. C. van Fraassen and introduced by D. P. Rowbottom into critical rationalism (see Rowbottom, 2011, pp. 6–9 for details), could solve the problem of intellectual integrity posed by Bartley. For, the problem is not whether stances (which are imagined to have no propositional consequences) may be criticizable, but rather whether we can adopt both (A) and (B) as criticizable without contradicting ourselves.
Similarly, only the assumption that to criticize (M2) means to show that (M2) is false will generate Miller’s version of the paradox discussed in Sect. 4.
The understanding of criticizability here sketched is in some respect akin to Quine’s idea of revisability. Bartley elaborates on this point in (Bartley, [1962] 1984, p. 240, and esp. Appendix 5).
I do not think that our willingness to derive consequences from X and to compare them with the values we prefer is another condition of criticizability of X. Criticizability is not dependent on what we are eager to do or not to do. This does not mean, of course, that our willingness to criticize is unwelcome, or that the existence of institutions willing to promote criticism (and freedom) is insignificant – see e.g. (Popper, 1999, chapter 7).
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for suggesting me this apt recapitulation.
I do not wish to get involved into troubles of defining relativism. That is why I write about “brute relativism”, which I take to be the view that what we prefer (or not prefer) is always and wholly matter of our taste.
That does not mean, of course, that the whole process of criticism based on empirical evidence is objective. (I thank an anonymous referee for pressing me to stress this point.) Criticism is objective not because it (sometimes) uses empirical evidence, but because it obeys the laws of deductive logic, such as the so-called “law of retransmission of falsity” (Popper, 1976, Sect. 32), which we have just alluded to in the text.
If there is no chance of showing that (B) is false, then this can be due not only to the fact that (B) is objectively true, but also to the fact that it is (for actually not clear reasons) impossible to find out that (B) is objectively false. The latter option would presumably ruin the comprehensively critical rationalist, so he should opt for the former. At least, we have found no reason so far why he should not hope that (B) is true.
References
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Acknowledgements
I am very indebted to David Miller and anonymous referees for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Responsibility for errors is reserved. I have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
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Taliga, M. How to make critical rationalism comprehensive and non-paradoxical. Synthese 200, 387 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03881-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03881-x