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by guerrilla 1390 days ago
> Observation is always selective. It needs a chosen object, a definite task, an interest, a point of view, a problem. And its description presupposes a descriptive language ... which in its turn presupposes interests, points of view, and problems.

Thanks, I'd never heard this quote before. He's pretty much describing pragmatism à la William James. I had no idea.
1 comments
crabmusket 1390 days ago
The pragmatists went a little bit too far in my opinion, though it has been a long time since I read any of them. Popper is describing observations, not reality.

I highly recommend Conjectures if you can find a copy. It's a short read and interesting.

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guerrilla 1390 days ago
What do you mean that they went too far? James and Peirce were not describing "reality" (in this discussion anyway. [1][2]) but rather were instrumentalists and thus saw every theory as having a purpose. That's the whole point of the squirrel argument. It not just "depends on what you mean" (as per analytic and some medieval philosophy) but also depends on what you're trying to do (which in turn depends on what you want/like.) In any case, the similarity I was pointing out is just that theories have purposes and ignoring this is a blatant blunder.

1. James even endorsed religion and other make-believe if it was useful to your purposes.

2. Peirce: "Consider the practical effects of the objects of your conception. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object."

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crabmusket 1390 days ago
I think I'm out of my depth at this point actually, and maybe shouldn't have opined as readily as I did on the pragmatists. I did a little recap of where I'd encountered the pragmatists before and realised I only read Royce, who was a friend and interlocutor of James. But I don't think he could be called a member of the pragmatist school, so I shouldn't take the impressions I got from him to be representative!

The impression I had of pragmatism was that it made claims about absolute truth or reality. That's where I felt things were taken a little too far. But the impression I have may be a caricature or misunderstanding on my part.

Deutsch has a fair bit to say about instrumentalism in Beginning of Infinity which I will leave to the interested reader to discover.

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guerrilla 1389 days ago
Oh okay. I'm not an expert either but I think many might even consider them anti-realists but I'm not sure... I have a friend who is literally an expert, so I should probably ask and figure that out :)

> Deutsch has a fair bit to say about instrumentalism in Beginning of Infinity which I will leave to the interested reader to discover.

Okay, thanks, I'll check it out!

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