In which Wolf discusses whether believing in science actually requires a "leap of faith." Watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/X3fLx1oRijw
People hold all sorts of irrational beliefs, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Many of our beliefs relate to our personal preferences or inner life, and we ourselves might not have any idea why we have them: we just do.
As the comedian W.C. Fields put it,
"A man’s got to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another drink."
Here's a more personal example: I like chocolate. Some people don't but I'm one of many who do, and I don't know why. Oh, I might have some half-baked ideas about it, but I absolutely believe I do like it, and I don't feel any need at all to be able to explain my liking it in a way that anyone should either believe me or even come to like it themselves. Since I can't rationally justify this belief, does that make it "irrational?" Well, I'd prefer to call such things "non-rational preferences," and we all have many of those.
But there are other beliefs I'm committed to, like the value of Free Speech, that aren't just about my personal preferences. In fact, Free Speech doesn't work at all if only some people are able to speak freely. I believe that to the extent that some people are refused the ability to speak in the public square, everyone is diminished. And since this belief in Free Speech isn't just a personal, non-rational preference, shouldn't I be able to justify it rationally to anyone? How can I even say I know that Free Speech is really a good thing?
In this video, I'm going to show you one of the most powerful ways to think about how we hold beliefs that I've ever encountered.
You probably already believe some things very strongly, and those beliefs probably shape how you behave every day. All this is both natural and normal: as our beliefs are shaped, our behavior changes.
One of the big things philosophers argue about is how we know things, how we can come to know things, what it's possible to know, and is it even possible to really know anything? Well, of course you and I know some things. For instance, it would be pretty hard for me to argue that I don't exist: who would be doing the arguing? This was Immanuel Kant's famous starting position: "I think, therefore I am."
Unlike Kant, most of us don't try to start from scratch with our knowledge and beliefs. We build them up over time. But sometimes someone with passionate beliefs comes along who really seems to want us to change our beliefs— like say, our beliefs about Free Speech— and we might be tempted to change our beliefs because of their passion or any number of other justifications they offer.
Personally, I think that one of the best ways to hold beliefs are to hold those most strongly that are best justified by evidence and reason (basically, science).
But saying I'm committed to science has a pretty big problem: can my commitment to science itself be justified scientifically?
Philosopher of science Karl Popper wasn't so sure. He definitely thought that science was a great way of learning about the world, but he also thought that at some point belief in the value of evidence and reason— science itself— required a "leap of faith." He wrote:
Whoever adopts the rationalist attitude does so because he has adopted, consciously or unconsciously, some proposal, or decision, or belief, or behaviour; an adoption which may
be called ‘irrational’. Whether this adoption is tentative or leads to a settled habit, we may describe
it is an irrational faith in reason. (Popper 2003 [1966], p. 255)
The problem here is that as soon as you say it's OK to be irrational about the value of rationality itself, you open the door to people coming along and saying, "Well, then I'm just going to be irrational about this other BS here, and you can't say boo about it because you just admitted to being irrationally committed to rationality!"
In fact, this way of attacking someone's argument— by calling someone out for not abiding by their own standards— is so common that it even has a name: Tu Quoqu, which is Latin for, "You do it too, you hypocrite, so you can't be taken seriously!"
So is science really, at its heart, really like a religion? Does it require faith?
Well, if you think that every belief has to be justified by some evidence or reason, or at least by an appeal to some authority who you're letting decide for you, then you're definitely open to someone coming along and saying, "You say that you believe A, and that B is your reason? Well, how do you know B is true? Oh, because of C? How do you know that's true?"
It's like a little boy asking his mother "Why? Why? Why?" until she gets exasperated and tells him to go ask his father. But at some point dad's going run out of answers too. And if you can't answer this infinite regress of questions, can you be said to really know anything at all?
Another philosopher, William Bartley III, was also bothered by this idea of science somehow being a religion. He focused on the idea that if you demand justification for everything, you eventually run out of justifications.
Bartley then proposed that you could still have a coherent rational belief system if you let go of the idea that before you could believe something you had to rationally justify it, including all its underlying beliefs. He also drew an important distinction between dogmatic belief systems and what I call adaptive belief systems by pointing out that dogmatic belief systems always accept certain fundamental things that can't be criticized, while adaptive belief systems pretty much let you put any of their beliefs to the test, or criticize them on literally any basis.
He called his approach pancritical rationalism. Here's my slight rephrasing of his idea:
"Pancritical Rationalism is the simple idea that everything you believe should be held provisionally and open to criticism, including the idea that everything you believe should be held provisionally and open to criticism."
I think this is brilliant: Bartley has replaced the assertion that "everything must be rationally justified" with the policy that "everything can be criticized, including that policy."
Taking this approach doesn't mean you can't hold beliefs, even strong ones. It doesn't mean your beliefs have to change whenever the wind blows either. It just means that you stay humble, so that no matter how strongly you believe something, you acknowledge a chance that new information could emerge that might cause you to rethink it, and that you'd even rethink your need to rethink things if necessary.
Even in the face of your son or daughter pestering you with "Why?" you don't have to throw up your hands and say, "Nobody knows!" You can simply say, "That's a good question. I don't personally know, and I'd be open to hearing ideas or arguments about what the answer might be."
When you admit you don't know something, people will frequently offer their own beliefs as ways of filling in your gaps in knowledge, and after due consideration you can reject them or accept them, but the key is to keep all your beliefs open to criticism and revision.
In debates, someone who wants to justify their own irrational, dogmatic commitments is then deprived of the tu quoque ability to say, "Well, you also have your fundamental beliefs that can't be criticized." Because really, you don't.
So: I believe science has value, and I think I have a lot of evidence for that belief. But I'm also open to hearing why there might be problems with that idea. I doubt that anyone will be able to turn me off that belief, but they're welcome to make the argument. Since my "belief that science has value" is itself a belief that I hold provisionally and open to criticism, it's not dogmatic: it's just my best current belief.
And since Pancritical Rationalism is itself a belief about the best way to hold beliefs, I'm also open to hearing why there might be better ways to think about holding beliefs than Pancritical Rationalism.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments, and if you’re serious about thinking better and helping others as well, check out my unique software for problem solving and creating real improvement at FlyingLogic.com.
See you tomorrow!