Critical Rationalism and its Application to Libertarianism

Concise Explanations

critical rationalism  Most people, including philosophers, accept the ^*common-sense view that ^*knowledge assertions require some kind of support (in addition to being ^*true and ^*believed). But any alleged support has a fundamental and fatal ^*epistemological problem. All assertions—whether in the form of arguments, evidence, observations, theses, theories, proofs, etc.—face a trilemma: it seems they must be, at least, one of three options—none of which can offer support. 1) They involve some ^*dogmatic assumptions; of which so-called “axioms” are also a species. 2) They entail infinite regresses: as each “proof” has its own assumptions in need of a further “proof”, etc. 3) There is some kind of, often unnoticed or concealed, circularity: a set of interdependent theories or mere definitions that are collectively without support. Critical rationalism (so called because of the focus on reason to criticise, although reason is also needed to construct any thesis) is the epistemological theory that accepts this refutation of support and asserts that all alleged knowledge is only fallible conjecture: mere assumptions that we can test, including by ^*criticism, but which never become more probable by passing those tests. No theory is ever supported to any degree at all. What follows can only explain a little further this, currently, counterintuitive view.

We need to start with, and say most about, the scientific epistemology of falsificationism (which is sometimes conflated or confused with critical rationalism). Karl Popper (1902-1994) was originally interested in the demarcation between ^*science and non-science. It cannot be ^*true that scientific theories are verified (shown to be true) or even “justified” (the general term he prefers to cover all types of foundationalism: the view that knowledge is supported in some way). This is because such universal—hence infinite in scope—theories could never be supported by a finite amount of evidence, even if all that evidence were somehow ^*certain to be accurate: it is always logically possible that the next example, and every example after that, is inconsistent with the universal theory. Thus, there is no solution to David Hume’s (1711-1776) restatement of the problem of induction: how can we validly infer from finite examples (All perceived swans are white) a theory of greater generality (All swans are white)? Induction as an epistemology is an illogical myth, just as was its original logical form in Aristotle (c384-322BCE) as somehow being the inverse of deduction. However, Popper noticed a crucial asymmetry: the falsification of universal theories is logically possible; we need only one counterinstance. “All swans are white” can be falsified by one instance of a non-white swan; as this “well-supported” theory eventually was falsified by the discovery of black swans in Australia. Methodologically, we can make a virtue of this insight by producing bold universal conjectures and then testing these conjectures as severely as we can. We can happily admit that we might be mistaken about any theory regardless of the amount of testing it has passed. This became known as “falsificationism”.

Consider some further relevant implications of this view. There is no valid reason to assume that we are in ^*fact mistaken about any particular theory unless we find an apparently good counterinstance or criticism of it. Scepticism must be maintained in the modest sense that all knowledge is uncertain and unsupported, but not in the ^*dogmatic and paradoxical sense that all knowledge is known to be completely impossible: the fact that humans survive and even thrive appears sufficient to refute scepticism in the dogmatic sense. Metaphysical theories are empirically unfalsifiable but they may be true. And all scientific theories have metaphysical presuppositions or implications. Apparently singular observations are also both theory-laden and have infinitely many consequences (including counterfactual ones: we could have cooked and eaten that white swan instead of just adding it to our useless “inductive” list). Thus, singular observations are also in the situation of not being supported. Originally, Popper himself sometimes wrote, inconsistently, of the “confirmation” of single instances (and, also inconsistently, of the “corroboration”—or strengthening—of general theories that pass tests). Translating singular observations into conventional and intersubjectively testable “basic statements” cannot avoid their conjectural nature. It is still possible to distinguish relevant evidence (which could refute: another swan) from irrelevant evidence (which could not: a flamingo). Falsificationism does not imply that probabilities don’t exist; only that they must do so within a framework of unsupported conjectures. And, therefore, a probability theory cannot itself constitute an epistemology (as the mathematically inclined sometimes suppose). In any case, in science the least probable unfalsified theory is preferable: that will have the highest information content and be the most open to refutation.

Critics sometimes suggest that falsificationism is not itself falsifiable, and so fails by its own criterion. It is true that it is not empirically falsifiable, although it is criticisable. But an epistemological theory is not supposed to be a scientific theory: philosophy is not empirical science. Some critics also object that one cannot conclusively verify the counterinstance either, so falsification is also impossible. Alternatively, if falsification is possible then to falsify a universal theory is thereby to verify its negation, so some verification is possible too. However, it is part of falsificationism that a “justified” falsification is not possible. Putative falsifications are themselves conjectures that remain open to testing; although we can test only one thing at a time and all tests assume much. The crucial logical point is that we could, in principle, observe a single counterinstance of a universal theory (see a black swan) while we could not, in principle, observe verifying instances (see all—possible?—swans, at every time and place, being white). As a falsification is at least logically possible we are, as before, entitled to conjecture that we have discovered a falsification if we cannot seem to refute it. But we never leave the realm of conjecture. Admittedly, most scientists do not believe or do not consistently practice falsificationism. But these are psychological or sociological observations rather than refutations of the logic of falsificationism.

Partly thanks to the work of other philosophers than Popper, this falsificationist epistemology has been extended—to mathematics, logic, ^*morals, and every other area of non-empirical knowledge—by replacing empirical falsifications with critical falsifications. It is this generalisation that is correctly known as “critical rationalism” (thus, empirical, falsificationism is a subset of critical rationalism). Outside of the empirical sciences the method is about actively and unceasingly seeking conjectures and criticisms with the rejection of any kind of epistemological foundations; even in logic and mathematics: a valid proof rests on assumptions, which include the assumed validity of its deductions.

It is possibly pedantic to eschew all “justificationist” expressions in everyday speech, such as arguing “for” (i.e., supporting) a theory: that would be somewhat like refusing to say “sunrise” because that contradicts the idea that the Earth goes around the Sun (strictly, they go around each other to some degree, and with the gravity of the rest of the universe also having a minuscule effect). It is sufficient that one understands and makes plain that a theory must remain only a conjecture. Arguments can only properly elaborate or explain the consequences of, or apparent evidence concerning, a theory; which is useful for understanding it and stimulating criticism. Many alleged “justifications” are really just such conjectural explanations and elaborations. However, perhaps there is at least one non-foundationalist usage of “justified” that critical rationalists can use consistently. This is simply in the sense that some thesis has been “squared” with the apparent facts and any known criticisms. In other words, the thesis currently appears to be without problems. But this is not to say that it is supported in any way or that it will remain apparently “justified” even in this sense.

If critical rationalism is thought not, exactly, right, then seeing which theories withstand critical scrutiny can still be accepted pragmatically as a useful way to deal with them; even by justificationists who cannot agree about which theories are justified and how. This practical point is not to minimise the theoretical differences between these two alternatives. The classical view of knowledge, alluded to at the start, is of being “justified, true, belief”. Critical rationalism denies that supporting justification is possible, observes that most scientific theories—in particular—will turn out not be true, and holds that most of them are not believed (or even understood). Thus, the critical rationalist view of knowledge has been wittily explained as “unjustified, untrue, unbelief”.

critical-rationalist libertarianism  Most ^*libertarians think they need some form of ^*justification, foundation, or support for their ^*ideology. Various attempts include basing it on—whether solely or in some combination—^*rights, ^*autonomy, ^*contractarianism, ^*common sense, ^*natural law, ^*utilitarianism or some other form of ^*consequentialism, and, of course, empirical evidence (but, ironically, all of these are usually without any explicit and abstract theory of ^*liberty itself). However, one can subscribe to, or simply use hypothetically, any of these ideas in order to explain, defend, or ^*criticise libertarianism without also being a justificationist.

There is an explicit non-justificationist alternative: ^*critical-rationalist libertarianism. If someone asks a critical-rationalist libertarian to justify his views, he will probably decline to attempt this as he thinks it impossible. He does not adhere to libertarianism on any ^*epistemological foundations whatsoever. Like all theories, it is a conjecture. All one can do with a conjecture is explain it and then test it with empirical evidence and intellectual ^*criticism (both of which must also involve further conjectures that themselves always remain open to testing).

If it comes to convincing a particular critic, this can only mean answering his specific criticisms as far as possible. Even if this were eventually done to the satisfaction of that critic, it remains just as much an unsupported conjecture as before (although the critic might now also characterise it as a “provisionally, critically-preferred, conjecture”). It simply wastes time to attempt a futile justification when one will have to answer the specific criticisms of all comers anyway. However, one can—and should—also try to think of criticisms for oneself and attempt to answer them.

(These are entries from A LIBERTARIAN DICTIONARY: Explaining a Philosophical Theory [draft currently being revised]. Asterisks indicate other entries.)