Month: February 2015

• February 6, 2015

  From insistence to amazement

  1. I insist that P. OED Etymology:  < Latin insistĕre to stand upon, persist, dwell upon Insisting that P means either (a) maintaining that a thing is so (OED) or (b) urging that some course of action must be taken. Example of (a): ‘I insist that federal taxes are too high.’ Example of (b): ‘Off with his head! Off with…
• February 4, 2015

  ‘The intensity of a conviction’: Doubt, certitude, and provisionality

  A few days ago, I came across this statement by the notable biologist Peter Medawar: ‘the intensity of the conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or not.’ What he says is true: we may have a strong, firm belief that P without its being true that P. But there may…
• February 3, 2015

  Fallibilism: Saying what you believe without insisting

  This would be our Socratic starting point: Say what you believe, but do not insist that it must be true or that your belief cannot be incorrect. Stated this way, the position looks a lot like fallibilism. Key to our understanding of human beings is the fact that they do err. The desire to find a secure position…