Joseph Agassi

The ills of psychiatry are currently diagnoses with the aid of deficient etiologies. The currently proposed prescriptions for psychiatry are practically impossible. The defective part of the profession is its leadership which in its very defensiveness sticks to the status quo, thereby owning the worst defects and impeding all possible cure. The current discussions of the matter are pretentious and thus woolly. The minimal requirement from the profession as a whole and from each of its individual members is that they be not defensive and clear. In this vein I offer here preliminary discussions of propriety, of responsibility and of science.

Karl Popper’s “Indeterminism in Quantum Physics and in Classical Physics” suffers unjust neglect. He judged determinism false: the future is open. In principle, replacing Laplace's variant of predetermination with predictable predetermination renders “scientific” determinism scientific and so refutable. Popper claimed that he had refuted it. Now a metaphysical system may have an extension—in the mathematical sense—that may render it explanatory and testable. If it exists, then it is not unique but has many alternative extensions. Popper’s proof is then inconclusive.

L’article de Karl Popper « Indeterminism in Quantum Physics and in Classical Physics » est tombé injustement dans l’oubli. Popper jugeait le déterminisme faux : l’avenir est ouvert. En principe, remplacer la variante de Laplace de la pré-détermination par une prédétermination prévisible permet de rendre scienti-fique, donc réfutable, le déterminisme « scientifique ». Popper a affirmé qu’il l’avait réfuté. Maintenant, un système métaphysique peut avoir une extension – au sens mathématique – qui le rend explicatif et testable. Si une extension existe, alors elle n’est pas unique, et de nombreuses autres extensions alterna-tives existent. La preuve de Popper n’est alors pas concluante.

JOSEPH AGASSI 1. Sir Karl Popper has offered two different theories of scientific progress, his theory of conjectures and refutations and corroboration, as well as his theory of verisimilitude increase. The former was attacked by some old-fashioned inductivists, yet is triumphant; the latter has been refuted by Tichy and by Miller to Popper’s own satisfaction. Oddly, however, the theory of verisimilitude was developed because of some deficiency in the theory of corroboration, and though in its present precise formulation it was refuted, Popper still holds it in general terms, and I think he still hopes to find a better precise formulation of it. My aims in the present note are to pin-point the deficiency of Popper’s theory of corroboration and to use this for a precise formulation of verisimilitude increase acceptable to him. For my part, however, I see the situation in a different way, as will be indicated at the end of this note

Two suggestions are at the back of the present talk. First, toleration is obligatory, not criticism. So do not try to make people critically-minded: do not force them in any way to try to offer or accept criticism, to learn to participate effectively in the game of critical discussion. If they refuse, then they are within their right. Also, they will easily ad vance excuses for their refusal; admittedly some of these are unreasonable, but not all. Instead of trying to make people critically-minded, try to help them become criticallyminded if and when they request help on this matter, but not otherwise. My second suggestion is that a simple, inconclusive, criterion should be used to distinguish with ease between proper and improper criticism — not by reference to validity, since proper criticism may turn out to be invalid, and some of the worst diatribes may inadvertently include valid criticism. This should hardly be expected of diatribes, and these are recognizable by their display of poor appreciation their target. (This was noted in a recent review by Stefano Gattei of the Italian edition of the Lakatos -Feyerabend correspondence: it largely concerns Popper, yet it displays boorish disrespect to him.) So much for my messages here. I also wish to present here the following ideas.

presents Heidegger as a devout mystic who viewed the Nazi Party as the sacred vessel of a divine message—even though, the author adds, his religion is secular and so it has no divinity and no immortal soul. Rickey sees him as a utopian. This makes some sense: the unique in the Shoah involves the unique descent of a highly cultured, enlightened nation to the rock bottom of barbarism. Ricky’s text belies his effort to exonerate Heidegger. Key Words: Rickey • Heidegger • secular religion • barbarism.

Error and Inference discusses Deborah Mayo’s theory that connects the reliability of science to scientific evidence. She sees it as an essential supplement to the negative principles of critical rationalism. She and Aris Spanos, her co-editor, declare that the discussions in the book amount to tremendous progress. Yet most contributors to the book misconstrue the Socratic character of critical rationalism because they ignore a principal tenet: criticism in and of itself comprises progress, and empirical refutation comprises learning from experience. Critical rationalism should be recommended in the critical spirit, not as dogma

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Is methodological theory a priori or a posteriori knowledge? It is perhaps a posteriori improvable, somehow. For example, Duhem discovered that since scientists disagree on methods, they do not always know what they are doing. How is methodological innovation possible? If it is inapplicable in retrospect, then it is not universal and so seems defective; if it is, then there is a miracle here. Even so, the new explicit awareness of rules previously implicitly known is in itself beneficial. And so, improved methodology may make for improved methods. Hence, methodology is in part descriptive, in part prescriptive. Knowing this, a methodologist might improve his own studies. For example, Popper would then not hasten to conclude from the fact that past scientists depended on positive evidence that they had better do so in future as well; perhaps a lesser concern with confirmation may increase the productivity of scientific inquiry

The liberal approach to ethics quite naturally tends toward the classic individualistic theory of society, to reductionism or psychologism so-called, that is, to a reduction of all social action to individual action. For example, liberalism allows one to experiment with new medications on one's own body. By extension, liberalism allows one to experiment, it seems, on another person's body with new medication if one acts as the other person's agent, that is, if one has the other person's proper consent. We all know that new medicines are introduced into the market experimentally; indeed, government agencies, such as food and drug administrations, are supposed to supervise such experimentations and eliminate from the market as quickly as possible new (or old) medications that prove harmful. Hence, the very introduction of a new medicine into the market requires the consent of the public - in the form of proper permits to manufacture and market new (and old) drugs and other medications. Yet there is a flaw in this description. The act of permission is not made by individual citizens to doctors who act as their agents.

The word "brain-washing", translated from Chinese communist jargon, is a very strong metaphor, first popularized by Robert Jay Lifto n. It vividly describes one person interfering with the personality make-up of another, removing the other's ideology and replacing it, and similarly tampering with the other's tastes, pool of information to rely upon and whatever else goes into the make-up of the other's personality. Clearly, in some sense or another everyone interferes with the personality of people with whom they interact; yet what is meant here is something much more drastic than friends influencing one another's tastes or opinions; it is something more dramatic and more large scale.