The eminently sensible and intellectually honest Susan Haack — an evidence-based philosopher who rightly rejects the epistemic immodesty characteristic of the prevailing rationalistic arrogance of philosophers and scientists. Philosophy for such folk is about what to think and not about how to think: whatever else might be attributed to liberalism, it has primarily embodied the idea that conceptions of the good and goals of action are irreducibly plural. Witness these castrati bleating about dealing with their students who have gone off-reservation — an unambiguous sign of disrespect not only to their students but to their “profession”. With shrinking tenure most are climbing the greasy pole and have no compunction to compromise their ostensible existential commitment to TRUTH. Their so-called “progressivism” is no more than a “grand narrative” notion which on closer scrutiny is subject to all the weaknesses of such constructions. They just can’t (will not) wrap their heads around the stochastic nature of sociality and then are frustrated by trying to shoehorn reality into their favored mono-maniacal outlook. It is reassuring that computer scientists, applied mathematicians and other complexity theorists at a recent conference, do by contrast, get this fundamental aspect to reality (H/T Jakub Ryszard Matyja).
[Progress] . . . I’m not sure you measure it at all, and I’m not sure you measure it in science either.
manwithoutqualities 