Intellectual error is correctable. Someone who is simply wrong can be shown the evidence and update. But someone who has fused their theory with their identity and their moral self-image has made themselves correction-proof. That's not an intellectual problem anymore. It's a character problem. And character problems don't respond to better arguments. That's why the idiots keep winning.
Doug, really enjoyed this. Moving from Manson's model critique to Pirsig's law to tuphos is exactly the right direction — the character problem underneath the epistemology is what most of these accounts miss.
I want to add something from Plato, though I'll admit there's something a little funny about a guy who has spent twenty years building his own comprehensive Platonic framework jumping in to say Plato has a better answer. I may be exhibit A of what you're describing. Make of that what you will.
What I'd add is that tuphos is really a thymos problem — the spirited part of the psyche — not a failure of reason itself. The intellectual idiot's reasoning hasn't broken down; it's been taken over. What feels like certainty to him is pride and status-protection dressed up as argument. The double-down is the giveaway. Genuine reasoning updates when the evidence changes. Thymos digs in and calls it conviction.
There's an interesting parallel here with the opening of Plato's Republic. Cephalus says justice is a matter of character, and he's right. But he can't say what character actually is, which is why Socrates keeps talking for another nine books sorting it out. Your essay has the same structure: you correctly identify character as the root problem, but the Delphic maxims point toward what character means in practice. "Nothing to excess" is the direct indictment of the inflation you're describing. "Surety is ruin" — eggye, para d'ate — reads like it was written specifically for McNamara. Commit with certainty, and destruction follows.
That's also why the Pyrrhonist cure only goes partway. Suspending judgment keeps the thymos quiet but doesn't put reason in charge. Plato's answer is auto politeia — self-governance — where reason genuinely rules rather than gets dragged along. The full move is what I'd call epistrophe meta sophias — a return to self-knowledge carried out with wisdom rather than just intention. Being able to tell the difference between a reasoned conclusion and a thymic one is harder than it sounds, which is probably why the Cynics kept having to make the same point.
interesting piece. I thought Manson's essay was enjoyable but a little OTT and catoonish (it's based on a video he did on YouTube), yours is much more insightful. Thank you
>>>>“If true, that law is not a minor flaw in scientific reasoning. The law is completely nihilistic. It is a catastrophic logical disproof of the general validity of all scientific method!
“If the purpose of scientific method is to select from among a multitude of hypotheses, and if the number of hypotheses grows faster than experimental method can handle, then it is clear that all hypotheses can never be tested. If all hypotheses cannot be tested, then the results of any experiment are inconclusive and the entire scientific method falls short of its goal of establishing proven knowledge.” (p. 84)
its not quote pro-popper. it actually leads to a more Kuhnian view, I think. I mean, you can't really refute a conjecture because you cant even test a hypothesis of what a refutation is! there are a myriad of possible refutations that could have been, and your 'conjecture' could be pretty much right, but your tool wasn't charged properly, or wtvr.
Every statement refers to things as we believe them to be. It is therefore reasonable to see that the first sign - and clearest symptom - of idiocy is the claim that there is no truth to which any statement can refer. In this sense, the core problem of idiocy lies in the belief that we have found a way to escape it.
Obviously everyone can be an idiot or wrong, not just intellectuals, so it might seem a bit odd to focus on intellectuals, especially when it could be argued that a lot of current day harms are being spread by non-intellectuals, or smart people who talk about things they don't know anything about. Their conceit is perhaps that being smart, knowing nothing, or using platitudes, is the same as knowing everything, and so they don't need to learn. Who knows?
Their slogan might be "we blind you without science" or indeed any examination of how likely it is that their propositions are accurate. I don't know if faith, and keeping to one's identity/opinion, is a good substitute for investigation.
These attitudes. which seem common, then feed into not knowing what nobody knows, not knowing what they don't know, or not being skeptical about what they believe to be the case. At best they appear to have 'directed skepticism' that is little skepticism about their beliefs, but lots of skepticism towards those they disagree with and hold cannot be right, especially 'experts' and 'intellectuals'. That way their skepticism, becomes something like a defense mechanism, possibly protecting them from realising their ignorance.
It is, for example, not experts who don't know how tariffs work, who thought war with Iran could be over in 4 weeks, or who think that pollution is good. Sure the experts can be wrong (economists often seem wrong because they are trying to predict complex systems, and probably because there is a politics of economics), but that does not mean non-experts will always be right or are worth wasting your time over. If I want to know what an insect I have never seen before does, do I go to an expert, or my neighbour for whom all insects are 'bugs'?
It also seems to a bit of a walk from we generally cannot know something with absolute accuracy or certainty, to we cannot ever know if any statement is wrong, or highly improbable.
Intellectuals can behave like this as well. The point is that it is not just 'intellectuals' who are dangerous because they believe crap and are not skeptical.
Intellectual error is correctable. Someone who is simply wrong can be shown the evidence and update. But someone who has fused their theory with their identity and their moral self-image has made themselves correction-proof. That's not an intellectual problem anymore. It's a character problem. And character problems don't respond to better arguments. That's why the idiots keep winning.
Doug, really enjoyed this. Moving from Manson's model critique to Pirsig's law to tuphos is exactly the right direction — the character problem underneath the epistemology is what most of these accounts miss.
I want to add something from Plato, though I'll admit there's something a little funny about a guy who has spent twenty years building his own comprehensive Platonic framework jumping in to say Plato has a better answer. I may be exhibit A of what you're describing. Make of that what you will.
What I'd add is that tuphos is really a thymos problem — the spirited part of the psyche — not a failure of reason itself. The intellectual idiot's reasoning hasn't broken down; it's been taken over. What feels like certainty to him is pride and status-protection dressed up as argument. The double-down is the giveaway. Genuine reasoning updates when the evidence changes. Thymos digs in and calls it conviction.
There's an interesting parallel here with the opening of Plato's Republic. Cephalus says justice is a matter of character, and he's right. But he can't say what character actually is, which is why Socrates keeps talking for another nine books sorting it out. Your essay has the same structure: you correctly identify character as the root problem, but the Delphic maxims point toward what character means in practice. "Nothing to excess" is the direct indictment of the inflation you're describing. "Surety is ruin" — eggye, para d'ate — reads like it was written specifically for McNamara. Commit with certainty, and destruction follows.
That's also why the Pyrrhonist cure only goes partway. Suspending judgment keeps the thymos quiet but doesn't put reason in charge. Plato's answer is auto politeia — self-governance — where reason genuinely rules rather than gets dragged along. The full move is what I'd call epistrophe meta sophias — a return to self-knowledge carried out with wisdom rather than just intention. Being able to tell the difference between a reasoned conclusion and a thymic one is harder than it sounds, which is probably why the Cynics kept having to make the same point.
Yes, conceit would appear to be a thymos problem.
Bravo!
interesting piece. I thought Manson's essay was enjoyable but a little OTT and catoonish (it's based on a video he did on YouTube), yours is much more insightful. Thank you
Good article. Self-deception is a real hazard. Know thyself.
>>>>“If true, that law is not a minor flaw in scientific reasoning. The law is completely nihilistic. It is a catastrophic logical disproof of the general validity of all scientific method!
“If the purpose of scientific method is to select from among a multitude of hypotheses, and if the number of hypotheses grows faster than experimental method can handle, then it is clear that all hypotheses can never be tested. If all hypotheses cannot be tested, then the results of any experiment are inconclusive and the entire scientific method falls short of its goal of establishing proven knowledge.” (p. 84)
its not quote pro-popper. it actually leads to a more Kuhnian view, I think. I mean, you can't really refute a conjecture because you cant even test a hypothesis of what a refutation is! there are a myriad of possible refutations that could have been, and your 'conjecture' could be pretty much right, but your tool wasn't charged properly, or wtvr.
Every statement refers to things as we believe them to be. It is therefore reasonable to see that the first sign - and clearest symptom - of idiocy is the claim that there is no truth to which any statement can refer. In this sense, the core problem of idiocy lies in the belief that we have found a way to escape it.
Obviously everyone can be an idiot or wrong, not just intellectuals, so it might seem a bit odd to focus on intellectuals, especially when it could be argued that a lot of current day harms are being spread by non-intellectuals, or smart people who talk about things they don't know anything about. Their conceit is perhaps that being smart, knowing nothing, or using platitudes, is the same as knowing everything, and so they don't need to learn. Who knows?
Their slogan might be "we blind you without science" or indeed any examination of how likely it is that their propositions are accurate. I don't know if faith, and keeping to one's identity/opinion, is a good substitute for investigation.
These attitudes. which seem common, then feed into not knowing what nobody knows, not knowing what they don't know, or not being skeptical about what they believe to be the case. At best they appear to have 'directed skepticism' that is little skepticism about their beliefs, but lots of skepticism towards those they disagree with and hold cannot be right, especially 'experts' and 'intellectuals'. That way their skepticism, becomes something like a defense mechanism, possibly protecting them from realising their ignorance.
It is, for example, not experts who don't know how tariffs work, who thought war with Iran could be over in 4 weeks, or who think that pollution is good. Sure the experts can be wrong (economists often seem wrong because they are trying to predict complex systems, and probably because there is a politics of economics), but that does not mean non-experts will always be right or are worth wasting your time over. If I want to know what an insect I have never seen before does, do I go to an expert, or my neighbour for whom all insects are 'bugs'?
It also seems to a bit of a walk from we generally cannot know something with absolute accuracy or certainty, to we cannot ever know if any statement is wrong, or highly improbable.
Intellectuals can behave like this as well. The point is that it is not just 'intellectuals' who are dangerous because they believe crap and are not skeptical.
I only clicked on this because of the image of Magnus Pyke, whom we once met at a hotel in the Lake District:-)
Thanks. Although a fan of Pirsig, I believe David Deutsch is leading the current exploration of this topic.