A conjecture in science is the same way. It can be dismissed without evidence, that doesn’t mean it is automatically false or insignificant. Notice the quote says CAN be dismissed without evidence not MUST be dismissed due to lack of evidence — khaled

And here we get into the meaning of CAN and then the human use of this razor. I think it's a poor razor because it can often be good to explore what might be entailed by an axiom. If you had a research team and one proposed an axiom: there is much intelligent life on other planets in the galaxy. And wanted to use this as a starting point for, let's say, we dont' see evidence, yet, of that. To work with that axiom and then have a discussion. Then one of the other scientists says. I CAN dismiss that assumption without evidence and I am and won't participate, they are blocking something. Might be a dead, might not be, but that person is using a contextless heuristic just justify behavior that can be counterproductive. The DISMISS is also so often taken to mean, decide is false. That perfhaps in not the fault of the razor, but I've seen it used that way enough to think this razor is a blunt and problematic heuristic at least as worded.

Now we could say that dismissive scientist in my above example is using the razor poorly. Or perhaps we could find an example where we would agree it is a poor use, but still think that since it says CAN it's fine. One can. But the problem for me is that I think the razor reinforces a tendency to think that there are two options, agree or disagree, accept or dismiss, rather than includling be agnostic (here I mean this broadly or metaphorically as not deciding (yet)) or take on for the sake of argument or thought experiment or 'see where this is going'.

It seems to me it gets used in a lot of situations where one actually means something like 'I have no reason to be convinced'. As if a final treatise had been handed in and found wanting, rather than that an unfolding discussion was taking place. This may be a failing of humans rather than the razor, but then it seems to me the razor's meant to be used by humans and I am not sure it is helping. Perhaps it would work pefectly well with the sapient lizard species on Kepler 452b, but I am not sure it is helping us here with we terrestrial primates.

In partial agreement with you but there's one area of philosophical argumentation that Hitchen's Razor is extremely useful viz. the issue with burden of proof. I'm familiar with it from the God debate (theism/atheism). — TheMadFool

In terms of epistemology, i.e. when defining knowledge as a justified (true) belief, the appropriate procedure is a bit less trivial than just asking for "burden of proof". If we define an epistemic domain as the collection of knowledge claims that can be investigated using a particular knowledge-justification method, then the procedure goes as follows:

[1] What epistemic domain does the question actually belong to, the main epistemic domains being axiomatic, scientific-falsificationist, and historical ?

[2] Is the question within reach of its knowledge-justification method?

[3] Ok, if yes, only now try to solve the question by using the knowledge-justification method that applies to it.

With [1] the biggest problem is that most people, obviously including Hitchens, are simply not aware of the existence of different non-overlapping epistemic domains. They seem to assume that there is only one epistemic domain, namely, science.

Scientism is an ideology that promotes science as the only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values. The term scientism is generally used critically, pointing to the cosmetic application of science in unwarranted situations not amenable to application of the scientific method or similar scientific standards.

People like Hitchens, who clearly suffer from scientism, think that they are smart, while they are incredibly stupid. That is the result of the Dunning-Kruger effect:

In the field of psychology, the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people mistakenly assess their cognitive ability as greater than it is. It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, people cannot objectively evaluate their competence or incompetence.

Of course, people like Hitchens would not dare to misplace the axiom of infinity in the scientifc-falsificationist domain, and insist on a simplistic "burden of proof" for it, but they are definitely bold enough to do that with religion.

Step [2] is whether the question is actually decidable by its knowledge-justification method. In the 1930ies, enormous progress was made in the realm of decidability, simply because David Hilbert asked the entire field of mathematics to work on his Entscheidungsproblem, i.e. the Decidability Problem. It is the combination of Kurt Gödel's, Alan Turing's, and Alonzo Church's work that yields the Church-Turing thesis. As you can imagine, most questions are actually not decidable. So, nowadays we have that enormous field of computability (=decidability) the existence of which people like Hitchens are not even aware.

Hitchens regularly said things that already in the 19th century were considered to be stupid. He was so ignorant.

Concerning [3], even if the question is decidable, it could still take 350 years to finally solve Fermat's Last Theorem. Hitchens, on the other hand, always had an answer ready within ten seconds. In his mind, difficult questions did not exist, because he was always sure that he knew the answer, even when he didn't.

With [1] the biggest problem is that most people, obviously including Hitchens, are simply not aware of the existence of different non-overlapping epistemic domains. They seem to assume that there is only one epistemic domain, namely, science — alcontali

Do you think this is because people are dumb? Or is it because science has proven itself to be, in Matrix terminology, The One?

Yet it could be said that we're under a magical spell, completely mesmerized by science and unable to think beyond it.

I guess you're putting science on trial here so let me put in a few kind words in its favor.

Science is empirical, observable, verifiable and rational. As you can see it fulfills two basic criteria of what could be called intelligence standards:

1. Observable therefore verifiable
2. Rational

I don't know of any other field that is so structured.

The razors aren't axioms in a formal deductive system, as others have pointed out.
They're rules (of thumb) on par with the asserted.
If assertions are intended to persuade, then you'd want relevant justifications, yes?
I'll venture to guess that most occasionally go by the razors, whether intuitively, implicitly or explicitly.

Formal axiomatic systems go by provisional axioms.
It just so happens that some such systems have been rather useful/successful, otherwise we wouldn't have kept them around.

Therefore, Hitchens' approach in which he arbitrarily rejects starting points, is just a cheap slogan that he could use and abuse to reject pretty much any knowledge claim. The late, dead Hitchens was a rhetorical attack dog, with a strong emphasis on the word "dog". May his carcass rot in hell. — alcontali

It is just that I do not like people like Hitchens, whose only goal in life is to discredit and otherwise viciously attack other people. Hitchens was a cherished accomplice of Satan. Richard Stallman said about Steve Jobs: "I am not glad that he is dead but I am glad that he is gone." About Hitchens, I rather abbreviate all of that to "dead and gone", and we wouldn't want it any other way. — alcontali

What nonsense. :roll:
If your "poor victims" didn't preach indoctrinate proselytize mutually inconsistent superstitions day in and day out, then there wouldn't be a whole lot of Hitchens'ses around to disabuse those postulates.
And without those (initial) postulates there wouldn't be much to discuss in the first place (they carry the onus probandi).

f your "poor victims" didn't preach indoctrinate proselytize mutually inconsistent superstitions day in and day out, then there wouldn't be a whole lot of Hitchens'ses around to disabuse those postulates. — jorndoe

Hitchens is like someone who goes through life claiming that he does not like to play or watch tennis. Fine, I should say: then play or watch cricket, or whatever. But no, that is not what Hitchens wants, because he declares himself to be a believer in non-tennis. So, what are tennis aficionados supposed to say to Mr. "non-tennis" Hitchens, besides: "Why don't you get a life?"

Hitchens was just someone that called out all the mutually inconsistent preachers indoctrinators proselytizers on their elaborate superstitions.
And this stercus is your response, @alcontali? :) Won't do.
Hey, let's have another Hitchens challenging them all.

If assertions are intended to persuade, then you'd want relevant justifications, yes?
I'll venture to guess that most occasionally go by the razors, whether intuitively, implicitly or explicitly.

What I said was in the context of, and stimulated (caused?) by TheMadFool's Latin quote. It directed me down a particular thought-path.

Generally, I am very tolerant of unproven, evidence-free statements--Not because I believe everything I hear, but as you said, "because it can lead to fruitful lines of thinking".

There is no reason to dismiss claims that do not have evidence. — Coben

Claims or conjectures? A claim without evidence seems eminently rejectable. A conjecture without evidence, maybe...but a conjecture without context? (A context will consist in some observations that have been used to construct it surely?).

If you had a research team and one proposed an axiom: there is much intelligent life on other planets in the galaxy. — Coben

I would not see that as an axiom, but as a conjecture or a possibility to be explored. Say planets have been discovered and observed. Perhaps they fit certain criteria of similarity to our own. Our own planet has life, so that fact coupled with observed similarities to our own might provide reason to conjecture about, or consider that there is a possibility of, life on that planet. Axiom? No!

Mathematics does not make any claim as to usefulness or meaningfulness. That is so by design. — alcontali

And it is not fundamentally useful or meaningful. The mathematics that are, are the ones that start with axioms supported by evidence.

Say religion and science are, to quote Stephen Jay Gould, "non-overlapping magisteria": if scientists make pronouncements about religious ideas, or the religious make metaphysical claims in quasi-scientific (fundamentalist) terms, then they are committing category errors, making inapt claims, no?

It is not the business of religions to make factual claims at all, as far as I can see. They may make claims concerning value, but these should not be claims about value simpliciter, they should be claims about what we ought to value grounded in further claims of traditional workability and benefit. In other words a religion can only justify its ethical principles, if at all, in terms of its actual fruits.

The further point is that religions do not need to justify themselves at all; people who believe in religions are not looking for justification, but something else. This is what the idiot, Hitchens, completely failed to understand. But there are plenty of religious fundamentalist idiots on the opposite side who also fail to understand.

Say religion and science are, to quote Stephen Jay Gould, "non-overlapping magisteria": if scientists make pronouncements about religious ideas, or the religious make metaphysical claims in quasi-scientific (fundamentalist) terms, then they are committing category errors, making inapt claims, no? — Janus

Yes, a "category error" is an "epistemic error".

You know, there is an entire field in mathematics, called category theory. Just like epistemology, which is about "knowledge arrows", i.e. the justifying links between a statement and the statement from which it can be justified, category theory is also about arrows.

Now, these arrows are also called morphisms, which are incredibly powerful tools.

However, unlike in epistemology, these category-theory morphisms/arrows are not necessarily used to justify one statement from another. On the contrary, they usually just happen to be there. No need to painstakingly "discover" them. On the contrary, they will often (but not always) just be rubbed into your face, without even asking for that.

So, while epistemology is exclusively about knowledge-justification arrows, category theory is about any kind of arrow, on the condition that the situation can somehow be axiomatized. Epistemology, on the other hand, does not try to shoehorn itself into an axiomatic system. It just seeks to discover interesting methodological patterns in the existing world of knowledge.

This is what the idiot, Hitchens, completely failed to understand. — Janus

Yes, agreed. Hitchens was making money out of annoying other people, because doing so, pleases a particular crowd that likes to upset them. Hitchens was just an arsehole.

Hitchens was just an arsehole. — alcontali

He's quite eloquent and does well in debates. I don't recall him having to run from the law except the possibility of the Ayatollah issuing a fatwa.

His challenge to the religious establishment is genuine and well-reasoned. He doesn't discriminate between faiths like the faithful themselves are guilty of.

Anyway, so you do think that Hitchens' Razor isn't justified in ALL circumstances. Ok

He's quite eloquent and does well in debates. I don't recall him having to run from the law except the possibility of the Ayatollah issuing a fatwa. — TheMadFool

It is rather the Papacy who would send out an Exsurge Domine, but in Hitchens' case, what he said was clearly not considered interesting enough to even make time to react.

You see, you have to really know what you are talking about before you can make people angry. You would have to say things like this:


It is a heretical opinion, but a common one, that the sacraments of the New Law give pardoning grace to those who do not set up an obstacle.


Or this, because it is thinly veiled criticism on burning Jan Hus at the stake:


It seems to have been decided that the Church in common Council established that the laity should communicate under both species; the Bohemians who communicate under both species are not heretics, but schismatics.


This must have really made the Papacy mad like hell:


Christians must be taught to cherish excommunications rather than to fear them.


In the following "error", our beloved Augustinian heretic, Martin Luther, even (accidentally?) insinuates that a particular verse in the Bible must be a forgery. Over time, it had become obvious that it was James the Just, Jesus' brother, who had been appointed as successor to lead the congregration of the poor, and not Peter:


The Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, is not the vicar of Christ over all the churches of the entire world, instituted by Christ Himself in blessed Peter.


Furthermore, the Holy Sees of Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Constantinople had never recognized the Roman Pontiff as "vicar of Christ over all the churches". The views of the Papacy were even contrary to the resolutions of the first council of Nicaea. Of course, you are not supposed to say that kind of things about your boss, if you are in paid employ as a staff member of his organization.

His challenge to the religious establishment is genuine and well-reasoned. He doesn't discriminate between faiths like the faithful themselves are guilty of. — TheMadFool

No, the religious establishment would never give a flying fart about what someone like Hitchens says. If you want to discredit them, you really have to know what you are talking about, which Hitchens clearly didn't. It is the same in Islam. They'd just brush Hitchens off as irrelevant babble. Seriously, there is nothing heretical about what Hitchens said, simply, because he was just not capable of doing that.

good point about claims vs. conjectures. I think I was responding to someone using the word conjectures and should have stuck with it.

A conjecture without evidence, maybe...but a conjecture without context? (A context will consist in some observations that have been used to construct it surely?). — Janus

The word 'context' is very general. I don't think there needs to be any evidence it is the case or observations that somehow lead one to believe the conjecture is true. I would assume that any intelligible statement/conjecture would be within some already mapped out area of knowledge. And that area of knowledge would include observations, but none of them need indicate the conjecture is true. But then, that would be evidence.

There are apologists making fair $$$s on catering to adherents (a bit like earning off confirming their biases). Those folk also arrange talks, debates and whatnot, often with a price tag for participants.

Also, when was the when was the last time you heard a priest/imam/puja (or even parent) conclude a sermon with "Oh, by the way, we don't know"? (That might actually be considered blasphemy.) :)

Out in real life, the preached-indoctrinated-proselytized is typically presented (implicitly or explicitly) as the be-all-end-all truth of it all. In general, with elaborate, mutually inconsistent messages, allegedly of the utmost importance for all man-kind (all genders).

This sort of thing goes further still.

Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them. — https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater

Not just fundamentalists.

Suggest you good folk take Gouldean magisteria — and that evidence is irrelevant — to the streets and the apologists. Until then let's have some more Hitchens'ses around (that you can ad hominem at here on The Philosophy Forum). (y)

If assertions are intended to persuade, then you'd want relevant justifications, yes? — jorndoe

Never heard of rhetoric, eh?

The word 'context' is very general. I don't think there needs to be any evidence it is the case or observations that somehow lead one to believe the conjecture is true. I would assume that any intelligible statement/conjecture would be within some already mapped out area of knowledge. And that area of knowledge would include observations, but none of them need indicate the conjecture is true. But then, that would be evidence. — Coben

What I meant was that there should be a context which renders conjectures to be sensible, not merely arbitrary or logical possibilities. And as you say I agree that "intelligible statements/ conjectures would usually be in some existing domain of knowledge, which includes observations. I also agree that none of those observation need indicate that the conjecture is true; in fact if they did it would not be, or would no longer be, a conjecture. But I don';t see that the conjecture making sense within a domain of knowledge would be evidence for the truth of the conjecture, if that is what you meant.

No, and this last post made it clearer to me what you meant. No, it making sense need not be evidence. I would urge caution, at this very abstract level, of thinking that 'making sense' will always be easy to determine. There could be biases and assumptions involved in that determination. There should be some, at least slight, grip on the semantics of the conjecture, but we know from some things that have turned out to be true, they would have sounded like nonsense before the confirmational results later started coming in. So, making sense in the sense of being intelligible, but not making sense in the sense of fitting common sense or current models or even not being paradoxical and so on. And even teasing these two types of 'making sense' into discrete categories might be hard. I suppose I am thinking of physics mostly, but there may very well be similar types of nevertheless useful conjectures in other fields as well.

I think we agree on Hitchens' razor or may be not.

How about a compromise:

Hitchens' razor is applicable in those cases where a conjecture is claimed to be true. If a particular claim is considered only as a conjecture Hitchens' razor doesn't apply. The moment such "guesses" are said to be true we can use Hithcens' razor.

One certainly can, and many do, but there's no reason to have it as a habit. One might even find, even after a few seconds, but perhaps much later, that there is something to it. Or that exploring it leads to something that is useful.

Hitchens' razor is applicable in those cases where a conjecture is claimed to be true. — TheMadFool

I don't think that there are any epistemic knowledge-justification methods that claim that anything is correspondence-theory "true".

Mathematics merely decides if a claim is provable from the construction logic of an abstract, Platonic world. Science merely decides that a claim is testable awaiting its ultimate falsification. History merely decides that it is possible to corroborate witness depositions for a particular alleged fact.

In my impression, there is no knowledge-justification method that allows you to decide if a claim is correspondence-theory "true" or not. They are merely provable, testable, or "corroborable".

In fact, it is not possible to prove anything about the real, physical world.

Scientific Proof Is A Myth. Science can do a whole lot of things, but proving a scientific theory is still an impossibility.

There's No Such Thing As Proof In The Scientific World - There's Only Evidence. “Proof” implies that there is no room for error — that you can be 100% sure that what you have written down on the piece of paper is 100% representative of what you are talking about.. And quite simply, that doesn’t exist in the real world. You cannot prove anything.

Furthermore, a belief does not need to be epistemically justified in order to be correspondence-theory "true". Most beliefs actually aren't (formally) justified. Knowledge is just a relatively small subset of what we believe, and rationality is merely one of the several mental faculties that people use.

As far as I am concerned, the default status of a hypothesis is not that it is false until proven otherwise, or something like that. No, I start by accepting the claim, and then I interrogate it, until I finally discover the reason why it is inconsistent. As long as this reason cannot be found, I consider the hypothesis to be legitimate.

That is exactly what the police does when they interrogate a suspect. Everything the suspect says, is considered true, until the suspect starts saying the opposite of what he previously has said. The trick consists in making the suspect reveal an increasingly large number of nitty-gritty details in what he says, because that makes it exponentially harder for him to keep any lies afloat. If ultimately, after lengthy interrogations, no inconsistency can be discovered, then the police will choose to believe what the suspect has said.

Hitchen's razor, however, would obviously not work. The police would get absolutely nowhere with their investigations, if they used it.

Hitchen's razor, however, would obviously not work. The police would get absolutely nowhere with their investigations, if they used it. — alcontali

Well, it is fundamentally anti-investigatory and hasty. Now or never, and it takes oneself out of the equation also. I encounter idea X. Person who has idea X does not present me with evidence. I dismiss. (or 'can' as people keep pointing out as if the real life use of the razor was via this modal verb). I encounter. I demand evidence or note the lack. I dismiss. I do not interact. I do not probe. I do not see where it might lead me. I do not see if I have any evidence or a frame in which it might add something. I do not black box. I do not tease out. I close a door.

How unlike a good learning heuristic that is.

Of course there are moments for such a reaction. But, again, how unlike a good learning heuristic it is.

I would urge caution, at this very abstract level, of thinking that 'making sense' will always be easy to determine. — Coben

By "sensible" I just meant something relevant to the context; i.e. the domain of inquiry and the observations and tests that have already been done, and so on.

ok

No, I start by accepting the claim, and then I interrogate it, until I finally discover the reason why it is inconsistent. As long as this reason cannot be found, I consider the hypothesis to be legitimate. — alcontali

I think that's the scientific/logical/mathematical method right there.

What I find relevant in your post is that you don't accept that a conjecture is true. You only assume it is. It's just a weaker version of Hitchens' razor isn't it?

What I find relevant in your post is that you don't accept that a conjecture is true. You only assume it is. It's just a weaker version of Hitchens' razor isn't it? — TheMadFool

Well, it is not a version of Hitchens' razor, because unlike him, I do not reject the hypothetical statement. In order to reject it, I first need a "witness" testifying to its inconsistency.

Mathematical witness. For example, a theory T of arithmetic is said to be inconsistent if there exists a proof in T of the formula "0 = 1". The formula I(T), which says that T is inconsistent, is thus an existential formula. A witness for the inconsistency of T is a particular proof of "0 = 1" in T.

What Hitchens does, is pretty much the opposite.

He wants witness(es) to the wholesale consistency of the hypothetical statement, because he somehow believes such witnesses would somehow prove its consistency. That view is obviously misguided. Unlike witnesses testifying to inconsistency, witnesses testifying to consistency do not prove anything.

The false belief in the existence of proof about the real, physical world is a very common error. It is even a fixture in the widespread "burden of proof" nonsense. If knowledge statements about the real, physical world required proof, then we would have no knowledge at all about the real, physical world.

Well, it is not a version of Hitchens' razor, because unlike him, I do not reject the hypothetical statement. In order to reject it, I first need a "witness" testifying to its inconsistency. — alcontali

Well, you do suspend belief until the conjecture is proven. If you don't do that then you'd be believing anything and everything which I hope is not what you want.

If you agree with me so far then all Hithchens' razor does is reject the truth of a conjecture on the grounds that it's unproven. If there is proof then Hitchens' razor would be inapplicable.

Well, you do suspend belief until the conjecture is proven. — TheMadFool

How long can an arbitrary stream of language expressions continue before it contradicts itself? In my experience, not very long. That is why I will not easily say, "I do not believe you". My knee-jerk reaction is rather: "Please, go on."

So, no, it is not suspension of belief. I will certainly be in doubt, but not in disbelief. Doubt is rather some kind of indecisiveness. Doubt and disbelief are quite different from each other.

People get pissed off if you disbelieve them for no good reason at all, and they are actually right, because there is not even a need for that.

If you don't do that then you'd be believing anything and everything which I hope is not what you want. — TheMadFool

Both reality and Platonic worlds have an incredible amount of often even unexpected structure. Fitting a lie into these elaborate structures, is really, really hard. I just wait until it goes wrong.

How long can an arbitrary stream of language expressions continue before it contradicts itself? In my experience, not very long. That is why I will not easily say, "I do not believe you". My knee-jerk reaction is rather: "Please, go on."

So, no, it is not suspension of belief. I will certainly be in doubt, but not in disbelief. Doubt is rather some kind of indecisiveness. Doubt and disbelief are quite different from each other.

People get pissed off if you disbelieve them for no good reason at all, and they are actually right, because there is not even a need for that. — alcontali

And here we see a process unfolding over some period of time.

Other models, such as the one I think implicit in the Hitchen's razor, are very precipitous. Notice the assertion. Demand evidence. Upon judging this lacking dismiss. Notice also that any evidence would seem to be verbal or immediately experiential. A link to a paper, the paper itself, some kind of immediate pointing. Not a process that might take some longer period of time. Nothing with a large experiential component. No longer discussion that might lead to experiences or attitudes that might lead to experiences. Meet, assertion, produce or not, decide. A kind of assembly line of rapid decisions.

Of course anyone should be free to do this. Maybe there's a newborn in the family or they don't like the person asserting, or they are tired or their gut feeling is they'd rather have some other conjecture to mull over. Fine.

But it's, then, a razor that really one need not have. That's all self-care and self-guidance. If one needs that razor to back up such choice in situ there's a deeper problem.

How long can an arbitrary stream of language expressions continue before it contradicts itself? In my experience, not very long. That is why I will not easily say, "I do not believe you". My knee-jerk reaction is rather: "Please, go on." — alcontali

Hitchens' razor: Prove it and say it.

You: Say it but prove it

I guess there's a very important aspect of rationality I'm not understanding.

I don't know. I think Hitchens' razor is for people like me who don't think before they speak and now you seem to be a very nice guy. :joke: