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Epistemic legibility: being easy to argue with is a virtue

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Re: Epistemic legibility: being easy to argue with is a virtue

#61

Post by sitta »

I did an "epistemic spot check" of the section on Against the Grain, which caught my eye because I just finished reading the chapter on state formation in The Dawn of Everything. Result: It was indeed legible but was oddly false.

I could not find the "well accepted definition" of the state they sourced from Wikipedia [1]. They give the impression that there is an overwhelming consensus as to what the definition is, whereas the Wikipedia page actually states throughout "there is no undisputed definition of a state", "there is no academic consensus on the definition of the state", and provides multiple different definitions. I have not read Against the Grain, but it seems entirely reasonable for the author to offer their own definition, though it sounds like they could have been more forth coming with it.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(polity)

Re: Epistemic legibility: being easy to argue with is a virtue

#62

Post by nextaccountic »

adfgadfgaery wrote: post #30
awb wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I see examples of people demanding citations for reasoning that is part of a work, of people just not understanding something, or of only really being able to blindly follow based on province or authority without trying to reconcile back to what they know. That’s a tricky one for me because I see a lot of utility in asking for sources: a) Curiosity. Maybe I really want to know how this person came to believe what t…

I think you misunderstand OP. The purpose of citations is to prove facts. The argument made based on those facts does not need a citation. Much of the time it isn't fair to ask for citations even for specific facts, but that's a separate problem.

> I think you misunderstand OP. The purpose of citations is to prove facts.

Those cases are covered by b)

But the person you're replying to pointed out other, non-adversarial reasons to ask for citations (which depending on the tone of the question, may be misinterpreted)

Re: Epistemic legibility: being easy to argue with is a virtue

#63

Post by slibhb »

robbedpeter wrote: post #55
slibhb wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're talking about a list of facts concerning Egypt then I'd agree. But history isn't a list of facts. If it was it would be unreadable. All histories have a narrative (and usually other things, like a political philosophy and a sense of morality). Against the Grain is an obvious example of that. The author here is trying to reduce Against the Grain to a list of verifiable facts and finds that this is very hard.…

I think we need to define history - you seem to be operating from the definition as a narrative anchored to a list of facts, but I consider history to be the collection of facts of themselves, from which narratives can be derived. If the narrative is bounded by the limits of the facts (dates, correlated recording, carbon dating, artifacts, etc.) then the resulting narrative lacks the potential for inaccuracies. If hi…

> I think we need to define history - you seem to be operating from the definition as a narrative anchored to a list of facts, but I consider history to be the collection of facts of themselves, from which narratives can be derived.

But historians don't write down lists of facts. I think you'll find, as the author does, that if you try to extract from a work of history a list of facts, you're going to end up with things that are highly debatable. Some of these things will be moral judgements, some will be assertions about human psychology and motivations, some will be implicit metaphysical beliefs. It might be worthwhile to write all this down but historians won't do it voluntarily because many of these things are embarrassing to admit.

I would say that sophisticated readers of history already have a somewhat Bayesian perspective. They implicitly attach probabilities to historical narratives and update those probabilities as new information arises. It's not rigorous but it seems crazy to me to expect that it could be made rigorous.

I don't agree with your dismissal of old Egyptology. I think you're buying into an Edward Said/postcolonialism narrative that is terribly flawed. I also don't think you can easily label historical narratives as "anti-bayesian" or obviously wrong. I think Holocause denial is obviously wrong but it's not on the same level as flat-earth.

Re: Epistemic legibility: being easy to argue with is a virtue

#64

Post by mannykannot »

bthallplz wrote: post #47
version_five wrote: post #7

I didn't see it mentioned, I think I "epistemic literacy" is the other side of the coin. I see examples of people demanding citations for reasoning that is part of a work, of people just not understanding something, or of only really being able to blindly follow based on province or authority without trying to reconcile back to what they know. If there is going to be a standard for legibility, there should be one for…

Early in college I got the sense from some professors (likely English professors) that I, a student, couldn't be trusted to just state something in a paper. Instead, I was supposed to find an instance of someone else writing that same idea somewhere and quote and cite them. I was pretty relieved when I got to Philosophy, where no one gave a damn about anything but the argument.

I can sort-of see how that might come about, if the purpose of the philosophy class was to practice making arguments, using philosophy merely as providing something to argue about, but one thing I have learned about it (and most other things, for that matter) is that if you don't find out if your idea has been floated before (spoiler: it has, at least if it has any merit), and, most importantly, what responses have already been made, the class will spend all its time splashing around in the well-stirred shallows.

At first, it seems odd to me that your English professors acted in the manner you describe, but I guess most of them have chosen to ride the criticism wagon, rather than the creative one.

Re: Epistemic legibility: being easy to argue with is a virtue

#65

Post by Rzor »

yboris wrote: post #23

Any time I heard "epistemic" I am reminded of the stellar paper "In Praise of Epistemic Irresponsibility: How Lazy and Ignorant Can You Be?" by Michael Bishop Arguing that in numerous settings, even crude simple linear mathematical models outperform experts in a variety of tasks. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20118248

Couldn't find anywhere else, but here's a link: https://philpapers.org/rec/BISIPO. Posted earlier by you.

Re: Epistemic legibility: being easy to argue with is a virtue

#66

Post by DiggyJohnson »

ganzuul wrote: post #18
khafra wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falsifiability is about grounding out in an experiment that can be performed. Epistemic legibility is a generalization of the concept, where the arguer highlights the cruxes of potential disagreement, and points to whatever evidence they feel is convincing--whether that's experiments you can replicate, official records, expert opinions, or their own introspection.

Ah, refutable.

This sort of arrogant, unapproachable response is exactly what the article is addressing. You are giving no space, no consideration at all, of someone disagreeing with you.

Re: Epistemic legibility: being easy to argue with is a virtue

#67

Post by ganzuul »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #66
ganzuul wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, refutable.

This sort of arrogant, unapproachable response is exactly what the article is addressing. You are giving no space, no consideration at all, of someone disagreeing with you.

What exactly do you think you are doing right now then?

Re: Epistemic legibility: being easy to argue with is a virtue

#68

Post by khafra »

ganzuul wrote: post #18
khafra wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Falsifiability is about grounding out in an experiment that can be performed. Epistemic legibility is a generalization of the concept, where the arguer highlights the cruxes of potential disagreement, and points to whatever evidence they feel is convincing--whether that's experiments you can replicate, official records, expert opinions, or their own introspection.

Ah, refutable.

"Refutability" is a more general concept than epistemic legibility, in my opinion. One can (at least attempt) to refute abject nonsense that doesn't actually mean anything by saying "that's abject nonsense, that doesn't actually mean anything."

Other arguments might depend on facts about the world, but attempt to hide those dependencies. A Gish Gallop is one such form of argument. These can be refuted, but the interlocutor has to do a lot of work to highlight the factual errors, and the reasons that the argument depends on them.

An epistemically legible argument does that part of the work for the other party, so the only thing they must do is show which premises are wrong, or which logical dependencies are invalid.

The pre-existing term I've heard that comes closest is the term with the opposite meaning, "Logical Rudeness." https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4317660/suber_ru...

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