Traditions contain heavy amounts of inexplicit knowledge—useful information that is difficult to put into words. They should not be easily dismissed “on rational grounds”.

The irony among “rationalists” regarding tradition

“Rationalists are inclined to adopt the attitude: ‘I am not interested in tradition. I want to judge everything on its own merits; I want to find out its merits and demerits, and I want to do this quite independently of any tradition. I want to judge it with my own brain, and not with the brains of other people who lived long ago.’

That the matter is not quite so simple as this attitude assumes emerges from the fact that the rationalist that says such things is himself very much bound by a rationalist tradition which traditionally says them.”

— Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge

Critical vs. uncritical attitudes towards tradition

“It should be clearly understood that there are only two main attitudes possible towards tradition. One is to accept a tradition uncritically, often without even being aware of it. In many cases we cannot escape this; for we often just do not realize that we are faced with a tradition. If I wear my watch on my left wrist, I need not be conscious that I am accepting a tradition. Every day we do hundreds of things under the influence of traditions of which we are unaware. But if we do not know that we are acting under the influence of a tradition, then we cannot help accepting the tradition uncritically.

The other possibility is a critical attitude, which may result either in acceptance or in rejection, or perhaps in a compromise. Yet we have to know of and to understand a tradition before we can criticize it, before we can say: 'We reject this tradition on rational grounds.' Now I do not think that we could ever free ourselves entirely from the bonds of tradition. The so-called freeing is really only a change from one tradition to another. But we can free ourselves from the taboos of a tradition; and we can do that not only by rejecting it, but also by critically accepting it. We free ourselves from the taboo if we think about it, and if we ask ourselves whether we should accept it or reject it. In order to do that we have first to have the tradition clearly before us, and we have to understand in a general way what may be the function and significance of a tradition. That is why it is so important for rationalists to deal with this problem, for rationalists are those people who are ready to challenge and to criticize everything, including, I hope, their own tradition. They are ready to put question-marks to anything, at least in their minds. They will not submit blindly to any tradition.”

— Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge

Neither revere nor revile… This is the attitude of critical rationalism.

“We must therefore neither revere nor revile religion as such, or philosophy as such. Rather, we must evaluate religious and philosophical ideas with critical and selective minds. The terrifying power of ideas burdens all of us with grave responsibilities. We must not accept or refuse them unthinkingly. We must judge them critically.”

— Karl Popper, The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality

The Amazing Things & Ideas List

1. A moral obligation to be optimistic:

“Optimists don’t shun problems. Optimism is about embracing problems because it’s problems that make solutions and solutions that make problems.”

— Kevin Kelly

In this TED talk, the case is made for rational optimism. On why we should embrace problems and create the future we want:

2. How to reject debates that aren’t worth your time while remaining open to criticism:

Which debates I should participate in is itself a thing that should be open to debate. Being open to debate doesn’t mean I should participate in every debate. It means I should have policies that are pretty favorable to debating, which are designed with anti-bias mechanisms like transparency, and designed with anti-error failsafes.

— Elliot Temple

Article recommendation: Debate, Rejection, Priorities and Endless Meta Levels

3. Tony Robbins on realizing agency:

“If you don’t like your present address, change it. You’re not a tree.” — Tony Robbins, The Art of Exceptional Living

4. Find yourself Intellectual Sparring Partners:

One common trait of winners: They don’t mind being wrong if it means they are getting closer to the truth. This leads them to seek out people who are willing and able to push their thinking in new directions and to greater depths. These are Intellectual Sparring Partners.

— Sahil Bloom

Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom

Intellectual Sparring Partners are a cheat code for life. These are the people with whom you share intellectual chemistry—you *enjoy* disagreements with them. They will call you on your BS, question your assumptions, and push you to think deeply. Find yours and cherish them.

1:47 PM ∙ Dec 19, 2022

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New post from my blog

– Some questions (#185):

Why is gravity still considered a force when it is known since the 1910s that gravity is just a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime?

+4 more…

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Arjun

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