forum 5: week of 6 Feb. Hawthorne and lotteries

Fragment of a discussion from Course talk:Phil440A

Having gone over the paper again tonight, I cannot help but still be almost entirely befuddled what the authors are trying to say. Either their thesis is horribly complex, and I do not understand any it of. Or (more likely) they have taken obfuscation to a completely new level. Sometimes, when I read their paper, I get the eerie impression that their veneer of semantic acrobatics hides a pretty simple truism about science. You do not know what you do not know. Do you do not know what you do not believe, etc. If that were the case, it's just basic epistemology. They could have done just as well with a venn diagram showing beliefs, truth, and knowledge.

Edward05:33, 8 March 2012