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All of Agnes Callard's Comments + Replies

A reply to Agnes Callard
Agnes Callard70

Yes, good point, thanks for the request for clarification.

I think there is a third kind of rationality, called "communicative rationality"

See this tweet: https://twitter.com/AgnesCallard/status/1276531044024451073?s=20

(and also my replies to questions therein)

I think there is such a thing as "communicating well" where "well" picks out internal norms of communication (not, e.g. in such a way as to conduce instrumentally to my interests or to my having truer beliefs--bc it could happen that lying to you serves either of those en... (read more)

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Raemon100

So I do think it makes sense to have philosopher societies where the focus is on sharing information in such a way that we jointly converge on the truth (I'm not sure if this is quite the same thing you're getting at with communicative rationality.). And I think there is benefit to trying to get broader society to adopt more truthseeking styles of communication, which includes more reasoned arguments on the margin.

But, this doesn't imply that it's always the right thing to do, when interacting with people who don't share your truthseeking principles. (for

... (read more)
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A reply to Agnes Callard
Agnes Callard180

I think if you disagree with what someone thinks, or plans to do, the rational response is an argument to persuade them that they are wrong. (This is true irrespectively of whether they were, themselves, arguing, and it goes for the fruit-seller, the wrestler, etc. too.)

Of course if what you want is to acquire fruit from someone or defeat them in wrestling--as opposed to showing them that they are wrong--then you should not use argument, but money/force.

This has led me to ponder the following question:

What is the difference between trying to persuade some... (read more)

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7Vaniver
You're welcome, and I'm curious to see what you end up thinking here. As pointed out by Raemon in a sibling comment, here I think we want to start using a more precise word than "rational." [Up until this point, I think I've been using "engage rationally" in a 'standard' way instead of in a 'Less Wrong specific way'.] I'm going to say the 'argumentative' response is an 'argument to persuade them that they are wrong', and agree that purely argumentative responses are important for communicative rationality. The thing that's good about argumentative responses (as opposed to, say, purely persuasive ones) is that they attempt to be weaker when the claims they favor are not true than when they are true; and this helps us sort our beliefs and end up with truer ones. I think for many disagreements, however, I want to do a thing that doesn't quite feel like argumentation; I want to appeal to reality. This involves two steps: first, an 'argument' over what observations imply about our beliefs, and second, an observation of reality that then shifts our beliefs. The first is an argument, and we do actually have to agree on the relationship between observations and beliefs for the second step to do anything useful. This doesn't help us establish logical truths, or things that would be true in any world, except indirectly; what it does help us do is establish empirical truths, or things that are true in our world (but could be false in others). Imagine a portal across universes that allows us to communicate with aliens who live under different physics than we do; it would be a tremendous surprise for our mathematicians and their mathematicians to disagree, whereas our chemists and their chemists disagreeing wouldn't be surprising at all. I think that the wrestling match falls into this category; if a rival claims "I could out-wrestle Plato", then while Plato could respond with theories of wrestling and other logic, the quickest path to truth seems to be Plato responding with
7Zvi
Let's give that account a shot. This seems to me like it's "action to improve accuracy of target's map" vs. "action on both map and territory" with the strange case being "action to decrease the accuracy of the target's map". An agent/person is considering whether to take some action. That action will have consequences, and various justifications other than its consequences for taking or not taking the action. The agent/person also has a map, which includes both what they believe those consequences would be, and what other reasons exist for taking or not taking that action and how much weight each of these things should carry. Suppose we wish to prevent this action from taking place. We have two basic approaches here: We can act upon their map alone, or we can act upon the territory and use this to change their map. When we engage in a philosophical or other argument with them, we're not trying to change what effect the action will have, or change any other considerations. Instead, we are trying to update their map such that they no longer consider the action worthwhile. Perhaps we can get them to adopt new philosophical principles that have this effect. Perhaps we are doing something less abstract, and convincing them that their map of the situation and what actions will cause what consequences is flawed. When we instead try to incentivize them, we do this by changing the consequences of the action, or altering other considerations (e.g. if someone cares about doing that which is endorsed by some authority, moral or otherwise, without regard to their knowledge or future actions, we could still use that as an incentive). We act upon the territory. We change circumstances such that taking action becomes more expensive, or has undesired consequences. This can include the consequence that we will take actions in response. Alternatively, we can improve the results of not taking action (e.g. bribe them, or promise something, or prevent the bad consequences of inact
6Raemon
Probably worth noting that folk on LessWrong may be using the word rationality different than the way it sounds like you're using the word. (This is fine, but it means we need to be careful that we're understanding each other right) The post What Do We Mean By Rationality is a bit old but still roughly captures what most LW-folk mean by the word: I'm not sure what your conception of rationality is. I'm somewhat interested, but I think it might be better to just cut closer to the issue: why is good to rely on reasoned arguments rather than petitions?
A reply to Agnes Callard
Agnes Callard170

Also, if you want to read the NYT oped (sorry abt paywall), I've put the text here:

https://twitter.com/AgnesCallard/status/1277304501133873152?s=20

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A reply to Agnes Callard
Agnes Callard420

Hi, thanks for writing this, someone linked me to it on twitter and I wrote a reply there: https://twitter.com/AgnesCallard/status/1277274771735089152?s=20

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lionhearted (Sebastian Marshall)410

Hi Agnes, I just wanted to say — much respect and regards for logging on to discuss and debate your views.

Regardless if we agree or not (personally, I'm in partial agreement with you) — regardless, if more people would create accounts and engage thoughtfully in different spaces after sharing a viewpoint, the world would be a much better place.

Salutations and welcome.

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Zvi100

This reply seems to be making two arguments:

1. That there is value in having philosophical 'heroes' who only make arguments on philosophical grounds and avoid anything that might look like arguing from authority or enabling of mobs.

2. That a danger is that NYT may lose the autonomy it needs to pursue truth.

I think I'm basically fine with #1, provided those arguments on philosophical grounds get made. Which seems in this case to have happened - you've clearly done more to help than you would have by only singing a petition.

I agree that #... (read more)

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Vaniver*300
I see the central issue--also raised in replies to my tweet--as: if you believe someone's arguing in bad faith, isn't it ok to engage non-rationally w them?

I agree the question "isn't it okay to engage non-rationally w them?" is the central question. I disagree on the first half, though; my main question is: what makes you think the NYT is arguing?

If, say, you put forward your argument for why petitions are bad, and it was broadly ignored, that would be bad; if there were arguments against pseudonyms, and we crushed them rather th... (read more)

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Agnes Callard170

Also, if you want to read the NYT oped (sorry abt paywall), I've put the text here:

https://twitter.com/AgnesCallard/status/1277304501133873152?s=20

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