The Scandal of the Framework

by Automatthew

The Plan

We begin with a Fable with a Cryptic Moral which runs headlong into an Infinite Slope. The slope drops us into Jam, both Tomorrow and Yesterday, but we are saved by the guardian angels of Conjecture and Refutation. Our guardians flee at the thunderous steps of the Baby-Proofed Mind, leaving us Stumbling-Block Free. The landscape now seems so plain and unchallenging we might as well be standing still, but the Scandal of the title offers to explain the cryptic moral, and we retire to seek an Apology for it all.

The Fable with a Cryptic Moral

Long ago, in a small town, a man some called a prophet spoke of a great event that had not yet happened.
"How will we know when it has happened?" his disciples asked.
"On the day of the great event," he said, "the hide of a purple cow will be displayed for all to see." His disciples, with little delay, fell into disagreement over the meaning of the prophecy.

After many years, two schools of interpretation emerged: the Globalists and the Sacrificialists. The Globalists believed that, on the day in question, the skies all over the world would take on the appearance of purple fur, as if the globe had been enwrapped by a hide. The Sacrificialists believed the prophecy predicted that an actual purple cow would be slaughtered and skinned, the hide would be nailed to the side of a wagon, and the whole assemblage would be driven to the town square "for all to see." The Globalists thought that the day had not yet come, while the Sacrificialists believed the day had already passed. A bitter dispute ensued.

The antagonists in this dispute, being at heart peaceful people, readily agreed to the proposal by the town drunk that they surrender their pitchforks and axes and settle the issue in a debate. Professing neutrality on the matter, the town drunk offered to judge the debate, in exchange for as much as he could drink after it. The townsfolk accepted. Each group chose one man to speak for them, and they all followed their judge to his court.

At the tavern, the judge took his chair as the debaters took their stands. The representative for the Globalists, by virtue of having a louder voice, was selected to begin the debate.

"The Great Event has not yet come," he said. "How could anyone have missed it, if it had? Who would fail to notice a sky of violet hue and woolly texture? Would not at least one of the leisured historians among our ancestors, plentiful as they were, have left us even a trifling notice in his diary? 'Dear Diary, Nothing to report today. P.S. The sky turned purple for a bit.' But no. The sky has never turned purple, therefore the Great Event has not yet passed."

"You great, braying ass," said his opponent, "The Great Event has passed and is gone. My own father's father found and sacrificed a purple heifer from among his own herd. A normal sized cow, I might add. Where on earth is the cow whose hide could cover the whole sky, whether it is purple or not?"

The judge then found himself robbed of his reward, for after this first and only exchange, everyone went home. Filled with scorn and convinced of victory, they all congratulated themselves for their common sense and pitied their opponents for their utter stupidity.

The town drunk was left, dry and alone, in the street outside the tavern. Loudly bemoaning the uselessness of discourse, he carefully returned all the axes and pitchforks to their rightful owners.

Moral: A begged question is a missed opportunity to take offense.

The Infinite Slope

Knowledge is a tricky thing. Or a tricky concept, or expectation. A trick of memory? We don't really know what knowledge is, though there's a whole school of philosophy devoted to it with a fancy Greek name. We can't even talk about knowing what knowledge is without slipping into a circles: How do we know what we know? How do we know that we actually know what we know? Can we know whether we actually know what we think we know? When you're sure that what you know is knowable and you know what it means to know it, the rest of us begin to suspect that whatever it is you think you know, you don't. How many times can I use the word "know" before it starts looking foreign and uncouth? I'm having trouble with "know" now, and "now" begins to look odd itself by association. Knowledge can suffer from too much handling.

A constant danger in the investigation of knowledge is infinite regression. My favorite example of infinite regression is the (likely apocryphal) story based on an ancient cosmology that supposed a flat earth resting on the shell of a great turtle. When the cosmologist was asked on what the turtle rested, he gave the legendary answer: "It's turtles all the way down."

Moderns tend not to recognize the slip down the infinite slope, even as we slide. You tramp along on what you think is solid ground, making good progress, if you can judge by the wind in your hair. But the motion is vertical and your efforts have little to do with it. The fatal first step is definition of terms. When you accept the necessity of defining your terms, you are bound to the necessity of defining the terms used in your definition. And of course the second rank of definitions plead to be defined as well. If you are exceedingly fortunate, some of your terms will be definable using the words you started with. You now have a tidy little circle from which to argue.

Some try to cut short the regression by stopping at undefinable terms, or first principles: axioms that bear the weight of all knowledge. But how do we know the axioms are true? You are assuming, but why should I assume what you assume? And should you try to prove your axiom, to justify your claim, you will be jumping right back into an infinite regression. You are better off claiming axioms all the way down. Trying to prove anything, to verify anything, is only another path to the infinite slope. Justification of knowledge is impossible. Verification of knowledge is impossible. We simply cannot prove anything is true.

People speak of logic as if it could prove the truth of a proposition. It cannot. Deduction, what people usually mean, can show that a conclusion is true if the premises are [/b]assumed[/b] to be true. Philosophers have known about this for a long time, but it doesn't seem to bother most of them. Some think they've found a way to surpass the modest claims of deduction. They call it induction, or inductive logic, but it is not logical, and it is quite immodest.

Jam Tomorrow, because Jam Yesterday

Induction is partly founded on the irrational idea that repetition is a useful source of knowledge. It often borrows some of the respect accorded deductive reasoning by imitating the language of logic. But instead of saying, "if A and B: then C," induction says, "if A and A: then A and also A. Oh, and by the way . . . A."

Induction is what happens when you say: "Because this same thing has happened five hundred times, it must happen the five hundred and first." If the thing is the rising of the sun, your conclusion may turn out to be correct. If the thing is a car making one lap around the track at the Indianapolis 500, you and induction are about to share a disappointment. Induction does not return consistent results. The same premises do not reliably produce the same conclusions, and it can be clearly shown that predictions made solely based on inductive reasoning are frequently wrong, even when all the premises are true. Another form of inductive reasoning supposes that observation of non-repetitive events is sufficient to prove knowledge, so long as you have enough observations. A critical mass of observations can apparently produce knowledge, wholly formed, like Athena from the brow of Zeus.

We cannot understand why induction fails to correctly predict the differing outcomes of the sun versus the race car simply by adding more occurrences to the data-sheet. You will never determine why the sun and the race car behave differently by watching the sun come up a few more times or watching the race car not go around the track. To explain, we must introduce theories or guesses that ar e not derivable from the premises, meaning from the observation of repetition. Working solely from a pile of observations, we have no way to distinguish between the behavior of the sun and the behavior of the car. They both go around things, right? The post-Copernican West may now believe that the rising of the sun is caused by the rotation of the earth, but inductive reasoning would have us deny it. In fact we find that the father of inductive reasoning, Francis Bacon, strongly opposed the heliocentric model of the solar system: "Don't theorize, he said, but open your eyes and observe without prejudice, and you cannot doubt that the Sun moves and that the Earth is at rest," (Popper, p.85). Inductive reasoning exalts the senses over the mind that exercises them.

Thus induction suggests that observations are the sole foundation of knowledge. But this begs a very important question about the nature of observations. Observations are not neutral, as induction would suggest; they are not passive, happenstance recordings of bland fact. You observe what you are looking for, what you already in some way think is interesting or important. Observation is an active endeavor, an attempt to raise up peaks of coherence from an ocean of noise. Observation superimposes our existing expectations over the mess and cacophony of sensation. When we observe, or try to notice patterns, we are filtering, not passively recording.

Induction became the default explanation for learning partly because it makes an end run around the limitations of regular logic, and partly because our own assumptions and expectations seem so natural to us that they become transparent. A trivial example: vowels in English are much more loosely bounded than in tonal languages such as Chinese. English speakers barely notice tonal or pitch variations in vowels. Even if they are noticed, they certainly don't affect the meaning of words, but in tonal languages, the intonation of a vowel sound is part of the vowel. Words can depend on differences in pitch. A less trivial example is the well-known factoid about the Eskimos having eleventy-three different words for snow. Words aside, Eskimos have different assumptions about the world than we do, assumptions that allow them to notice fine distinctions where we may only observe a mass of white.

So if observation is not passive, if our every intake from the world is filtered by assumptions that cannot be proven, then what hope do we have? Can we know anything?

Conjectures and Refutations

The answer, according to Karl Popper, is to ignore that question and formulate better ones. Do not ask: How can I know I am right? Ask, instead: How can I best avoid being wrong? How can I determine when I am in error and learn from my mistakes? Can we approach truth asymptotically? When your aim is to justify, your assumptions will remain transparent; if they are in error, they will remain so. If your aim is to eliminate error, your assumptions must be examined. Examining your assumptions does not automatically result in error correction, but it makes it possible. An examined assumption is almost a theory, and theories can be tested. All our knowledge and all our beliefs, says Popper, are theories we have not yet disproved. This does not mean we should refrain from acting on our knowledge, or that we may dispense with our beliefs. Your body of understanding is a framework, and you are already shaped by it. No one can act or think outside of the bounds of his framework. An attempt to do so does not free a man of his framework; it confines him to a small, cramped twist of it: the part that denies the rest exists.

To treat all your knowledge as conjectural is to have the humility to accept that humans are not omniscient. Knowledge need not be dogma. Conjectural knowledge may be submitted to criticism and, more importantly, may be defended. Only in defense of our theories can we find their strengths and weaknesses. We may discover that some of our theories have more weakness than strength; in that case we should look to repair or replace them. Or we may find an idea has unexpected strength. A theory that has been subjected to criticism and emerged intact is a valuable possession, but even more valuable is a theory that has been reforged in the fire.

We should also recognize that worthwhile criticism requires opposition from people who disagree with us. It is not enough to discuss our theories only with those who hold the same ideas. This ought to be a trivial proposition, but it is in direct contradiction to a popular idea which Karl Popper calls the myth of the framework. The idea is that a "rational and fruitful discussion is impossible unless the participants share a common framework of basic assumptions . . ." (Popper, p.34). Popper strongly objects. He contends that the proponents of this myth mistake winning a debate for the goal of discussion, when that goal should always be to advance ever closer to truth. "For what they have to learn is that victory in a debate is nothing, while even the slightest clarification of one's problem - even the smallest contribution made towards a clearer understanding of one's own position or that of one's opponent - is a great success. A discussion which you win but which fails to help you to change or to clarify your mind at least a little should be regarded as a sheer loss. For this very reason no change in one's position should be made surreptitiously, but it should always be stressed and its consequences explored," (p. 44). Fruitful discussions expand and clarify our knowledge, even if it is only our knowledge of our opponents. Agreement is not the goal of discourse.

Baby-proofed Minds

The myth of the framework is either an outgrowth or a root cause of cultural relativism; I'm not sure which. Either way, I think it's very bad. Relativism, cultural or any other kind, takes something away from us, something I consider very important: Relativism leads to the extinction of offense. In the place of being offended, we are given magic words to mutter as a protective mantra, "Who am I to judge?" The only offense good relativists are allowed to take is at someone else having the presumption to take offense. "How dare you? How dare you take offense at something I have the good sense not to?"

Being offended is offensive, you see, much more so than trying to offend. I don't just mean in moral matters, either. Ideas can offend, just as much as behavior, yet in our modern squeamishness, we have confused taking offense with intolerance. In striving for a civilization that tolerates different beliefs, we have formed one that discourages meaningful dialogue between them.

You are not taking another man seriously if you are not willing to let him offend you. The same is true for an idea or a culture. Refusal to take offense is condescension. If you are not willing to say someone is wrong, you are not doing him the courtesy of believing he matters. If what a man believes or does challenges your ideas of what is true, or just, or right, to avoid acknowledging the conflict is to deny him equality. Unless, of course, you value your own beliefs as little as you value his. I suspect that, in most cases, this is actually the problem.

Relativism spares us the trouble of taking our beliefs seriously. We still get to have some; we can pull them out occasionally to play and tinker and show them off, but they go right back in the box when we're done with them. The price is high, though. Sustaining this nursery-life requires a substantial amount of baby-proofing. No sharp edges allowed. All soft corners, and nothing to stumble over.

100% Stumbling-block free!

Offense is a stumbling block and a scandal. I believe it should be common, but that our civilization takes great pains to mitigate it, to ignore it or interpret it away. This idea is wholly unoriginal, borrowed from Kierkegaard, by way of David McCracken's The Scandal of the Gospels. The scandal of his title is, at the most superficial level, the Greek word skandalon. Here's the standard lexicon definition:

a. a trap, snare
b. any impediment placed in the way and causing one to stumble or fall, (a stumbling block, occasion of stumbling) i.e. a rock which is a cause of stumbling
c. fig. applied to Jesus Christ, whose person and career were so contrary to the expectations of the Jews concerning the Messiah, that they rejected him...

McCracken describes why skandalon is difficult to translate: "There is no good single word to be found to serve as an equivalent for the idea and the word - skandalon - that contained a certain power two thousand years ago." He settles on "scandal" and "offense" as the best English handles for the concept. Forms of the root skand- are common in the New Testament, and McCracken believes that the concept of offense is key to the Gospel stories of Jesus, especially the parables. Most of his book is an investigation into the parables with the skandalon as a touchstone. The short version of his thesis is "Jesus offends." Those confronted with the scandal of his behavior either stumbled or knelt.

The skandalon that interests me is the idea of offense as an occasion for change. Stumble or kneel in reaction to offense, but at least you react. The unoffendable are unaffectable, because you can't stumble when you are standing still.

The Scandal of the Framework

I would put scandals back in everybody's way, though they would be minor in comparison to the offenses offered by the Christ of the Gospels. They do not demand that you submit or defy. They do insist that you react, that you consider. These stumbling blocks are the frameworks of those who disagree with us. Our opponents must not be ignored, or belittled, or explained away. Other men have seen the same world, but they have not come to the same conclusions; how is this possible? Do their theories expose weaknesses in mine? Can I show that their ideas are wrong? What assumptions have I blindly made?

Without the scandal of the alien framework, we all stand still. If you have not lately tripped over strange ideas, be sure that you are calcifying your own.

Circling Back

As quickly as our civilization marginalizes offense, it softens the concepts that once supported it. English has nearly surrendered the original meaning of begging the question. Malapropism of, by, and for the masses has made it mean something like "what you just said implies that we should ask something," instead of the original accusation of faulty reasoning. The deed is done, or nearly so, and I can't say that we will much miss the old definition since we can just use the word "argument" to mean the same thing. Nobody will notice.

For arguments are increasingly composed of little more than endlesss exchanges of begged questions. I'll box with your shadow if you'll box with mine. Your beliefs are not compatible with my assumptions. You're not listening. No, you're not listening.

Begging the question is a handy way to avoid offense while getting all the thrills of taking it. You get to argue, and you get to scorn, but you have not been touched. You have not stumbled. You are not moved.

An Apology for the Article

The fable of the purple cow is an attempt to illustrate the offensiveness of inoffensiveness in a mildly offensive way. The original version of the fable was offered as an offense in the midst of a singularly frustrating discussion on a singularly frustrating topic. I was a lurker, wishing I could be a learner, but there was no chance of this happening; every single proponent of the more popular view contrived to beg the absolute root question with every breath. Exasperated, I wrote an off-the-cuff analogy highly critical of the behavior of the one side: Question-begging is offensive, and I intended to offend in turn. Not much came of it then, but the Fairest Site-Owner of Them All took an interest in the fable and asked me to expand on it in this space.

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References:
Karl R. Popper. "The Myth of the Framework", The Myth of the Framework.
David McCracken. The Scandal of the Gospels.
Thayer and Smith. "Greek Lexicon entry for Skandalon". The New Testament Greek Lexicon.

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