Basis of liberal thinking

Question 1

Jonathan Rauch notes that the approach to factual truth from the liberal enlightenment rests on trust in a social system following 2 rules:

Answer 1

1. No-one gets the final say
2. Knowledge is based on evidence, not authority of the speaker

Question 2

Which philosopher established the basis of scientific thinking

Answer 2

Descartes - began with radical skepticism of external reality and progressively worked his way toward a structured system by which it can be apprehended.

Question 3

What is the basic ontological assumption of modern natural science?

Answer 3

That there is an objective reality outside of human experience which we can gradual come to understand manipulate.

Question 4

What is the more extreme version of critical theory critique of the liberal ideal of rational discourse (running from structuralism, post-structuralism, to post-modernism and ultimately the various forms of critical theory)

Answer 4

It denies the possibility of rational discourse altogether. Begins with a number of true observations, but is then taken to unsupportable extremes.

Question 5

PMod critiques have drifted from the progressive left to the populist right. Leading us to a ‘cognitive wasteland’ where (true/possible) …

Answer 5

‘Nothing is true and everything is possible’ (Peter Pomerantsev)

Question 6

Which historical British thinker developed a system of establishing causality via observation of correlated events to understand objective reality.

Answer 6

Francis Bacon. This is the method on which modern natural science is based.

Question 8

Weber distinguished facts from values and argued that rationality can only establish the former or latter?

Answer 8

Former.

Question 9

What premise is liberalism founded on regarding the ends of life or understandings of ‘the good’?

Answer 9

That people will not agree on these fundamental understandings of the ends of life or the good.

Question 12

What 2 techniques can we use to verify empirical propositions? (what is the scientific method?)

Answer 12

Either through 1. inductive reasoning or 2. falsify them through observation (scientific method of Karl Popper).

Question 13

Using the scientific method we build knowledge as what kind of process?

Answer 13

Knowledge about reality is built as a cumulative social process, open ended, with conclusions which are only probabalistically true. This gives us an understanding of reality which is better than others.