On Wed, 1 Mar 2000, gordon wrote:

> > I agree that more attention to should be paid to questions of what
> > counts as evidence and what does not in these (and other) fields.
>
> I'm glad you agree. However you've also taken the precarious position that
> the positivist demand for evidence is incoherent, so I need to ask on what
> grounds you think evidence is something to which we must "pay attention".

I didn't take that position at all.  Positivism has no monopoly
on taking evidence seriously.  I don't say that positivism's
"demand for evidence" is incoherent; I say that positivism is
incoherent.  The verification principle is self-refuting,
therefore whatever is understood as evidence should not be based
on it.

> If positivism has been "decisively refuted" as you claim, Todd, then why
> should anyone care at all about evidence? Why shouldn't we accept all claims
> as true without evidence?

That is a false dilemma: Either positivism is true or evidence
doesn't matter.  Epistemology didn't die when positivism did.

Todd Moody
[log in to unmask]