Is Bayesianism Susceptible to the Mail-Order Prophet Scam? — LessWrong

Comment by Max Kaye - This is surprising to me -- I've always thought that whatever our understanding of knowledge was should apply to itself. If it doesn't, how do you know that your epistemology is right? An epistemology is the thing that's meant to give you the answer to the question. So it seems like a problem if an epistemology can't apply to itself.

One response might be 'Bayesianism is about science, not philosophy', but then on what basis are you adopting bayesianism? if that decision is supported by some other epistemology, then why not use that instead? (it seems like it might be more powerful because it can do something bayesianism can't)

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Yeah it does, though a 'full bill of health' might mean something different. CF says that we should use the best ideas we have access to. "Best" means that it works to achieve a goal and is unrefuted (no unanswered decisive criticisms). CF claims it has no decisive criticisms (at least insofar as the epistemology is concerned), but does not claim such criticisms are impossible (it's fallibilist after all). CF is Elliot Temple's school and he is very willing to debate (which means a forum discussion).

From Debate Policies Introduction, he says:

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One of goals of CF-ists is to find and debate people who disagree with you because that's the best way to get criticisms, which are an integral part of error correction and improvement.

But also the world isn't very good for debate, at least not at a high level. It's hard to find people and forums who will continue a discussion to it's conclusion. So maybe CF isn't as good as it could be if there was more debate.

If someone knew of a criticism of CF, then Elliot would want to know. If he disagreed, he'd want a public discussion about it.

I can expand on anything if you have questions.