by Antony Flew
8.23 Someone might react to all the propaganda for rationality in the present book by pointing out that the most rational of methods and approaches still provides no sure guarantee of true results, adding perhaps as a parting shot that in any case rationality comprises a lot more than the capacity to discern what does and does not follow from what. This is perfectly true. History records innumerable cases of those who believed what for them it was entirely reasonable to believe, and who nevertheless were mistaken in their beliefs. Nor is there any shortage of instances in which hunches and prejudices have turned out to be right and the contrary conclusions suggested by the best available evidence wrong.
8.24 But though the points urged in this reaction are correct, they do not upset what I am saying. First, they do not bear at all upon the contention, which has just been developed (see paragraphs 8.4–8.19) that there is a “connection between rationality in general and personal integrity” (see paragraph 8.6). Second, fallibility is one of the universal and inescapable fundamentals of the human condition. We have no choices between an option of fallibility and an option of infallibility. It is precisely our fallibility which is the best reason why we must always be open to rational criticism. Third, when and insofar as we are confronted with choices between alternative methods of inquiry, then the final judgment can only be a judgment by results. If the shaman or the soothsayer regularly and reliably comes up with predictions that are discovered to have been right while all the economic and scientific advisers get everything wrong, then it surely becomes rational for the Minister to hire and to trust the former while firing and busting the latter. In at least one sense of “rational” it is paradigmatically rational to be thus guided by experience.
8.25 Yet none of this establishes, or would establish, that we can now, or could then, substitute intuition for evidence, or for argument, or for rational appraisal generally. For the very results by which the Minister and everyone else should judge are the discoveries of truths. So we have to be able to identify results as results—to know, that is, that the putative discoveries really are discoveries of truths—before we can say that any method of inquiry in fact is justified by results. It is here that the demand for rational appraisal arises, and with it the challenge to the sincerity of our dedication to truth. At whatever stage these questions of the justification of belief are in fact tackled, they are always logically fundamental. In terms of two ancient but still serviceable distinctions we may say that the context of justification is logically prior, albeit sometimes historically posterior, to the context of discovery.
8.26 It is because we are concerned not with mere assertion regardless of truth, nor even with mere true belief not known to be true, but with knowledge, that we are and have to be concerned with rational justification. It was with that commitment that Socrates lived and died: “The unexamined life is not to be endured.”
NOTE. The list below contains all but, with one exception, only those works mentioned in the text that were first published in the English language during the twentieth century. The works of major thinkers of earlier centuries who are mentioned are, with that exception, available in many editions, both hardcover and paperback. So readers wishing to borrow or to purchase copies are best advised to seek up-to-date information on availability either from their local library or from their local bookstore, as the case may be.
Anscombe, G. E. M. Collected Philosophical Papers of G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 1981.
Beckmann, Petr. The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear. Boulder, Colo.: Golem Press, 1976.
Berg, Charles. Deep Analysis. London: Allen and Unwin, 1946.
Brenan, Gerald. The Spanish Labyrinth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943.
Buchanan, James M. Constitutional Economics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1991.
Buchanan, James M., and Gordon Tullock. The Calculus of Consent. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Michigan University Press, 1962.
Commoner, Barry. The Closing Circle: Nature, Man and Technology. New York: Bantam, 1972.
Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror. Revised Edition. London: Primolo, 1992.
Cromer, Alan. Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker. New York and London: Longman, 1986.
———. The Selfish Gene. 2d ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Dennis, Norman. The Invention of Permanent Poverty. London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1997.
D’Israeli, Isaac. The Quarrels of Authors. London: John Murray, 1814.
Douglas, Mary, and Aaron Wildavsky. Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: California University Press, 1983.
Efron, Edith. The Apocalyptics: How Environmental Politics Controls What We Know about Cancer. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1984.
Epstein, Richard A. Forbidden Grounds: The Case against Employment Discrimination Laws. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937.
Flew, Antony. The Politics of Procrustes: Contradictions of Enforced Equality. London: Temple Smith; Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1981.
———. God: A Critical Enquiry. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1984.
———. An Introduction to Western Philosophy: Ideas and Argument from Plato to Popper. Revised Edition. London: Thames and Hudson, 1989.
———. Atheistic Humanism. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1993.
———. Thinking about Social Thinking. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books, 1995.
———. Darwinian Evolution. New Edition. New Brunswick, N.J., and London: Transaction Publishers, 1997.
Flew, Antony, and A. C. MacIntyre, eds. New Essays in Philosophical Theology. London: SCM Press, 1955.
Flew, Antony, and Godfrey Vesey. Agency and Necessity. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.
Goldberg, Steven. Why Men Rule: A Theory of Male Dominance. Chicago and La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1993.
Gosse, Edmund. Father and Son. London: Heineman, 1907.
Hare, Richard M. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Clarendon, 1952.
Hills, John, et al. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation Inquiry into Income and Wealth. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1995.
Hume, David. Essays: Moral, Political and Literary. Edited by E. F. Miller. Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Classics, 1985.
Huxley, Aldous. Eyeless in Gaza. London: Chatto and Windus, 1936.
Huxley, Julian. Essays of a Biologist. London: Cape, 1923.
Levin, Michael. Feminism and Freedom. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1987.
Luttwak, Edward. Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook. Baltimore and Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.
Magee, Bryan. Popper. London: Fontana, 1973.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Holy Family. First published in German in 1845. Translated by Richard Dixon and Clemens Dutt in The Collected Works of Marx and Engels. Vol. 4. New York: International Publishers; London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1932 onward.
Morris, Desmond. The Naked Ape. London: Corgi, 1968.
———. The Human Zoo. London: Cape, 1970.
Murray, Charles. Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950–1980. New York: Basic Books, 1984.
Orwell, George. 1984. London: Secker and Warburg, 1949.
———. The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell. London: Secker and Warburg, 1968.
Popper, Sir Karl. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London and New York: Hutchinson, 1959.
———. Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963.
———. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972.
Price, R. H., R. F. Ketterer, B. C. Bader, and H. Monahan, eds. Prevention in Mental Health: Research, Policy and Practice. Beverly Hills and London: Sage, 1980.
&n
bsp; Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971.
Richardson, Ken, and David Spears. Race, Culture and Intelligence. Baltimore and Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.
Rockwell, Joan. Fact in Fiction: The Use of Literature in the Systematic Study of Society. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974.
Rolt, L. T. C. Isambard Kingdom Brunel. London: Longmans Green, 1957.
Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind. New York and London: Hutchison, 1949.
Schneider, F., and C. Gullans, eds. Last Letters from Stalingrad. Toronto: Signet, 1965.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. The Art of Controversy. Translated and edited by T. B. Saunders. London: Sonnenschein, 1896.
Silberman, Charles E. Criminal Violence, Criminal Justice. New York: Random House, 1978.
Smart, Ninian. The Religious Experience of Mankind. London: Fontana, 1971.
Sowell, Thomas. Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? New York: William Morrow, 1984.
———. Knowledge and Decisions. New York: Basic Books, 1986a.
———. Education: Assumptions versus History. Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, 1986b.
———. Compassion versus Guilt and Other Essays. New York: William Morrow, 1987.
———. Is Reality Optional? Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution, 1993.
Stephen, H. J. New Commentaries on the Laws of England. 21st ed. Vol. 4. London: Butterworth, 1950.
Stevenson, C. L. Ethics and Language. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1944.
Thurow, Lester C. Poverty and Discrimination. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1969.
Trevor-Roper, H. R. “The European Witch Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.” In Religion, the Reformation and Social Change. London and Toronto: Macmillan, 1956. This long essay was later published separately by Penguin, 1969.
Urban, W. R. Beyond Realism and Idealism. London: Allen and Unwin, 1949.
Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York and London: Macmillan, 1899.
Warren, Earl. The Memoirs of Earl Warren. New York: Doubleday, 1977.
Wilson, James Q. Thinking about Crime. New York: Basic Books, 1975.
Wilson, James Q., and Richard J. Herrnstein. Crime and Human Nature. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by C. K. Ogden. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1922.
Anscombe, G. E. M.: 4.8
Aquinas, St. Thomas: 1.25
Aristotle: 1.32–1.33, 2.15, 3.27, 5.38, 6.51, 7.25–7.26
Augustine, St. of Hippo: 5.29
Bacon, Francis: 2.10
Baldwin, James: 3.2
Beckmann, Petr: 6.9
Berg, Charles: 4.28–4.29
Boswell, James: 5.27
Brenan, Gerald: 6.7
Buchanan, James M.: 4.16
Buchanan, President James: 1.39
Burke, Edmund: 1.36, 7.22
Cantor, Georg: 1.45
Carmichael, Stokely: 3.2–3.3, 3.8
Carroll, Lewis: 5.32, 7.3
Castro, Fidel: 3.2, 3.8
Charles II, king of England: 7.2–7.3
Clinton, President William: 1.41
Commoner, Barry: 7.39, 7.42
Conquest, Robert: 4.40
Crockett, Davy: 2.41
Cromer, Alan: 1.34
Darwin, Charles: 2.10, 4.2, 4.34
Dawkins, Richard: 7.16
Dennis, Norman: 6.37, 7.45
Descartes, René: 1.56, 7.7–7.9
Dirksen, Senator Everett: 6.24
D’Israeli, Isaac: 7.2
Douglas, Mary: 6.8
Duns Scotus: 1.20
Edward VII, king of England: 3.7
Efron, Edith: 6.9, 7.42–7.43
Einstein, Albert: 3.20–3.21
Elijah, the Prophet: 2.15
Engels, Friedrich: 1.27, 7.53
Epstein, Richard: 1.47
Evans-Prichard, E. E.: 3.22
Flew, Antony: 2.31, 3.10, 3.24, 4.2, 4.6, 4.19, 4.38, 7.16, 7.26, 7.48
Freud, Sigmund: 3.22, 4.34
Galton, Francis: 2.28
Gibbon, Edward: 5.10
Goldwater, Senator Barry: 2.32
Gosse, Edmund: 3.24
Guevara, Che: 3.2
Gullans, G.: 2.1
Hare, Richard M.: 4.25
Hegel, G. W. F.: 1.27, 1.31
Henry VIII, king of England: 1.38
Herrnstein, Richard J.: 7.48
Hills, John: 6.35
Hitler, Adolf: 5.47
Hobbes, Thomas: 3.11, 3.28–3.30, 5.42–5.46, 7.6, 7.52
Hume, David: 2.27, 5.44–5.46, 7.40, 7.47
Huxley, Aldous: 5.48
Huxley, Julian: 7.15
Huxley, T. H.: 2.10
Johnson, Dr. Samuel: 5.27, 5.34
Kadar, Janos: 1.30
Kant, Immanuel: 1.35, 8.1
Kennedy, President John F.: 2.32, 8.13
King, Dr. Martin Luther: 1.41
Leach, Edmund: 6.39–6.40, 6.42–6.43
Lee, General Robert E.: 2.31
Leibniz, Gottfried: 7.46
Levin, Michael: 6.15
Lewis, C. S.: 4.8
Lincoln, President Abraham: 1.18, 2.32, 8.8
Locke, John: 1.33
Luttwak, Edward: 1.30
MacIntyre, Alasdair: 3.24
Madison, President James: 2.41
Magee, Bryan: 2.11, 3.21
Mao Tse-Tung: 1.27–1.28
Mary, mother of Jesus: 2.15
Marx, Karl: 1.27, 1.31, 4.32, 4.35, 5.30, 7.53
Morris, Desmond: 7.11–7.12
Murray, Charles: 4.38
Nader, Ralph: 6.9
Nelson, Horatio: 5.19
Newton, Isaac: 3.20–3.21
Orwell, George: 5.5–5.8, 5.12
Paracelsus: 7.43
Pascal, Blaise: 4.5–4.6
Pearson, Karl: 6.47
Plato: 1.35, 5.28
Popper, Karl: 2.11–2.15, 3.17, 3.20–3.21
Presley, Elvis: 1.21–1.24
Price, R. H.: 8.13
Rawls, John: 5.24
Richardson, Ken: 2.28
Rockwell, Joan: 3.15
Rolt, L. T. C.: 7.36
Russell, Bertrand: 1.24, 7.25
Ryle, Gilbert: 5.26
Schneider, F.: 2.1
Schopenhauer, Arthur: 1.50
Shakespeare, William: 3.4–3.5, 5.18
Sieyès, the Abbé: 1.36
Silberman, Charles E.: 6.33
Smart, Ninian: 7.4
Smith, Adam: 3.14
Socrates: 1.6, 1.8–1.9, 1.11–1.12, 1.14, 5.28, 8.26
Sowell, Thomas: 1.52, 6.13, 6.34, 6.49, 7.44, 7.49, 8.21
Spears, David: 2.28
Stalin, J. V.: 4.40, 5.6
Stephen, H. J.: 8.8
Stevenson, Charles L.: 5.47–5.48
Stigler, George: 7.44
Teresa, Mother: 1.40
Thatcher, Prime Minister Margaret: 6.36, 7.50
Thurow, Lester: 4.17–4.19
Trevor-Roper, H. R.: 4.39
Tullock, Gordon: 4.14
Urban, W. R.: 4.7–4.8
Vauvenargues, Marquis de: 5.12
Veblen, Thorstein: 5.37–5.38
Vesey, Godfrey: 3.28
Victoria, queen of England: 3.7
Warren, Earl: 6.33–6.34, 7.44
Wildawsky, Aaron: 6.8
Wilson, James Q.: 6.34, 7.48
Wittgenstein, Ludwig: 3.19
Yayua, Prime Minister Abu Zuhair: 1.30
Yalow, Rosalyn: 6.9
Yeats, W. B.: 5.40
The purpose of this index is to provide a checklist of the various ideas and distinctions systematically explained and employed in the text above, a checklist which makes it easy for readers wishing to do so to test themselves and/or to refresh their memories. It therefore makes no attempt to include every notion which makes an appearance in the text.
Advertisement: 7
.32–7.37, 7.55
Affirming the Antecedent: 2.8
Affirming the Consequent: 2.8
Alienation: 5.30
Ambiguity: 1.14–1.15, 1.30, 4.4–4.10, 5.13–5.14, 5.18–5.23, 6.51
Ambiguity, systematic: 6.51
Analytic vs. synthetic. See Propositions, analytic vs. synthetic
Apriori vs. aposteriori. See Propositions, apriori vs. aposteriori
Argument form: 1.6–1.8, 1.20–1.24, 1.41–1.43, 1.48–1.49, 2.4–2.8
Argument to Design: 4.5
Arguments ad hominem: 4.26–4.27
Artificial. See Natural vs. artificial
Averages: 1.46–1.47, 5.4
Being in a position to know: 8.7–8.9
Causes, moral vs. physical: 7.46–7.48
Causes, root: 7.44–7.45, 7.48–7.49
Conditional propositions. See Propositions, conditional Conditions, causally necessary vs. causally sufficient: 2.25–2.29, 8.3
Conditions, logically necessary vs. logically sufficient: 2.18–2.21
Conspiracy theories: 4.38
Context of discovery vs. context of justification: 8.25
Contingent truth. See Propositions, necessary vs. contingent Contradiction and self-contradiction: 1.10–1.31, 8.3
Contradictions, in words vs. in things: 1.27–1.28
Contradictory: 2.37–2.40, 3.18
Contrary: 2.38–2.40
Counterexample: 2.10, 3.1
Deconstructionism: 4.33
Deduction: 1.10–1.16, 1.19, 1.38–1.39, 5.26
Definition and redefinition: 3.7, 5.27–5.37, 5.47
Definition, descriptive vs. prescriptive: 5.31
Definition, Persuasive: 5.47
Democracy, liberal vs. paternalist: 1.30, 4.10–4.11, 5.47
Demonstration: 1.4, 2.13
Denying the Antecedent: 2.8, 2.14–2.16, 2.21, 2.23
Denying the Consequent: 2.8