Edwin de Wit

@dennis-hackethal you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism can either be counter-criticized or it can be an unresolved error. If it’s a bad criticism, you just counter-criticize it or deem it irrelevant and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction: for instance, bad explanations are easy to vary or point to authorities to justify themselves rather than offering a hard-to-vary account of how and why something works). While I could simply counter-criticize bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly countering poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

That being said, I agree with the points you brought up in #2061, namely that there can be no positive arguments for an idea. By extension, if Veritula would require a specific format or mode of criticism, we’d fall into the very error Popper warns about with the Myth of the Framework—the mistaken belief that criticism requires a shared framework or language. So, Veritula should functionally remain as it is. At most, you might consider adding guidelines on what constitutes good versus poor criticism, so that critics can improve their skills. But I agree: the person who created the idea should remain solely responsible for addressing the criticisms they receive, not dismissing them as “bad” and moving on.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

@dennis-hackethal you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism can either be counter-criticized or it can be an unresolved error. If it’s a bad criticism, you quickly counter it—say, by clarifying why it’s irrelevant—and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction: for instance, bad explanations are easy to vary or point to authorities to justify themselves rather than offering a hard-to-vary account of how and why something works). While I could simply counter-criticize bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly countering poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

That being said, I agree with the points you brought up in #2061, namely that there can be no positive arguments for an idea. By extension, if Veritula would require a specific format or mode of criticism, we’d fall into the very error Popper warns about with the Myth of the Framework—the mistaken belief that criticism requires a shared framework or language. So, Veritula should functionally remain as it is. At most, you might consider adding guidelines on what constitutes good versus poor criticism, so that critics can improve their skills. But I agree: the person who created the idea should remain solely responsible for addressing the criticisms they receive, not dismissing them as “bad” and moving on.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

I see where the confusion comes from, but I thought clarifying my viewi in #2073 already addressed the criticism. What else would you suggest I do?

I see where the confusion comes from, but I thought clarifying my current view in #2073 already addressed the criticism. What else would you suggest I do?

Deutsch says our body of knowledge keeps growing both deeper—better explanations—and wider—new fields, more facts, rules of thumb. He thinks depth is winning. It might be interesting to asses what that balance looks like in 2025.

Deutsch says our body of knowledge keeps growing both deeper—better explanations—and wider—new fields, more facts, rules of thumb. He thinks depth is winning. It might be interesting to asses what that balance looks like in 2025.

@dennis-hackethal you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism can either be counter-criticized or it can be an unresolved error. If it’s a bad criticism, you just counter-criticize it or deem it irrelevant and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction: for instance, bad explanations are easy to vary or point to authorities to justify themselves rather than offering a hard-to-vary account of how and why something works). While I could simply counter-criticize bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly countering poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

@dennis-hackethal you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism can either be counter-criticized or it can be an unresolved error. If it’s a bad criticism, you just counter-criticize it or deem it irrelevant and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction: for instance, bad explanations are easy to vary or point to authorities to justify themselves rather than offering a hard-to-vary account of how and why something works). While I could simply counter-criticize bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly countering poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

That being said, I agree with the points you brought up in #2061, namely that there can be no positive arguments for an idea. By extension, if Veritula would require a specific format or mode of criticism, we’d fall into the very error Popper warns about with the Myth of the Framework—the mistaken belief that criticism requires a shared framework or language. So, Veritula should functionally remain as it is. At most, you might consider adding guidelines on what constitutes good versus poor criticism, so that critics can improve their skills. But I agree: the person who created the idea should remain solely responsible for addressing the criticisms they receive, not dismissing them as “bad” and moving on.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

@dennis-hackethal you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism is a criticism: it can either be refuted or it has outstanding criticism. If it’s a bad criticism, you just refute it or deem it irrelevant and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction: for instance, bad explanations are easy to vary or point to authorities to justify themselves rather than offering a hard-to-vary account of how and why something works). While I could simply refute bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly refuting poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

@dennis-hackethal you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism can either be counter-criticized or it can be an unresolved error. If it’s a bad criticism, you just counter-criticize it or deem it irrelevant and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction: for instance, bad explanations are easy to vary or point to authorities to justify themselves rather than offering a hard-to-vary account of how and why something works). While I could simply counter-criticize bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly countering poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

@dennis-hackethal you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism is a criticism: it can either be refuted or it has outstanding criticism. If it’s a bad criticism, you just refute it or deem it irrelevant and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction here). While I could simply refute bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly refuting poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

@dennis-hackethal you have regularly pointed out to me that it’s a mistake to assign strengths or weaknesses to arguments—for example, in #1809 and #1927. I’d love to get to the bottom of that.

On one hand, I see what you mean. A criticism is a criticism: it can either be refuted or it has outstanding criticism. If it’s a bad criticism, you just refute it or deem it irrelevant and move on.

I also see why talking about a “gradient” or comparative strength between arguments is problematic: there’s no objective criterion to measure them against. We can only say one theory is better than another when both attempt to explain the same phenomenon—then we can evaluate them using properties such as hard-to-varyness and other criteria Deutsch describes. (We can get into that if you’d like, though I don’t think that’s our main disagreement.). But this comparison doesn’t apply when we’re dealing with very different criticisms of a single idea, because there’s no common standard to measure them against. Comparing their “strength” becomes arbitrary.

However, I still think there are good and bad criticisms, just as there are good and bad explanations (following Deutsch’s distinction: for instance, bad explanations are easy to vary or point to authorities to justify themselves rather than offering a hard-to-vary account of how and why something works). While I could simply refute bad criticisms and move on, there’s also the matter of efficiency and opportunity cost: I don’t want to waste time repeatedly refuting poor criticisms, or worse, get stuck in circular debates with people who don’t recognize that some arguments aren’t good criticisms at all. I’d rather focus my attention on good criticisms.

To clarify what I mean, here’s an excerpt from my book:

The most important principle to remember while criticizing is: Criticize, don’t defend or attack. Good explanations invite criticism of their intrinsic content—whether the explanation itself works, solves the problem, and avoids worse side effects. Bad explanations, by contrast, deflect criticism onto irrelevant, extrinsic properties such as authority or track record—e.g., “this is the method that successful company X uses,” “I believe strongly in this approach,” or “it’s coming from person Y, so it’s worthless.”

That kind of “criticism” isn’t real criticism at all. It’s just attacking or defending. And when we play that game, the explanation itself stays untouched and stagnant. The idea doesn’t get scrutinized or improved—it only gets shielded or dismissed for irrelevant reasons.

Tagging @bart-vanderhaegen because he and I have discussed this at length—in fact, I got the defending/attacking framing from him.

Thanks for the reminder! Yes, I agree it’s good to strive for some form of resolution. My current take is that I’m still satisfied with Intuitions and Drives as more accessible labels. But the shortcomings you’ve raised in Statement are severe, and I hope to find a better alternative. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much success on my own. I’ll share my current thoughts here — perhaps we can continue exploring alternatives for Statement if you think that’s worthwhile. If, however, you believe all three labels are a mistake and that it’s irrational for me to pursue them, I of course understand if you’d prefer not to continue the discussion.

Problems with Statement

1) By definition a statement is a verbalized expression, whereas explicit knowledge doesn’t need to be verbalized. It just needs to be verbalizable. Calling it a Statement is confusing, as people might think it must be verbalized, while my point is simply that it can be verbalized.

2) It also carries the figurative meaning of “making a statement” through non-verbal actions (e.g., wearing a certain outfit, defying a social norm), which causes confusion, as you pointed out in #1700.

3) You say that statements don’t necessarily need to contain knowledge (see #1806), but can also be trivial or tautological. While I agree, I don’t see this as a relevant criticism of my labels, since in my book and video I define them as types of knowledge — not as trivial utterances or noise.

Given these problems, I’ve tried to find a more suitable word. The only candidate I’ve found so far is Formulations. It conveys explicitness, but it doesn’t fully address problem 1), since it still carries the connotation of being expressed rather than merely expressible.

Curious to hear your thoughts, as always.

Thanks for the reminder! Yes, I agree it’s good to strive for some form of resolution. My current take is that I’m still satisfied with Intuitions and Drives as more accessible labels. But the shortcomings you’ve raised in Statement are severe, and I hope to find a better alternative. Unfortunately, I haven’t had much success on my own. I’ll share my current thoughts here — perhaps we can continue exploring alternatives for Statement if you think that’s worthwhile. If, however, you believe all three labels are a mistake and that it’s irrational for me to pursue them, I of course understand if you’d prefer not to continue the discussion.

Problems with Statement

1) By definition a statement is a verbalized expression, whereas explicit knowledge doesn’t need to be verbalized. It just needs to be verbalizable. Calling it a Statement is confusing, as people might think it must be verbalized, while my point is simply that it can be verbalized.

2) It also carries the figurative meaning of “making a statement” through non-verbal actions (e.g., wearing a certain outfit, defying a social norm), which causes confusion, as you pointed out in #1700.

3) You say that statements don’t necessarily need to contain knowledge (see #1806), but can also be trivial or tautological. While I agree, I don’t see this as a relevant criticism of my labels, since in my book and video I define them as types of knowledge — not as trivial utterances or noise. Therefore, the label I’m looking for doesn’t need to address this criticism, since I’ll clarify beforehand that all are types of knowledge.

Given these problems, I’ve tried to find a more suitable word. The only candidate I’ve found so far is Formulations. It conveys explicitness, but it doesn’t fully address problem 1), since it still carries the connotation of being expressed rather than merely expressible.

Curious to hear your thoughts, as always.

I don’t take this personally, and I understand your intention isn’t to attack or belittle. To keep our exchange enjoyable and productive, I’ll make an effort to be more attentive to spelling, terminology, and precision. That said, I’m generally less concerned with exact spelling or perfect terminology, since my focus is usually on parsing the meaning or reasoning behind a theory or criticism. I try to be as charitable as possible in interpreting what someone is trying to say, focusing on the intended idea rather than the precise wording. Still, I recognize that clarity of wording may matter more to others—especially in discussions—so I’ll do my best to be more precise.

I don’t take this personally, and I understand your intention isn’t to attack or belittle. To keep our exchange enjoyable and productive, I’ll make an effort to be more attentive to spelling, terminology, and precision. That said, I’m generally less concerned with exact spelling or perfect terminology, since my focus is usually on parsing the meaning or reasoning behind a theory or criticism. I try to be as charitable as possible in interpreting what someone is trying to say, focusing on the intended idea rather than the precise wording. Still, I recognize that clarity of wording may matter more to others—especially in discussions—so I’ll do my best to be more precise.