Version 1 of #2061

Well, it’s as you say: if a criticism is bad/weak/whatever, people should argue their case and explain why they think it’s bad, in the form of a counter-criticism. If it’s truly weak, that should be easy to do. If anyone could just assert that something is bad without giving any reasoning, that would be arbitrary. It would allow them to reject any criticism on whim.

In my understanding, Popper’s epistemology operates on contradiction and non-contradiction. It does not assign strengths or weaknesses. By rejecting justificationism, it rejects positive reasons for preferring one theory over another and instead emphasizes the critical attitude as the only way to make progress. So it does use negative reasons for preferring one theory over another (by rejecting one theory and not another). It looks for reasons against, not reasons for. It seeks to eliminate error.