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Popper is Different Than Other Philosophers – Bartley Quote

William W. Bartley on Popper:

Sir Karl Popper is not really a participant in the contemporary professional philosophical dialogue; quite the contrary, he has ruined that dialogue. If he is on the right track, then the majority of professional philosophers the world over have wasted or are wasting their intellectual careers. The gulf between Popper's way of doing philosophy and that of the bulk of contemporary professional philosophers is as great as that between astronomy and astrology. [emphasis added]

I agree with this comment. Note it doesn't apply to Ayn Rand, who is also an outcast from the majority of professional philosophers.


The quote wording is not exact. I haven't checked the original document. Sources:

Bartley, W. W. (September–December 1976), "III: Biology - evolutionary epistemology", Philosophia, 6 (3–4): 463–494

Cite found here and here. Those links, and this website all give slightly different wordings for the quote.


Elliot Temple on June 21, 2018

Messages (13)

Different than? Different from?


Anonymous at 11:36 PM on June 22, 2018 | #9947 | reply | quote

You could look it up yourself and see.

I don't understand comments like this. Do you not understand google?

google for: different than from


Anonymous at 11:47 PM on June 22, 2018 | #9948 | reply | quote

I did look it up myself. I think you should have used "different from". I didn't presume you hadn't looked it up so I asked "Different than? Different from?" to prompt an explanation for your usage rather than just outright saying you're wrong. I was giving you the benefit of the doubt about having knowledge about the matter that I don't have.


Anonymous at 12:18 AM on June 23, 2018 | #9949 | reply | quote

The top of google clearly says "different than" isn't wrong. You have given no explanation of why you think it's wrong.

I don't know why you're talking about "your usage" and giving *me* the benefit of the doubt. You decided to assume I'm curi?


Anonymous at 12:49 AM on June 23, 2018 | #9950 | reply | quote

My mistake - you're not curi.

From the top of google:

http://www.dictionary.com/e/different-from-or-different-than/

> In formal writing, different from is generally preferred to different than. This preference has to do, in part, with the historical use of the word than. This term entered English as a conjunction often used with comparative adjectives, such as better, taller, shorter, warmer, lesser, and more, to introduce the second element in a comparison. Different is not a comparative adjective. Thus, when different than first started appearing in English, it sounded grating or less natural to discerning ears.

> From has been used with the verb differ since at least the 1500s, which paved the way for different from to be readily accepted into the lexicon. William Shakespeare used different from in The Comedy of Errors: “This week he hath been heavy, sour, sad, / And much different from the man he was…” Other pairings have popped up over the years, including different against, but different from and different than remain the two most useful among English speakers. Different than is common in American English, but might sound strange to British ears, and in the UK, different to is a common alternative that is seldom used in the US.

> When in doubt, stick with different from.

so "different than" is ok according to the above but "different from" is preferred, especially in formal writing.

> However, note that there is a time and place for different than. When what follows is a clause, than can be the more elegant choice: My grandmother looks different than I remember. From works best when what follows is a noun or noun phrase: My grandmother looks different from that old photograph of her.

here we see that "different than" has a good use. in curi's case, what followed was a noun phrase and "different from" would have worked better and have been more precise.


Anonymous at 1:29 AM on June 23, 2018 | #9951 | reply | quote

this isn't formal writing... i dislike formal writing in the sense they mean. and your own link says:

> Different than is common in American English

read some other pages, too. it's fine. the history of this, like plenty of other issues, is: some grammarians are picky and controlling for no good reason, contrary to usage.

"than" is used for comparisons. i'm making a comparison. it's not wrong. it's not confusing. it's standard, normal, understandable writing which doesn't cause any problem.

i don't think you're trying to be helpful. you seem biased. your own link says it's fine, and so do a bunch of others. i think you're trying to catch me out. or else you speak British English and it just feels really wrong to you to hear some things from American English. if you have a problem with American English, i consider that your intolerant error which i'm not interested in accommodating.


curi at 2:15 AM on June 23, 2018 | #9952 | reply | quote

I have no problem with American English. Not being American myself I don't know how much "different from" is used versus "different than". I see that American writers/editors 0themselves recommend "different from" and reserve "different than" for when the phrase following "than" has a subject and verb:

https://ruthlesseditor.com/different-from-vs-than-and-compred-to-vs-with/

https://writingexplained.org/different-from-or-different-than-difference

In my country people say "diff erent to".


Anonymous at 4:06 AM on June 23, 2018 | #9953 | reply | quote

You're different too! I love you!


Anonymous at 6:16 PM on June 26, 2018 | #9954 | reply | quote

off topic

What do you think about Charles Tew?

Is for real or just another drone?


anon at 5:46 AM on June 30, 2018 | #9957 | reply | quote

Never heard of him.

His website is super broken. Can't click links to view the content for any of the blog posts on his homepage ( https://www.charlestew.com ). Tried Safari and Chrome. But I saw something interesting, he has criticism of Alex Epstein. So I managed to find it on his youtube (starts a bit after 15min):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d80WTH573k

Good comments about Epstein!

I see that he rejected academia and seems to somewhat stand outside of ARI-Objectivism.

My quick impression so far is he sounds really Objectivist when he talks. That's partly good but people who sound that way often don't know much about non-Objectivist philosophers like Popper, and often don't want to. I associate his style with people who think Objectivism has all the answers. But he also said some good things! And he took some interest in MGTOW which is a good sign, though I think he missed some of the value in it (he's right that it isn't a well-defined, consistent philosophy, and its supporters contradict each other – but you can still find substantial value in some ideas from the MGTOW/PUA/Men's-Rights genre. They have some good points which are worth learning and which most of the rest of the world doesn't know).

Thanks for the lead (especially because he looks hard to find – low follower counts and I don't see any essays on his websites to come up on google searches). I will contact him and see how he reacts to discussion.


curi at 1:52 PM on June 30, 2018 | #9958 | reply | quote

oh god he doesn't have a public email address, and this video has 38 comments, not a good place to get his attention, email would be better.

he has one of those stupid contact forms on his website. i hope it works...

I have sent him the following message from the name sdf...

> test. btw your website is broken, can't click any links/videos in the blog posts on your homepage if mac safari or mac chrome. seeing if this contact form works...

it claims to have sent the message. i was worried the send button would be broken.


curi at 1:57 PM on June 30, 2018 | #9959 | reply | quote

I wrote a letter to Charles Tew:

http://curi.us/2119-open-letter-to-charles-tew


curi at 3:39 PM on June 30, 2018 | #9960 | reply | quote

I left a YouTube comment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5Ce45H7ojU&lc=UgzQ_G-sxyUxt2PMsR14AaABAg

No one in the video mentions that ARI Objectivism already tried debating Jordan Peterson – and failed miserably. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP2WlfTiohw

Ghate gets SMOKED in this debate, Rubin helps Peterson, and the audience mostly cares about Peterson.

This is not an evaluation of the ideas presented. It's an evaluation of the social dynamics – how they play to the audience using normal (irrational) standards of judging debates. Ghate is really bad at in person debates, and comes off as weak and non-notable. He doesn't stand out. Peterson and Rubin are both good at presenting as high social status, important, smart, wise, etc, and Peterson completely dominates the discussion. Ghate had no idea how to stand up to Peterson or say anything memorable.

Giving this utter failure, why are they doing it again? They need to at least learn how to win a debate – or even hold their own – before they invite their debating-betters to OCON.


curi at 6:39 PM on June 30, 2018 | #9961 | reply | quote

Want to discuss this? Join my forum.

(Due to multi-year, sustained harassment from David Deutsch and his fans, commenting here requires an account. Accounts are not publicly available. Discussion info.)