Finding the Good Method

It is reasonable to predict that an accurate method, a method that leads significantly more often than not to the discovery of genuinely true and false propositions, will exhibit two particular features, which an inaccurate method will not exhibit: predictive success and convergent accumulation of consistent results. We can even expect that a more accurate method will exhibit these features more often than a less accurate one. And this is how we can test out different methods and choose the best from among them, and throw away the ones we don’t need.

First is predictive success. If we use an inaccurate method we should expect our desires and expectations to be routinely frustrated, as what our trusted propositions predict fails to transpire. This failure, in fact, is what it would mean for those propositions to be false (at least before we start making too many assumptions about the underlying reality), so this conclusion follows necessarily from the very meaning of truth itself. Therefore, if our method is correct, then we can expect to routinely produce propositions whose predicted experiences do in fact take place (since that is what it means for them to be true, prior to our adopting any metaphysics).

This is especially true for those experiences that would otherwise be a complete surprise. Why should we expect this? Because this sort of result would not likely occur if our trusted propositions were false, but could easily occur if they are true. Either way, a bad method will lead us to conclusions that fail to anticipate the future. In short, its results will fail every real test. A good method, because it succeeds in getting at the truth, must necessarily produce assertions that do successfully anticipate the future, to a degree and with a frequency not at all possible by chance. Thus we can identify a good method when we see one.

Of course, we can always explain such success as the machinations of a Cartesian Demon, but this eventually becomes quite implausible, for two reasons. On the one hand, there is no reason to believe there is such a demon. Even the view that we are that demon, constructing the world subconsciously, has no evidence to give it any credit. Indeed, we can distinguish accurate and inaccurate mental constructs, so even though our brains do generate a virtual reality, there still remains an observable distinction between true and false constructions, and thus there remains no reason to believe it is all “just a construct.”

On the other hand, if the demon were really this consistent in giving us results, through which we satisfy our every goal and desire, there would hardly be any intelligible difference between what we call “reality” and the world the demon is inventing for us. Such a construct would be reality, in every sense of the word we normally use. And since we observe some methods to work better than others, and indeed some work best of all, a Cartesian Demon would have to be arranging it this way, constructing reality for us solely in accord with a fixed plan it has chosen. In that case we have just as much reason to pursue the relevant methods for discovering that plan, and to abandon the bad ones, so we can gain the reward of a successful life experience from this mischievous demon. In other words, there is no reason to trust that any Cartesian Demon theory is true, and even if it is, nothing significant changes for us regarding method.

The second criterion of good method is convergent accumulation of consistent results. If we use an inaccurate method we should expect that when we investigate a proposition from several angles we will get inconsistent results, and the more propositions we accumulate the more contradictions we would encounter and the more complex our belief-system would have to become to accommodate them. But if our method is correct, we should expect that when we investigate a proposition from several angles we will get the same results, which would be an improbable coincidence if there were no stable truth being hit upon. At the same time, the more propositions we accumulated, the more consistent our system of propositions would become, with researches in various areas all confirming and supporting each other and permitting cumulative advances in practical knowledge. In contrast to a bad method, with a good method we would find ourselves eliminating rather than accumulating contradictions, and our belief-system would become less convoluted.

All this would be a very good sign that our method is sound and successful and gaining us access to what is really true. For this result could never happen by chance. And even for a Cartesian Demon to pull it off, it would have to have from the very beginning a set, preconceived idea how everything will turn out, or else make everything, including our memories, conform as if that were so. For only in such a way could everything accumulate and coincide so well over a long period of time, or appear to have done so. But if the demon has such a complete game plan already in place, or is so adept at inventing one at any given moment, then there would again be no practical difference between this “truth” and a truth that was just “there.” We could even keep talking of ‘Metaphysical Naturalism’ as the best description of the demon-made world and its contents.
On the other hand, a method that meets both criteria would also stand as evidence of a truth that was not of a Cartesian Demon’s manufacture. Not only would there be no reason to believe a demon was at work (for merely being possible does not make something credible), and not only would there be no advantage gained by believing so (for insofar as our happiness is procured anyway by mastering the rules of the universe established by a fixed reality or by a Cartesian Demon, our propositions always remain true in an operational sense), but it would be altogether improbable. For it would be hard to imagine what the motive of such a demon would be, or why it exists, or how it acquired or employs its powers in the first place.
So what methods have turned out successful?

===The Method of Reason

The reason why the logical-mathematical method is supremely successful is that it has, in respect to the two features of an accurate method, produced the broadest, most complete, and most consistent success. Moreover, when a proposition of logic or mathematics is challenged and seriously debated, the most widespread and solid agreement is achieved in comparison with any other method or subject. This is because the predictions entailed by such propositions are comparatively few, simple, and precisely defined, as well as thoroughly interrelated, and therefore these propositions are very easy to test. For example, to test that a proof is valid one need only validate by direct experience each step of the proof, including its axioms and the steps by which each step leads to the next. In effect, by being the least ambiguous or laborious of all the sciences, it has made the most progress the quickest.

On the one hand, we ourselves can in most cases duplicate the investigations and thus directly confirm logical-mathematical propositions. On the other hand, propositions of logic and mathematics only make claims about the meaning of concepts. So the only empirical inquiry they require is conceptual, and therefore inexpensive and immediate. For they can all be tested in the laboratory of the mind, where concepts exist.

===The Method of Science

The reason why the scientific method, which is in fact a whole complex of empirical methods, is penultimate in success is the same. It falls short of logical-mathematical certainty because the predictions entailed by scientific propositions are vast, complicated and often difficult to pin down precisely, they are less thoroughly interrelated, and require much more expensive and active investigations that must range far beyond the laboratory of the mind.

Therefore, these propositions are very hard to test, requiring long effort, special care, and extensive duplication. But when these standards are met, well and properly, our conclusions will be the most certain we can achieve about facts outside the human mind, correcting even our own errors in direct experience. We have proven again and again that the results of thorough scientific investigation are more reliable than the results of our own casual observation, producing far more extensive agreement and far more surprising successes, with the most impressive examples of convergent knowledge in history. It should already be obvious that without the refinement of effort and method, and the comparison of many different perspectives, our observations are always inferior to what they are with such refinement.

===The Method of Experience

The reason why our own daily experience, even when unanalyzed by a stricter logic or scientific procedure, gets third place, is that we know from experience that it is more reliable than anything else besides. Indeed, everything we know ultimately comes from our own life experience, and on most things we are all in complete agreement about what we encounter there, which would be unlikely for so many very different people unless we were largely right about a lot of those agreed facts.

But if someone comes up with a scientifically or logically well-proven claim that contradicts our direct experience, then we have good reason to believe our experience is in error, because a single unexamined experience cannot possibly be more trustworthy than a hundred well analyzed and tested ones. This is all the more the case if our faulty experience can itself be explained by the proven facts of science or logic.

In contrast, if someone comes up with a well-proven historical claim, or the credible assertion of an expert, or a valid but unproven inference, which contradicts our direct experience, then we have good reason to believe our experience over this claim. For there can be no doubt for us that a direct experience is genuine, even if we have not examined it scientifically or logically and were thus misled by it. But we know from experience that historical claims can easily turn up the result of lies or mistakes, while even experts get things wrong (deliberately or not), and anything that is unproven can claim no authority over what has an inherently greater proof by being directly in our perception. This is all the more the case if we can prove there are faults or defects in these contrary claims, or even a plausible suspicion thereof.

Still, it is always better than not to examine your own experiences with reason and scientific acumen, even when you cannot grant to them the same authority as a rigorous proof or scientifically established fact. For us, if we want greater certainty rather than less, the method of personal experience ought to be the simple practice of living a life of reason, applying scientific and logical principles whenever and wherever possible. This will ensure your life experience produces more reliable knowledge, and is more flexible (by being more open-minded and skeptical), and thus less challenged by the findings of science and logic.

===The Method of History

The reason why the critical-historical method takes fourth place is that, lacking the ability to observe its object directly, its results are as indirect as its evidence, and by being less direct, is less certain. But given a report of something we did not observe and are unable to observe (since it happened in the past), if we apply a tried-and-tested method of critical, historical analysis we will be able to sort reports that are more believable from those that are less, and the most believable from those that are the least.

And we know our present historical methods are good at this, and have improved remarkably, because they now, in respect to the two features of an accurate method, produce the broadest, most complete, and most consistent success with regard to historical claims, and the widest and most uniform agreement than any other method. But even the most certain of historical propositions will not be more certain than well-established scientific facts, since the variety of ways historical propositions can be in error is much greater, and the means by which to confirm them far less secure.

===The Method of Expert Testimony

The last two methods, expert testimony and plausible inference, are the least reliable because, on the one hand, they are the least involved in direct analysis of the relevant evidence and, on the other hand, they are essentially derivative of the more accurate methods discussed above. Expert testimony is fifth in rank, because experts have experience and knowledge from which to make far more accurate and trustworthy inferences in their field than non-experts do.

It is reasonable to trust the claims of experts, whom we have good evidential reasons to believe have applied one of the more accurate methods to a problem and reached a well-founded conclusion from them, if those experts meet certain tests of reliability. These tests include, but are not limited to, possessing genuine qualifications suited to investigating the proposition at issue, corroboration by many other experts, and proof that the expert’s biases are regularly controlled by strict adherence to one or more of the other methods delineated above. The more such criteria an expert source meets in each particular case, the more trustworthy are her claims on relevant matters. Yet even the most trusted expert testimony is not as certain as the more widely confirmed and more evidentially-supported results of logic, ma th or science, or our own direct investigation of the relevant facts, or the direct results of historical research. For there are countless ways an expert can be in error, which can only be checked by other, more direct means.

It is also important to distinguish just what someone has expertise in. For example, a theologian may be an expert on theology, but that only means he has genuine expertise in the concepts of theology, not that he is an expert on factual questions like whether a god exists or whether Catholicism is the One True Religion. No one can really be an expert on these questions because no one has any real evidence for them, at least evidence properly produced by one or more of the superior methods above. A theologian can hardly claim any more experience with an actual god than we can.

Moreover, logic and science precede expertise, and insofar as any expert claims something is true contrary to logic or science, his expertise alone counts for nothing—in fact, he throws into suspicion anything else he might claim on his authority. The same holds when an expert attempts to assert something that contradicts our own personal experience or sound historical investigation. Worse, in fields like theology we find very little agreement among qualified experts, and a vast influence of ideological bias that is rarely placed under any objective control.

Thus, when we examine expert claims, we must account for whether they really are expert in the matter at hand, and whether their claims meet the criteria of trustworthy expert testimony.

===The Method of Plausible Inference

Likewise, it is reasonable to trust the untested but logical outcomes of valid inferential generalizations from incomplete facts. At least, so long as their inductive force is compelling and we don’t grant them greater certainty than the results of more accurate methods. What on earth does all that mean?

A “generalization” is a claim that infers from a few instances that something common to those cases will in fact be true of everything similar, using what is called “inductive logic” (as opposed to “deductive logic” whose results are conceptual and thus effectively certain, rather than empirical and thus relatively less certain). A generalization has a “compelling inductive force” when there is no trustworthy evidence that places it in doubt, and an overwhelming body of evidence from disparate fields or sources that implies it is true.

For instance, many of the beliefs of metaphysical naturalists on the nature of the universe are as yet untested by any method but plausible inference. But as the facts are compellingly in its favor, and its explanatory scope and power is enormous, achieving consistency and convergence with the results of all five other methods, while alternative worldviews come nowhere near it in these respects, it is reasonable to believe it with appreciable certainty. Still, this could all change, if the results of any of the superior methods turn up a contrary fact.


===The Method of Pure Faith

The method of pure faith refers to basing beliefs solely on tradition, hearsay, desire or mere speculation. That is, faith in this sense is trusting what we are told, or just ‘guess’ or want to be true, without requiring any proof. In other words, believing an ungrounded assertion. Naturalists reject this method, for two important reasons.

First, we know as a matter of experience that ungrounded assertions like these are usually false. We know they are caused by processes that are generally not truth-finding. Tradition, hearsay or desire easily transmit beliefs irregardless of their correspondence with anything real. They convey false beliefs just as easily as true ones. In contrast, the other methods we have discussed are generally truth-finding. They are certainly more truth-selective than random chance.

Whenever we have put claims to the test, in fact, we have found that coming solely from tradition or desire, or any other source with no support, ideas are more often false than true. We can see this from the great number of traditional myths, legends, and beliefs that have been exploded or overturned throughout history. So we cannot trust these things by themselves. We need something more. And therefore we need something more than faith.

Second, blind faith is inherently self-defeating. The number of false beliefs always vastly outnumbers the true. It follows that any arbitrary method of selection will be maximally successful at selecting false beliefs. So the probability is always very high that a belief based on mere faith will be false. History is rife with examples of the sad consequences of misplaced faith. So, again, we need something more. And that ‘something’ is what I have described above: a belief system based on applying proven truth-finding methods to basic, direct, undeniable experiences.

===Final Remarks on Method

As already noted, the methods defended above are to be regarded as superior to pure hearsay and speculation, which from long experience we know we can’t trust. We know the latter are rarely arrived at by anything having to do with the truth, but often by unknown and chance factors unrelated to truth.

In contrast, among the valid methods one thing is held in common: a thorough reliance on evidence and reason. Reason, because we must think carefully and not erroneously, and evidence, because by no other means do we have any access to the truth. Since our access to truth is therefore generally in direct proportion to the abundance and quality of evidence, we align our beliefs to this, and nothing else.

There is no sense in replacing reason and evidence with anything else, like tradition or faith. As we have seen, such a mistake will fill our minds with untrustworthy and largely false beliefs. For there is nothing in the methods of tradition or faith, or any other procedure, that suggests they are reliable, certainly not in any way that can compete, logically or in practice, with the six methods described above.

Finally, I must briefly clarify two connotations of “proof” or “proving” in the context of method. Scientists, judges, and the average Joe mean by “proof” any body of evidence sufficient to justify belief, i.e. “proof” that something is very probably true. Not enough proof means not enough reason to believe. Only in logic and mathematics does “proof” mean a decisive demonstration that something is certainly true. Of course, even that is not so certain as it seems (we can always be mistaken), but it is a much different kind of thing than “proof” in empirical practice.