Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge (Jungle)

Based on the book: Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge by Gerard Radnitzky, W. W. Bartley. Lyrics: [Intro] Open Court in the back of the crate Alpbach after dark, let the arguments break In the great lounge, every afternoon Pages flick like wings in a hostile sun Two decades in the wire, now the signal's loud From Stanford to Trier through a thinking crowd "This volume and its origins" A pulse in the dust, where the bassline begins [Verse 1] Part I in the bloodstream, evolution of the claim Philosophy of biology put physics to shame "Presentationalism" in a mirrored room Mach on the wall, but the walls don't move "Sensation is not authoritative" No saint in the sensor, no final native A frog with an eye and a mind half-made Categories cut by the hunt and the shade Locomotor devices, instinct, habit Vicarious routes so the flesh don't have it Nested hierarchy, rung by rung From movement in the mud to the speaking tongue Observational learning, imitation, flame Language in the cut, culture in the chain And science, the latest retention machine Not pure, not fixed, but sharp and mean [Chorus] Blind variation, selective retention Breakbeat brain in a state of invention No throne, no mirror, no final decree We test what we can and let the rest breathe Blind variation, selective retention Every truth trial under tension From the first wrong step to the mind set free We move by the cut of uncertainty [Verse 2] Campbell in the circuitry, searching the field "Creative Thought" with no promise to yield The domain of possible thought-trials burns A thousand bad turns till the good one turns Popper in reply with the Darwin lecture Natural selection frame by frame projector Not Paley's watch, not a god-hand plan But errors get buried and forms still stand Then light and life in the pigment rain Nutritional origins wired in the vein Photosynthesis humming under a friendly sun Then a hostile sun and the blue-green run "The narrow band of visible light" Not chance in the dark but a pressure to sight And "there is more to vision than meets the eye" Bass drops low while the red cells rise [Break] [Break] [Verse 3] Then emergence enters with a dangerous grace Third world sparks in a logical space "Methodological emergence" in the smoke Not deity talk, not a mystical joke Levels on levels, new features appear Reduction says hush, but the future's here No full collapse of the whole to the part No iron machine for the leap in the heart But circular charges start circling hard "Epistemology is impossible"—guard "We lack a criterion of knowledge" Need a criterion for the criterion, trapped in the college "Self-reference leads to contradictions" Godel in the room with impossible diction Yet "there are virtuous circles" Feedback loops spinning through methods and hurdles The hammer makes hammers, the clock checks time The field grows self-consistent line by line [Chorus] Blind variation, selective retention Breakbeat brain in a state of invention No throne, no mirror, no final decree We test what we can and let the rest breathe Blind variation, selective retention Every truth trial under tension From the first wrong step to the mind set free We move by the cut of uncertainty [Verse 4] Part II, ratatat, theory of rationality Post throws sparks at total criticability Watkins cuts back with the paradox blade Can "everything" stand what "everything" made? But Bartley says no to the old demand You don't need a rock just to understand Not justification, criticism's the route No sacred hinge if you're working it out Then Part III swings to the sociology Relativist mirrors and authority Rorty's parlour-games, speech community fog Who gets let in, who gets thrown to the dog? "Our hero" runs from the dread reflection Historicist drift in a closed connection But Popper's "non-authoritarian hypothetical realism" Kicks through the room like a jungle baptism Flew says naturalism won't eat its own Choosing's still there in the flesh and bone Bartley on Marx and alienation's cost Products break away and the makers get lost [Bridge] So from title page to subject index From "To Hans Albert" to the final exits The whole book leans to a single nerve: No guarantee that the world will serve But "epistemology is possible" If the circle can turn and remain revisable And "everything is open to criticism" Even the bassline under the system [Outro] No mirror of nature, no quiet seat Just a moving floor and a broken beat From biology, physics, reason, and doubt You keep what survives when the noise cuts out Open Court in the fading light Third printing ghosts in the drum and night We don't get certainty, we get the climb A theory of knowledge in selective time