Thinking books · Knowledge & truth · David Deutsch, 2011
The Beginning of Infinity — the big ideas
An argument that good explanations are the engine of all progress.
Free — no account needed to read
The big ideas
A good explanation is hard to vary while still accounting for what it explains. Bad explanations can be adjusted to fit anything, which is why they never get refuted and never help.
It argues problems are inevitable and problems are soluble, and that this pairing — not optimism about outcomes — is the basis for expecting progress.
Knowledge grows by conjecture and criticism rather than by deriving truths from observation, extending Popper into a general theory.
It is demanding and ranges across physics, politics and aesthetics in a single argument, which is either the appeal or the obstacle. A chapter at a time is the right pace.
Practise it — no need to have read it
Take an explanation you hold. Ask how easily it could be adjusted to fit the opposite outcome. If easily, it explains nothing.
A hint: Hard-to-vary is the test. Not plausible, not satisfying — hard to vary.
Where it shows up in real life
- Evaluating explanations
- Diagnosing failures
- Assessing a theory someone is selling you
Described in our own words with the source named — never quoted, and not a substitute for reading the book.
Thinking methods from this book
- State what would refute it — Testing whether a claim is the kind of thing evidence could ever settle.
The thinking it builds
- Critical Thinking — Evaluate claims and evidence
- Logical Thinking — Reason consistently