by Jason Stotts
Craig Biddle, of The Objective Standard, has now weighed in on Peikoff v. McCaskey in his letter “Justice for John P. McCaskey” published today on his personal website. In it, he defends McCaskey and points out that Peikoff is apparently baseless in his attack on McCaskey and, thus, should be condemned for arbitrarily condemning him.
I agree with Biddle and I want to reiterate my support of McCaskey through this. I maintain, as I did in “On The Newest Schism” that:
…it seems to me that McCaskey was only trying to help make The Logical Leapinto a better book. His review is amazingly reserved and the care with which he tried not to offend anyone is obvious. It’s important to note that McCaskey’s only objections are to how Harriman presents the history of the science, not with his theory of induction. Indeed, it seems that McCaskey was right to worry as he presents evidence that Harriman distorted the history in order to make it consistent with his thesis. This makes him look intellectually dishonest and may disgrace what is a perfectly true and very good new theory of induction. This is McCaskey’s worry and it seems to me that he was only trying to help.
For additional rational commentary on the subject, see Diana Hsieh’s “The Resignation of John McCaskey: the Facts.“