Yes or No Philosophy

Yes or No Philosophy is the catchy name for CF's binary approach to epistemology. "A 'binary' issue is one with only two answers, e.g. yes or no. Epistemology is fundamentally binary."

Yes/No applies everywhere:

• You can accept an idea, or not.
• You can reject an idea, or not.
• You can decide a criticism refutes an idea, or not.
• You can decide an idea solves a problem, or not.
• You can act on an idea, or not.

What Yes/No rejects

• Supporting arguments. "The idea of supporting arguments is a mistake."
• Strong/weak arguments. "The idea of strong or weak arguments is a mistake."
• Hedging, equivocating, wishy-washy answers. These only make things worse.
• Compromise as a middle path. If you act on a compromise, you've accepted a different idea.

The relationship to uncertainty

Yes/No does not deny uncertainty. Instead it says:

1. "I'm uncertain about X" is itself an idea, which you must evaluate.
2. You can act given your uncertainty: "Given that I don't know X, Y, or Z, what should I do right now?"
3. Plans that depend on a specific value of X being true or false should both be rejected currently, because you don't know which.

Yes/No extends CR's rejection of positive arguments further: where CR still allows "partial effectiveness" of negative arguments, CF rejects partial effectiveness entirely.

"The idea of supporting arguments is a mistake. The idea of strong or weak arguments is a mistake." — criticalfallibilism.com