On Good & Bad Reasoning
As a teacher at a small northern Wisconsin community college, I was always struck that so many students made it all the way to college knowing little or nothing about Greek philosophy, about Socrates (but what they learned from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, of course), or even what a fallacy is. I don’t know why this should surprise me, since I myself had had the same experience, and until I became a philosophy major, did not know that there was a difference between good and bad reasoning, let alone that it can make the difference in the quality of a person’s life, distinguishing an authentic from an inauthentic one. I too was well on in years before I realized that there are patterns of reasoning that may sound like they make sense, at first blush, but upon further reflection, simply do not. And that further reflection is what philosophy is all about.
The original purpose of philosophy – the search for truth - was to help us understand the difference in good and bad reasoning, in healthy and unhealthy argument, in sincerity and deceit, all necessary skills in sorting what is true from what is false. Contrary to how most of us have learned it, philosophical argument is not about conflict or disagreement, as we typically think of it, or even about winning at all. It is, rather, about making a case so to be better understood by someone who does not see some part of what is true, or at any rate, that part of the truth we see that they don’t.
The other side of this process is listening to the reasoning of others in order to better understand them. Learning to discern when someone is making a good case, when something does or does make sense, does or does not follow from something else, is not merely an interpersonal skill of communication, but is – arguably -- a skill that promotes what might properly be called 'mental health,' or perhaps more to the point, moral health. For good reasoning is the foundation of effective communication, mutual understanding, and healthy relationships – with oneself as well as with others.
Mind you, this is not to say that most Philosophers are themselves good examples of mental health. In fact, to the contrary, too many go into capital-P Philosophy because they enjoy subtle manipulation of reasoning so to seem smarter than others, to become ever better at rhetorical banter and tripping up opponents in word games at cocktail parties. (But to hope for the best, lets assume these are not those who go on to teach the subject.)
At any rate, let us be clear at the outset that, degree or no degree, Socrates would not have called such folks philosophers at all. Rather, small-p philosophy is not about making a career of verbal trickery (that he would call sophistry, his pet peeve). Rather, it is about using words for the true power that they have when used well, i.e. the power to help us find the truth underlying the deceptively powerful cloak that words, used badly, can become.
The Greeks are remembered for their reverence for reason – by which they meant that inborn power we that allows children to know intuitively when something is not fair. It allows those who learn to master it to discern what makes sense from what does not. It is an apriori understanding, which is to say, a truth that exists prior to all learning and all experience. And reason is incessantly inquisitive – which is what prompts children to ask, sometimes ad nauseum – Why? In the same way that we can mathematically figure out, by way of numbers, that 2 + 2 equals 4, and that this is true for all people in all times, so we can logically figure out, by way of words, that a given conclusion follows from a given line of reasoning, and that another conclusion simply does not.
And so all humans, like all children, want to know the reasons for why things are as they are, not simply what something is, but how and why it is as it is. By contrast, when reasoning fails to make a good case for a particular conclusion, we can sense that it simply does not make sense, which is to say, it does not add up. All of which requires that we have some exercise in this reasoning process, which can, apparently, atrophy when left unused.
And so the function of small-p philosophy is to help us give our selves and one another such exercise in using words, language, and reasoning to express, as correctly as possible, why something is true and something else is not. Something may or may not be true, without anyone ever speaking explicitly of it, but when we do speak, the things we say may also be true, or they may only sound true, when in fact they are false.
The Greeks believed in the power of words, well reasoned, in healthy dialogue. And it fell to them especially to make use of those words, for while humans had always sought for truth, in a sense, it was not until the birth of the first democracy that this search require the use of our reasoning tools. For democracy, unlike all other social arrangements, enjoys the freedom of speech that allows, and even compels us, to master the art of dialogue, so to bring out the best in one another, and work together to grow a healthy, self-regulating, community.
Seeing that reasoning had this power, the Greeks considered this skill to be our divine legacy, a gift from the gods, if you will, that gives us the potential to be god like ourselves – which is to say, it gives human beings the power to reach those highest potentials of understanding, mutual understanding, personal and social excellence, which are all available by way of the process of good reasoning. It is, as we’ve said elsewhere, an inheritance we must invest, a tool we must sharpen, a muscle we must exercise. When this potential is well developed, it is nothing short of the highest function of the human being.
Now, let me digress just a bit to qualify this claim, because those of you who have studied Eastern Philosophy may bristle at this last claim, and rightly so…if you are thinking that there is an understanding that exists beyond words, beyond reason, and which is entirely ineffable, and grasped only in the depths of one’s being, that is, one’s soul. What’s more, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle would probably agree with you wholeheartedly – indeed, nothing could be more true, and it is here that the limits of words quickly become apparent once again.
As Aristotle puts it, there are in his view (at least) five levels of mind -- and the uppermost is beyond words altogether. The deep understanding that might be called 'nirvana' by some, or 'satori' by others, or ‘gnosis’ by still others, is what Aristotle would call this highest level of knowledge, one we simply cannot reach with words alone. As Aristotle rightly observed, this realm of knowledge is beyond, in an important sense, above that which can be grasped with language, and as Socrates would say, it must be apprehended directly in the soul. Still we reach to understand it in order to act wisely. And to this end, words can help lift us ever higher, until we might ultimately have this higher knowledge in sight.
As Alan Watts put it, “words are useful,” but only “for communicating with those who have shared a similar experience.”* As one Zen master put it, “A finger may be used to point at the moon, but let us not confuse the finger with the moon.”[1] Physicist David Bohm put it this way: “Whatever we say is words,” but “what we want to talk about is generally not words.”[2] Words are like fingers, i.e. they are pointing tools, but what they point to in this case is an inner experience that can be ‘known’ only directly, prior to words, and then only by what the ancients called the ‘initiated’.
Plato called this gnosis – and it is perhaps the most important concept in philosophy. It is that inner flash of insight that comes as a “rushing progression of understanding,” and only to those who reach for it.
So it is important to recognize that the Greeks were entirely aware of the limits of words, and we come up against these limits when we try to discuss this deepest form of understanding with someone who does not themselves possess it. And it is for this reason that one might be tempted to think that Greek philosophy as a step down from the use of the mind aspired to by eastern visionaries. And in a sense, you would be right, and Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle would be the first agree with you.
That said, they argued that we can discuss the other levels very fruitfully, and should, since deep communication is possible among humans, and words, for all their limitations, do give us the power to conceive of and exchange abstract objects (thoughts, ideas, concepts, images, arguments, conclusions, theories, etc.). These concepts are as real as rocks, they are just more difficult to apprehend. As Aristotle emphasizes, the knowledge that grows between us in this process is a secondary reality (or substance), but it is nonetheless worthy of our best efforts, as it can uplift us, individually and collectively, to our better selves.
As we have seen, Socrates argues that words are necessary that we might climb toward this better understanding of what is by way of the dialectic process, as well as a better understanding of one another. Words are the best tools humans have for communication and mutual education, and while self-knowledge may be the ultimate end of all learning, we do have a great deal to learn from one another in the process.
And yet even those who have reached this highest level of knowledge must come back down (as Socrates once learned in a dream), back to the use of words in order to help uplift others to that higher, albeit ineffable, understanding that might ultimately be reached by way of climbing through these other levels of understanding.
They clearly knew something that we have > forgotten, and I’m fairly convinced that rediscovering it may be > our only hope of healing the ubiquitous and increasingly hostile > conflict that plagues us. It does seem necessary that we discover > this means to intellectual peace before we can ever hope to > achieve peace politically. What is war, after all, but failed > dialogue?
Until human beings learn to honor the worthy and trust the just, the ancients learned the hard way, human interests will continue to be dominated by those who least deserve power precisely because they are most in love with it—rather than those who do deserve it because they are in love with truth and justice.
Hence, the necessity of reasoned dialogue and deliberation, for it is only possible to discover together what is objectively real and true—no matter how you look at it—as distinct from what is merely constructed by any few who would have us see it their way. So it is that by stretching their minds to the proper consideration of points of view other than their own, the Greeks got a glimpse of that big picture which has eluded those with narrower minds since.
By recognizing the value of all voices in their proper associations, this diverse group of perfectly ordinary minds illustrate by example how the principle of multiplicity in unity might actually work – and that is, only if each and every citizen masters himself instead of each other. It is a principle of dialectic education, which is still and always fundamental to a healthy democracy, though widely neglected in our own time.
On Arguing to Understand, Rather than to Win
So what is a fallacy? To understand this, we first have to understand the philosophical concept of an argument. In order to understand what makes a fallacy a bad thing, we must spend some time considering what makes good reasoning a good thing.
What is a good argument, in the philosophical sense? And why does argument matter to good reasoning?
Reasoning begins in the practical need to know 'what really is' so that we can survive and flourish. But people have learned different things through their different experience, and when they know the healthy way to argue, they can carry on a discussion to very satisfying ends -- that is, to the point of mutual understanding -- by definition, the most desirable of human experience. But we don’t learn this in the world such as it is, and so we cannot reach understanding, of each other of the world we live in, without asking questions, starting with what is real? True? Right? Our good is summed up in all these, and we all want what is good for us, but not everyone knows what that is. Arguably, only those who have asked and answered these hard questions ever really understands this good, and even then, few would say they know it in a strong sense – only that they have learned it in some important sense.
However, the will to understand can be quickly lost when the will to win kicks in. And this is why our purpose in dialogue matters critically. Understanding eludes those who don't aim at it, but instead, have 'winning the argument' as their purpose, thus precluding any higher goal. But the higher goal exists, but is found only by those who search. It waits for anyone who understands the truer value and purpose of words and argument, which is to help us understand, not merely what is, but one another as well.
If one could only know what one learns from one's own window on the world, one would be unnecessarily limited to a very narrow slice of reality. We can learn from the experience of others, at least from those who can be trusted to tell the truth and have themselves truly learned, by way of their inner voice, as well as from trust-worthy others.
"A great deal of our knowledge comes from other people in this way. Because we can communicate what we experience, human beings can merge their separate windows into one giant window."[3]
The fact that we all see the world from different points of view is what makes dialogue necessary, and the fact that some see through broader windows necessitates that we learn to argue well – because some have learned more and better, and so see more of the whole truth than others, and learning from those who have such expanded points of view can broaden us all.
This is the very essence of learning, but learning from others can also involve a sort of game of telephone, for they themselves may have been taught badly.
So how can one trust what one hears from others? The written word can sometimes help prevent confusion and deceit from taking root, but it can also proliferate untruth when the lie itself becomes written. It is this inevitable uncertainty about what comes from outside of us that requires that we use a more certain method, if we have one, by which the truth can be discerned, a method that goes beyond trusting the source.
For this reason, "we proceed by means of reasoning. When we reason, we use relationships among propositions to push our knowledge beyond the limits of what we can experience directly."[4](p.88)
The study of logic is the study of that reasoning process. It is a study which purports to be able to discern the "general principles that apply everywhere,” because the good thing about the truth is that it stays true, which is to say, “rivers in Tai wan must behave like rivers in our own environment."
This process of reasoning is, by its very nature, dialectic – back and forth – question and answer, thesis and antithesis. It matters not whether it dialogic, that is, between individuals or groups, or is within an individual who is arguing with him or herself, that is, deliberating. The whole point of reasoning is to determine the truth or falsity of propositions that we are not in a position to verify directly by sense perception."[5] Dialogue or deliberation is necessary, as Socrates says, "because nothing is an answer unless you've asked the question." Seen in this light, it is easy to see why the ancients understood that the source of both good and evil in this world is the right and wrong use of words.
And so we must distinguish between good reasoning and mere rhetoric, because not all reasoning is equally respectable. Bad reasoning is particularly insidious, especially today, since it is ubiquitous and can be broadcast to every corner of the world. And what it too often does in our age is create what the ancients understood to be the very source of suffering – human want. It is for this and many other reasons why it is critical that we learn to sort good from bad reasoning at a young age. Unfortunately, as noted earlier, we don't learn in our part of the world – early or sometimes ever -- what makes an argument good.
Put simply, a good argument is "an appeal to evidence in support of a conclusion," and technically, that is any "set of propositions in which some propositions – the premises – are asserted as support or evidence for another – the conclusion."[6] We make an argument whenever we make a case by citing reasons to draw one conclusion over another from the available premises. "An argument can also be described as an inference," because "the conclusion is inferred from the premises."[7]
By the time we are mature, we are in the habit of inferring much from what is said to us, and we recognize the basic organizing principles or structure underlying the language we use, though we've long since forgotten the rules of language by this point, and instead we just use them as if they're hard wired into us. We intuit the different patterns of communication, and can easily see the difference between different forms -- including narration (sequence of events being the organizing principle) and description (which tells us facts about something) neither of which involves arguments. An argument, by contrast, uses reasons to logically convince us that something is (or is not) true. These patterns differ further from an explanation, which goes on to show why something is (or is not) true.
"In an argument, we reason forward from premises to the conclusion; in an explanation, we reason backwards from facts to the cause or reason for that fact."[8] In both cases, we use indicator words (such as as, because, since, for this reason, assuming that, in as much as, etc.) to indicate premises we are citing as evidence. And we use others (such as therefore, thus, so, consequently, hence, as a result, it follows that, which means, or which implies) to indicate that a conclusion is being drawn.
We analyze arguments, not for their own sake, but for the sake of evaluating their logical strength. "A good argument is one that establishes the truth of its conclusion."[9]
The goal of the study of logic aims to establish standards for measuring logical strength. And the reason we need these is because when something doesn't make sense, these standards will help us locate the problem, the error in reasoning, and ideally, can help us correct it. Certainly, logic can help us sort out what's wrong with other's reasoning, but – as the ancient well knew – it is best used to help us sort out the errors in our own reasoning – before anyone else has to point it out to us. In this, it is an essential learning tool, and yet, few of us get the benefit of this skill that was the foundation of the first and truest form of philosophy.
A good argument has two essential attributes: its premises must be true, and "must be logically related to the conclusion in such a way that, if the premises are true, the conclusion is likely to be true as well."[10] That is, the truth of the premises gives us reason to think the conclusion is true. This "capacity of the premises to support the conclusion" is what we refer to (the referent) when we speak of the logical strength of an argument. This is what we mean when we say that something or somebody makes sense.
One important kind of argument, which we call deductive, is one in which the conclusions follows necessarily from the truth of the premises. This means that, if the premises are true, the conclusion also must be. We call a deductive argument valid when it has this kind of logical strength.
Arguments can be simple or complex, and can have a single premises or a whole network of dependent and independent premises. (When we diagram arguments, we use arrows (<= =>) to represent the logical connections between premises and conclusion.)
All told, an argument is only as strong as its strongest link, and "a chain of reasoning is no stronger than its weakest link." However, a web of reasoning "may be stronger than any one of its individual strands." [11]
Premises that are assumed, but unstated, are abundant in all our communication. They are implied (implicit) rather than expressed (explicit), and very often, it is the unstated assumptions that are the most controversial, which is to say, they call for more discussion -- indeed, argument -- than they are given in a particular context.
Arguments often seem more plausible than they really are because the weakest links go unstated. Indeed, to truly understand most people's arguments, we must supply the assumptions they are making in order to make sense of their reasoning. We fill in the gaps in the argument, without going beyond it.
For this reason, understanding other requires not only logical skill, but a kind of generosity that logicians call the principle of charity. This involves the faith that all parties of an argument are committed to not only listening without prejudice, but to helping the other along in making his or her case. We sometimes find that we even have to supply the conclusion itself. This is what tells us when someone is arguing only to win, rather than to understand, because they will not only not help make sense of the others case, but will often even try to make nonsense of it. Unfortunately, too many of us learn early on to use words as weapons, and this explains the prevalence of fallacy in our daily conversation. If you have ever tried to argue with such a BSer, you know that the experience is absolutely confounding, if not dumbfounding, because such a person does not even want to understand or reconcile, but aims specifically to confuse the subject in any of many ways that such fallacies make possible. Among the most powerful of such diversionary fallacies commonly used to kill discussion (and sometimes relationships altogether) is the best defense is a good offense, a form of fallacy called tu quoque, (meaning back at you or you too), often used by a scoundrel to divert attention from his guilt by attacking when he should apologize. Another is the fallacy of complex question -- such as that involved in the question, Have you stopped beating your wife? This one is built into the assumption that whoever brings up a problem is starting a fight; they may indeed be starting the discussion, but the problem itself started elsewhere, or there would be no need to bring it up. What’s more, whether it becomes a fight or not really depends on how the other reacts – with sincerity or BS. These are only a few of what are many examples of how easy it is to muddy the water of what might otherwise be a fruitful discussion.
In the world as it is, many tend to advocate or oppose positions as if it is all just so much opinion, which is to say, as if a mere belief is good enough to make a case on. But in fact, "questions of truth and falsity…are appropriate."[12] Indeed, as is presumed in the very word philosophy – i.e. love of truth – truth is to be loved above all else, even and especially winning, because winning does not advance anyone’s understanding, least of all the apparent winner. Ideally, philosophical argument should not lead to actual quarreling, but rather to mutual agreement and, ideally, mutual understanding and growth in learning – and nothing can be understood that is not actually true.
On the Danger of Empty Rhetoric
Philosophers aim to help themselves and others to sharpen their reasoning skills, for dull tools make it impossible for most people to see if and when they are being deceived, for deceitful words are the source of most of the ignorance and injustice in the world.
The enemy of good reason is bad rhetoric -- relatively empty words that may sound good, and often play on our emotions, but which do not actually add up; that is, they do not make sense.
Rhetoric can take many forms, and most often employs simple fallacy to persuade us to do, or buy, or believe what we would not, if we were thinking better. Mind you, it is important that we distinguish one sense of the term rhetoric from other senses you may have learned along the way. In and of itself, rhetoric is not necessarily manipulative or deceitful - it is possible to speak or write rhetorically toward just and honest ends. But words can delude, can hide the truth, and can as easily lead to evil as to good. So we distinguish empty rhetoric from more meaningful forms.
For words are often used to simply manipulate and confuse, rather than to reach understanding. As we’ve said, Socrates scolds those sophists who fight over words “like puppies fight over meat,” and in the process, turn young minds off to ideas altogether, and “make them hate the whole business when they get older."[13] This effect, which Socrates calls misology,[14] come of hearing contradictory things both called true. In this way, empty rhetoric is thus likely to prove unsuccessful in bettering the condition of one’s partner in dialogue.[15] He himself would have been turned off, Socrates says, if he had not had "so deep a passion" as to adhere him to the exercise of philosophic inquiry all his life.[16]
You will probably recognize many common fallacies. Most of us have grown up using them ourselves, without even knowing.
On Fallacies & the Unhealthy Educational Method
By contrast, logical fallacies are patterns of bad reasoning, errors of logical structure that look plausible on the surface, but when you consider them more thoughtfully, they simply do not make sense, do not lead to true conclusions, and certainly do not lead to mutual self-improvement. They are arguments that offer only bad reasons for their conclusions, though at first glance, they seem to make sense, and for this reason, can be especially difficult to refute.
For instance, Circular reasoning or begging the question is good example of a fallacy that gets much traction in our culture. 'The Christian God is the only God because the Bible tells me so…and the Bible is the word of God, so it must be right.' The conclusion is assumed at the outset. Sometimes these take the form of an appeal to ignorance, such as saying that we should believe in God because no one can prove that s/he doesn't exist. Or shifting the burden of proof, as if the fact that you can't prove that I'm wrong suffices to make me right.
Changing the subject in the middle of an argument is the fallacy of diversion. This is sometimes called a red herring when combined with an emotional appeal, because the scent of a red herring is so powerful that it will throw a dog off a scent it was trying to follow. This shows up all the time in personal discussions when a person changes the subject by subtle slight that draws the others attention from what was earlier being said. Likewise, on a social scale, support for a politician’s policies, for instance, can easily be undermined by even the whiff of scandal, with or without evidence. Indeed, as we have seen many times in democratic ages – from Pericles to Clinton – even the search for evidence to support the emptiest of accusations is enough to divert the public’s attention from the truth of the case or any good work that is being or might otherwise be accomplished.
A person who argues with fallacies in this way often walks away feeling like they have accomplished something, and indeed, even made sense, though his or her partner in debate may see perfectly well that the case that was made was pure nonsense. For this reason, a BSer often think they are making progress, when in fact, they are only leaving a trail of partners turned opponents, because trust is difficult to recover once lost.
Examples of fallacies abound. Many fallacies appeal to our emotions, such as those that are called an appeal to fear or appeal to pity. An example of an appeal to pity would include a case where, in court, someone says, 'You shouldn't find me guilty because I have small children to feed.' This may be a reason to feel sorry for someone or their children, but it has no bearing on their guilt or innocence. (This is one defense that Socrates refused to use in court...though as a 70 year old father of toddlers before an assembly known for being easy to sway, he might have lived had he used it.) Another common example of an appeal to pity is the politician who complains that his or her opponent is running attack ads. That may or may not be true, but this is no reason to think the opponent wrong or to vote for this person, for those ads may very well be true.
Examples of an appeal to fear include friends who implicitly, or even explicitly, threaten to ostracize you if you don't, say, turn your back on another friend or another group. If someone says or implies that you should believe this or that because I or someone will harm you if you don't -- well, that may be a good reason to defend yourself -- but it not a good reason for thinking something is true. A student recently called this kissing up and kicking down, and cited it as the reason high school is so difficult. This may seem, on the surface, to be an appeal to popularity, another popular fallacy, but it is not: an appeal to popularity would be when someone suggests that you should think or do this or that because ‘everyone is doing it,’ or that you should do or be or think this or that because it is not normal. John Stuart Mill called this the tyranny of the majority, and it is a process of stigmatizing that enjoys a particularly powerful efficacy in our age. This fallacy involves the implicit assumption that the majority opinion is infallible, as if to say, if large numbers of people believe something, it must therefore be right. In fact, millions of people drink to excess every day, but this does not mean that we should agree that millions of people can’t be wrong, or just stupid. The truth is, it may be the case that many or even most are or do this or that, but there is nothing to say that we should do it too, that we should all be alike, or that being average or mediocre is in any way wise or good. Because everyone else is doing something is not, in and of itself, a good reason for you or I to do it too. Parents sometimes come back in response to this claim with the retort, 'Well, if everyone were jumping off a cliff, would you do it too?' Unfortunately, these are often the same parents who encourage their young to fit in at all costs, so the conditioning of one generation after another is undoubtedly a big part of our problem.
Another example of an appeal to fear involves a parent, friend, or partner whose support depends on your maintaining a particular belief or attitude (say, a particular religious affiliation or political party). This is actually a form of bullying, and again, while it can easily win our compliance, this does not make it a good reason to think either this religion or party is in any sense right or true. Consider also a teacher who suggests that only those who agree with him or her will get good grades. Like a friend who holds that only people who dress, or look, or act a certain way are worthy, these too are attempts to breed conformity by intimidation. They can be very effective in controlling our behavior, but they should not carry weight with our thinking, for none of these provide good reasons to believe or think in any particular way. At the very most we might admit there could be a price to pay for being different or going against the pressure to conform, but there may also be hidden benefits, perhaps even many.
A slippery slope argument typically involves fallacies based on emotion. For instance, the claim that 'Same-sex marriage will destroy the family structure as we know it' is a form of slippery slope argument; it plays on a person’s affectional ties to the traditional family to stimulate a knee-jerk reaction against the supposed threat. There seems no good reason to believe that recognizing some alternative families would therefore destroy other more traditional forms (unless you think folks would leave their traditional marriages if the alternative were open to them, but this then doesn’t say much for those marriages either). Another would be the claim that limiting assault weapons will lead inevitably to outlawing all guns. Or that legalizing marijuana will lead to legalizing all drugs. These claims appeal to our emotional attachment to our families, our guns, and our way of life, and often play on a misunderstanding and mistrust of what one doesn’t know and can’t predict.
Mind you, it’s important to note that not all slippery slope arguments are fallacious, for some slippery slopes do actually exist. For instance, to say that “if we shush people from expressing their political views, we run the risk of disempowering the First Amendment” we have given an example of a slippery slope argument that actually is correct. Another might be the claim that preventing a given faith from expressing itself will undermine the constitutional protections of others faiths to express their faith as they see fit. Such claims are based on the suggestion that a little violation of the constitution won’t hurt, when in fact, it is a matter of where to stop – for if we can rationalize shushing some people or limiting some religions under some circumstances, then where is the line over which we will not step? It will be very hard to make a case for why we should not do the same under other circumstances. The question becomes, where do we stop? There is no clear line of demarcation between some cases and others, hence the slippery slope.
The difference between a fallacy, and what only appears to be a fallacy at first glance, is sometimes one that involves very subtle reasoning. Whether something is or is not a fallacy depends not merely on it’s surface form, but on whether there are good reasons to believe it is true, or not.
Similarly, there is the appeal to tradition ('that's the way it's always been done'), or the appeal to the future ('new is better'). Both are gross generalizations, and the truth requires looking closer at the particular case. Just because modern medicine has more shiny gadgets than ancient medicine, and we really like shiny gadgets, this is no reason to believe that modern medicine is inherently better than ancient or alternative medicine. The truth depends on a more even-handed weighing of the actual evidence about different methods of treating disease or viewing health.
Another fallacy is the appeal to the limits of what we've learned, such as the claim that, ‘That's just the way I was raised.' We may have habits, but this is no reason to think that our habits are necessarily good. Related to this is the true for you or subjective fallacy; the claim that something may be true for you, but it's not for me. Just because a given person doesn’t see or want to be aware of the truth, this does not mean that it doesn't exist, or that we can agree that truth is untruth. Truth, by definition, stays true, so it is true for everyone -- though we may not all see or be willing to look at it with veracity. It’s important to remember here is that the active root of ignorance is to ignore.
Appeal to authority is another widely used fallacy, very popular in advertising. To say you should buy this product because a popular celebrity endorses it is playing on our esteem for that celebrity or maybe our desire to be like him, but really has very little to do with his credibility as an authority about the worth of this or that product.
This can also take a serious form, such as when we hear something like, "Industry should not have to limit its CO2 emissions because corporate studies show no evidence that this has any effect on the environment.” Such a statement ignores that corporate studies have an interest in not finding a causal relationship that would cut into their profit margin. Another oft-heard proclamation these days is that “climate change is not being prompted by human activity,” as evidence by 53% of media reports that indicate scientific doubt about its causes. Never mind that 99% of scientific studies leave no room for doubt whatsoever. We don’t seem to know the difference these days between the authority of rigorous scientific inquiry and the mere beliefs and opinions of those who may not know what they’re talking about, especially when they have an interest in not seeing what they don’t want to see.
Another popular and especially effective form of fallacy is called ad hominem, or 'below the belt' reasoning, sometimes called 'mud throwing' -- attacking the person themselves instead of their record or their argument. Here is where political attack ads often are fallacious – when they do not show something true about the candidate they are opposing, but instead play on mere suggestion to create an adverse, usually emotional, reaction in voters minds. Very popular these days are claims that someone is a ‘radical environmentalist,’ or is ‘pro-abortion,’ or has a ‘homosexual agenda.’ Calling someone a ‘big spending liberal,’ or even a ‘socialist,’ who will ‘raise your taxes’ is very effective as well, especially when and because so much of the population is economically insecure and fearful of being even worse off. This is partly a survival instinct, and partly because we have raised out young to care more about money than any other goods, and to think of the function of leaders as protecting their immediate interests, rather than any of the other goods that government is charged by our constitution with seeing to – such as protecting people and the environment from exploitation by profit mongers, or protecting personal freedoms from unjustified constraint by government.
More than this though, we are vulnerable to empty political rhetoric because we have been raised to misunderstand the very meaning of the words that are being tossed around in such debates, such that people get away with using emotionally charged buzz words to push people buttons. Few would guess that not long ago, it was Republicans who were the liberals. Indeed, one of the most effective rhetorical devices is what we might call ‘the pot calling the kettle black,’ used most often by ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing.’ You might think that the proper response to such spin would be to say, ‘Look who’s talking?’ But this too can be a form of tu quoque, and it is seldom very effective, considering that two wrongs don’t make a right.
Ironically, one of the most effective claims are those made against what is called ‘big government,’ by which they mean, government that taxes those who can most afford it, and won’t let business operate unhindered at all costs to the broader interests of the people. Again, economic insecurity makes it easy to create the appearance of shared interest with those who have a short-term interest in jobs, or simply the conditioned will to accumulate wealth above all else, even if and when it opposes the long term interests upon which they truly depend in (such as safe products, a healthy environment, and even personal freedom and a right to government protection from large scale exploitation). But in fact these are used most often by those who would use government to usurp personal freedoms, such as a recent campaign commercial that in one breadth denounces government health care, claiming that it comes between doctor and patient, and in the next breadth advances a position that both doctors and patients (even those who have been raped, including those who have been raped by their own relatives) should be prosecuted for having or performing an abortion. Indeed, the same party that most touts this ‘big government’ banner is the same one that would prevent individuals from choosing who to love and how to constitute their families, bringing the weight of law directly into the bedrooms of individuals whose sexual orientation it judges wrong.
Sadly, what makes such deceit so effective is that we have been raised and raised our young to be incapable of telling the difference in what is truly good for them, and what is not. And this begins in a failure to educate that becomes a conditioned inability to tell the difference in bad reasoning and that good reasoning used by our forefathers to design a constitution that would protect the personal rights and freedoms that government under the inordinate influence of corporations (what they called fascism in Mussolini’s Italy) would override.
Another powerful example of this shows up in the claim made by those who purport to protect religious rights that ours was meant to be a ‘Christian nation.’ Ironic, again, that while our forefathers were, by and large, Christian (in a deist, rather than theist sense), it was specifically to protect every person’s right to think and believe as they choose that our constitution was designed to protect religious freedom itself, not the rights of any given group – even Christians – to impose their view on all. Apparently it doesn’t occur to most who adhere to this ‘Christian nation’ view that Christians themselves come in many denominations (such that in a classroom that identifies itself as 90% Christian, there are sometimes no two who share the same church identification). And as often as not, each of them has learned to judge all other so-called Christians as wrong. Indeed, having grown up Catholic myself, most of them are fairly sure I’m not a Christian at all – especially if I don’t identify with the part that waves that Christian nation banner. And if they were to get their wish, that is, the political power to impose Christianity on all Americans, what would prevent such leaders from circumventing their religious rights to be the kind of Christian they want to be? Apparently it has escaped the notice of most such folks that Jesus himself died, not for what we have since come to call Christianity, but for religious freedom, specifically his right to profess a faith different from the Jewish fundamentalism into which he was born. [17]
Perhaps the most effective spin at work in our age is called the straw man fallacy, which is a form of poisoning the well. We all know how easy it is to ruin another person’s reputation by spreading rumors or even lies about them. High schools would not be as they are were if not for the fact that we are so willing to believe everything we hear, even in the absence of any credible evidence. These devices are particularly effective when we want to make sure an opponent’s case is never heard, for if someone believes the water is poisoned, they will never drink it to find out for sure. This occurs when someone caricatures an opponent's argument, reducing it to one or a few absurd claims, in order to discredit it entirely and thus shoot it down easily. Two common examples are, 'Feminists are just man-haters,' or 'Environmentalists are just tree-huggers.' Fear of such ridicule is enough to persuade many people from ever even trying to understand a view that would be convincing, if they heard it, but instead, they reject it out of hand, so as never to be associated with it.
There is a particular politician-turned-educator in our age who has been the butt of a widespread campaign to discredit his urgent and especially credible message. Having won a presidential election that tested the metal of our democracy and ultimately proved that political power lies, not in the voice of the many, but in the vote of the few at the pinnacle of power (in this case, that of a single Supreme Court Justice who prevented the vote of the people from being counted), and his is a case that is especially worthy of examination. Not only because his message aims to save us from our lesser selves, that are so prone to fallacious thinking, but because the intelligence he would encourage would thwart the profit-at-all-cost purposes of corporations that are “running the world like a business in liquidation.”(*) Al Gore’s message – which is that governments ought to limit industrial CO2 emissions – is blocked at almost every turn by appeal to the fears and biases of those who most need to hear it. For instance, one of the most effective tu quoque fallacies at work in our age is that which aims to discredit such teaching with the claim that a person’s being wealthy (even when one’s living is made by advancing public understanding about global warming) somehow makes him a hypocrite. A claim that a person lives in a beautiful home would seem to suggest a whiff of hypocrisy, IF, in fact, his argument was that people should not be wealthy. While there does seem to be some correlation between irresponsibly acquired wealth and environmental destruction, there are indeed both better and worse ways to make a good living. So this attack against a wealthy environmentalist might hold water if such a person was claiming that people should never acquire wealth. On the contrary, since there is a right and a wrong way to do anything, the challenge for all of us, especially environmentalists, is to learn to earn our living in ways that advances awareness of sustainable practices. And as the world wakes up to its higher goods, there might be many a good living to be earned in this way.
In fact, there is no denying that our cities are increasingly surround by homes that look like they were built for what Bill McKibben calls “entry level monarchs,” and no one would think it environmentally sound to simply destroy them all. Rather, the question becomes, who will live in those homes? Indeed, who will we honor and even uplift to positions of privilege in the future? Will it be those who have earned their wealth responsibly by offering the world something it desperately needs in a way that is sustainable, which is to say, just? Or will it be those who take their profit at all cost? In fact, Gore’s message would not discourage the accumulation of wealth, except that accumulated irresponsibly. But it would have us consider what true wealth actually is. For our challenge is fundamentally “a crisis of spirit,”* that is an opportunity to rethink our truer interests, and perhaps save our children’s children from the future hell to which we are currently condemning them. To this end, Gore would promote what he calls sustainable capitalism (arguably closer to what Adam Smith had in mind) that does not discourage the accumulation of material wealth by honorable means, but would rather help us see that we are selling our souls and our children’s future – arguably, our truest wealth – for its sake.
This project – helping us see – is the mark of a great teacher, and the difference in a mere politician and a true leader. Less than true leaders master the most insidious rhetorical devices instead, such as hasty generalization -- including the claim that a given dictator must be taken down, however great the potential costs, because his political enemies have claimed he is hiding weapons of mass destruction. Half truths fall into this category as well, such as when a speaker or writer consciously or unconsciously draws a conclusion without all the relevant facts. An example that comes to mind might be a presentation to the UN Security Council of a model vial of anthrax and vague satellite images as ‘proof’ of a substantive collaboration between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Stereotypes too are a form of hasty generalization. We can generalize from the part to the whole, such as claiming that the 9/11 terrorists were Muslim, therefore all Muslims tend to be terrorists. Or we can generalize from the whole to the part, such as claiming that Christians tend to be good peace-loving people, and therefore all Christians have good peace-loving motives. Indeed, any generalization drawn on a small amount of evidence falls into this category. For instance, the claim that 'Most people who live in the town I grew up in are conservative Christians, therefore, America is a Christian culture."
Another particular dangerous form of fallacy is black and white thinking or false alternative, which oversimplifies a choice so as to offer only two of what might be many choices; 'You're either with us or you're against us.' Really? Are those the only choices? What if you agree on the ends, but not the means used to get there?
There are many others familiar to anyone listening to public dialogues these days. For instance, there is false analogy (Obama is like Hitler); consecutive relation (the bailout happened just as Obama took office, so it’s Obama’s bailout); irrelevancy (the American constitution is based on great principles, and therefore the death penalty is a great law); and false cause (such as the appeal to 'weapons of mass destruction' – enough said.).
[1](Suzuki 1964)
[2](Peat n.d., 8)
[3] (Kelly n.d., 88)
[4] (Kelly n.d., 88)
[5] (Kelly n.d., 105)
[6] (Kelly n.d., 89)
[7] (Kelly n.d., 89)
[8] (Kelly n.d., 91)
[9] (Kelly n.d., 105)
[10] (Kelly n.d., 105)
[11] (Kelly n.d., 108)
[12] (Kelly n.d., 89)
[13] (Plato’s Theaetetus168bc)
[14] (Plato, Pheado n.d.)
[15] (Plato’s Theaetetus168bc)
[16] (Plato’s Theaetetus169c) (Plato, Theaetetus n.d.)
[17] John Stuart Mill had this to say: "Far less would I insinuate this out of the doctrines and precepts of Christ himself. I believe that the sayings of Christ are all that I can see any evidence of their having been intended to be; . . . that everything which is excellent in ethics may be brought within them, . . . But it is quite consistent with this to believe that they contain, and were meant to contain, only a part of the truth; that many essential elements of the highest morality are among the things which are not provided for, nor intended to be provided for. . . "[p.61, "On Liberty"]
“While "everything which is excellent in ethics may be brought within…the doctrines and precepts of Christ himself….but they contain, and were meant to contain, only a part of the truth…"[p.61] And the consequent is that "it is scarcely too much to say that not one Christian in a thousand guides or tests his individual conduct by reference to those laws. The standard to which he does refer it is the custom of his nation, his class, or his religious profession. . . . The doctrines have no hold on ordinary believers--are not a power in their minds. They have habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling which spreads from the words to the things signified and forces the mind to take them in and make them conform to the formula. Whenever conduct is concerned, they look round for Mr. A and B to direct them how far to go in obeying Christ." With the consequent that the truths of Christianity become "dead beliefs." This "decline in the living power of the doctrine" happens when "the sayings of Christ coexist passively in their minds, producing hardly any effect beyond what is caused by mere listening to words so amiable and bland…."[p.48-52] By striking fear into the hearts of its followers, "Christian morality…is essentially selfish in character…it is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience, which inculcates submission to all authorities…"[p.60-61]
"I believe, too, that this narrow theory is becoming a grave practical evil, detracting greatly from the moral training and instruction which so many well-meaning persons are now at length exerting themselves to promote. . . . I believe that other ethics than any which can be evolved from exclusively Christian sources must exist side by side with Christian ethics to produce the moral regeneration of mankind; and that the Christian system is no exception to the rule that in an imperfect state of the human mind the interests of truth require a diversity of opinions. . . . The exclusive pretension made by a part of the truth to be the whole must and ought to be protested against; . . . If Christians would teach infidels to be just to Christianity, they should themselves be just to infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith."[pp.62-63, "On Liberty"]
Again, "[I]t is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil; there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth by being exaggerated into falsehood. And since there are few mental attributes more rare than that judicial faculty which can sit in intelligent judgment between two sides of a question, of which only one is represented by an advocate before it, truth has no chance but in proportion as every side of it, every opinion which embodies any fraction of the truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as to be listened to. . . . We have now recognized the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion . . ."[pp.63-64, "On Liberty"]
"Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction: it is, in great part, a protest against paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active; innocence rather than nobleness; abstinence from evil rather than energetic pursuit of good; in its precepts . . . 'thou shalt not' predominates unduly over 'thou shalt.' In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism which has been gradually compromised away into one of legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life: in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting each man's feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow creatures, except so far as a self-interested inducement is offered to him for consulting them. It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all authorities found established; . . . What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern morality is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Christian; . . . a standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognized, is that of obedience."[pp.60-61, "On Liberty"]
As a teacher at a small northern Wisconsin community college, I was always struck that so many students made it all the way to college knowing little or nothing about Greek philosophy, about Socrates (but what they learned from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, of course), or even what a fallacy is. I don’t know why this should surprise me, since I myself had had the same experience, and until I became a philosophy major, did not know that there was a difference between good and bad reasoning, let alone that it can make the difference in the quality of a person’s life, distinguishing an authentic from an inauthentic one. I too was well on in years before I realized that there are patterns of reasoning that may sound like they make sense, at first blush, but upon further reflection, simply do not. And that further reflection is what philosophy is all about.
The original purpose of philosophy – the search for truth - was to help us understand the difference in good and bad reasoning, in healthy and unhealthy argument, in sincerity and deceit, all necessary skills in sorting what is true from what is false. Contrary to how most of us have learned it, philosophical argument is not about conflict or disagreement, as we typically think of it, or even about winning at all. It is, rather, about making a case so to be better understood by someone who does not see some part of what is true, or at any rate, that part of the truth we see that they don’t.
The other side of this process is listening to the reasoning of others in order to better understand them. Learning to discern when someone is making a good case, when something does or does make sense, does or does not follow from something else, is not merely an interpersonal skill of communication, but is – arguably -- a skill that promotes what might properly be called 'mental health,' or perhaps more to the point, moral health. For good reasoning is the foundation of effective communication, mutual understanding, and healthy relationships – with oneself as well as with others.
Mind you, this is not to say that most Philosophers are themselves good examples of mental health. In fact, to the contrary, too many go into capital-P Philosophy because they enjoy subtle manipulation of reasoning so to seem smarter than others, to become ever better at rhetorical banter and tripping up opponents in word games at cocktail parties. (But to hope for the best, lets assume these are not those who go on to teach the subject.)
At any rate, let us be clear at the outset that, degree or no degree, Socrates would not have called such folks philosophers at all. Rather, small-p philosophy is not about making a career of verbal trickery (that he would call sophistry, his pet peeve). Rather, it is about using words for the true power that they have when used well, i.e. the power to help us find the truth underlying the deceptively powerful cloak that words, used badly, can become.
The Greeks are remembered for their reverence for reason – by which they meant that inborn power we that allows children to know intuitively when something is not fair. It allows those who learn to master it to discern what makes sense from what does not. It is an apriori understanding, which is to say, a truth that exists prior to all learning and all experience. And reason is incessantly inquisitive – which is what prompts children to ask, sometimes ad nauseum – Why? In the same way that we can mathematically figure out, by way of numbers, that 2 + 2 equals 4, and that this is true for all people in all times, so we can logically figure out, by way of words, that a given conclusion follows from a given line of reasoning, and that another conclusion simply does not.
And so all humans, like all children, want to know the reasons for why things are as they are, not simply what something is, but how and why it is as it is. By contrast, when reasoning fails to make a good case for a particular conclusion, we can sense that it simply does not make sense, which is to say, it does not add up. All of which requires that we have some exercise in this reasoning process, which can, apparently, atrophy when left unused.
And so the function of small-p philosophy is to help us give our selves and one another such exercise in using words, language, and reasoning to express, as correctly as possible, why something is true and something else is not. Something may or may not be true, without anyone ever speaking explicitly of it, but when we do speak, the things we say may also be true, or they may only sound true, when in fact they are false.
The Greeks believed in the power of words, well reasoned, in healthy dialogue. And it fell to them especially to make use of those words, for while humans had always sought for truth, in a sense, it was not until the birth of the first democracy that this search require the use of our reasoning tools. For democracy, unlike all other social arrangements, enjoys the freedom of speech that allows, and even compels us, to master the art of dialogue, so to bring out the best in one another, and work together to grow a healthy, self-regulating, community.
Seeing that reasoning had this power, the Greeks considered this skill to be our divine legacy, a gift from the gods, if you will, that gives us the potential to be god like ourselves – which is to say, it gives human beings the power to reach those highest potentials of understanding, mutual understanding, personal and social excellence, which are all available by way of the process of good reasoning. It is, as we’ve said elsewhere, an inheritance we must invest, a tool we must sharpen, a muscle we must exercise. When this potential is well developed, it is nothing short of the highest function of the human being.
Now, let me digress just a bit to qualify this claim, because those of you who have studied Eastern Philosophy may bristle at this last claim, and rightly so…if you are thinking that there is an understanding that exists beyond words, beyond reason, and which is entirely ineffable, and grasped only in the depths of one’s being, that is, one’s soul. What’s more, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle would probably agree with you wholeheartedly – indeed, nothing could be more true, and it is here that the limits of words quickly become apparent once again.
As Aristotle puts it, there are in his view (at least) five levels of mind -- and the uppermost is beyond words altogether. The deep understanding that might be called 'nirvana' by some, or 'satori' by others, or ‘gnosis’ by still others, is what Aristotle would call this highest level of knowledge, one we simply cannot reach with words alone. As Aristotle rightly observed, this realm of knowledge is beyond, in an important sense, above that which can be grasped with language, and as Socrates would say, it must be apprehended directly in the soul. Still we reach to understand it in order to act wisely. And to this end, words can help lift us ever higher, until we might ultimately have this higher knowledge in sight.
As Alan Watts put it, “words are useful,” but only “for communicating with those who have shared a similar experience.”* As one Zen master put it, “A finger may be used to point at the moon, but let us not confuse the finger with the moon.”[1] Physicist David Bohm put it this way: “Whatever we say is words,” but “what we want to talk about is generally not words.”[2] Words are like fingers, i.e. they are pointing tools, but what they point to in this case is an inner experience that can be ‘known’ only directly, prior to words, and then only by what the ancients called the ‘initiated’.
Plato called this gnosis – and it is perhaps the most important concept in philosophy. It is that inner flash of insight that comes as a “rushing progression of understanding,” and only to those who reach for it.
So it is important to recognize that the Greeks were entirely aware of the limits of words, and we come up against these limits when we try to discuss this deepest form of understanding with someone who does not themselves possess it. And it is for this reason that one might be tempted to think that Greek philosophy as a step down from the use of the mind aspired to by eastern visionaries. And in a sense, you would be right, and Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle would be the first agree with you.
That said, they argued that we can discuss the other levels very fruitfully, and should, since deep communication is possible among humans, and words, for all their limitations, do give us the power to conceive of and exchange abstract objects (thoughts, ideas, concepts, images, arguments, conclusions, theories, etc.). These concepts are as real as rocks, they are just more difficult to apprehend. As Aristotle emphasizes, the knowledge that grows between us in this process is a secondary reality (or substance), but it is nonetheless worthy of our best efforts, as it can uplift us, individually and collectively, to our better selves.
As we have seen, Socrates argues that words are necessary that we might climb toward this better understanding of what is by way of the dialectic process, as well as a better understanding of one another. Words are the best tools humans have for communication and mutual education, and while self-knowledge may be the ultimate end of all learning, we do have a great deal to learn from one another in the process.
And yet even those who have reached this highest level of knowledge must come back down (as Socrates once learned in a dream), back to the use of words in order to help uplift others to that higher, albeit ineffable, understanding that might ultimately be reached by way of climbing through these other levels of understanding.
They clearly knew something that we have > forgotten, and I’m fairly convinced that rediscovering it may be > our only hope of healing the ubiquitous and increasingly hostile > conflict that plagues us. It does seem necessary that we discover > this means to intellectual peace before we can ever hope to > achieve peace politically. What is war, after all, but failed > dialogue?
Until human beings learn to honor the worthy and trust the just, the ancients learned the hard way, human interests will continue to be dominated by those who least deserve power precisely because they are most in love with it—rather than those who do deserve it because they are in love with truth and justice.
Hence, the necessity of reasoned dialogue and deliberation, for it is only possible to discover together what is objectively real and true—no matter how you look at it—as distinct from what is merely constructed by any few who would have us see it their way. So it is that by stretching their minds to the proper consideration of points of view other than their own, the Greeks got a glimpse of that big picture which has eluded those with narrower minds since.
By recognizing the value of all voices in their proper associations, this diverse group of perfectly ordinary minds illustrate by example how the principle of multiplicity in unity might actually work – and that is, only if each and every citizen masters himself instead of each other. It is a principle of dialectic education, which is still and always fundamental to a healthy democracy, though widely neglected in our own time.
On Arguing to Understand, Rather than to Win
So what is a fallacy? To understand this, we first have to understand the philosophical concept of an argument. In order to understand what makes a fallacy a bad thing, we must spend some time considering what makes good reasoning a good thing.
What is a good argument, in the philosophical sense? And why does argument matter to good reasoning?
Reasoning begins in the practical need to know 'what really is' so that we can survive and flourish. But people have learned different things through their different experience, and when they know the healthy way to argue, they can carry on a discussion to very satisfying ends -- that is, to the point of mutual understanding -- by definition, the most desirable of human experience. But we don’t learn this in the world such as it is, and so we cannot reach understanding, of each other of the world we live in, without asking questions, starting with what is real? True? Right? Our good is summed up in all these, and we all want what is good for us, but not everyone knows what that is. Arguably, only those who have asked and answered these hard questions ever really understands this good, and even then, few would say they know it in a strong sense – only that they have learned it in some important sense.
However, the will to understand can be quickly lost when the will to win kicks in. And this is why our purpose in dialogue matters critically. Understanding eludes those who don't aim at it, but instead, have 'winning the argument' as their purpose, thus precluding any higher goal. But the higher goal exists, but is found only by those who search. It waits for anyone who understands the truer value and purpose of words and argument, which is to help us understand, not merely what is, but one another as well.
If one could only know what one learns from one's own window on the world, one would be unnecessarily limited to a very narrow slice of reality. We can learn from the experience of others, at least from those who can be trusted to tell the truth and have themselves truly learned, by way of their inner voice, as well as from trust-worthy others.
"A great deal of our knowledge comes from other people in this way. Because we can communicate what we experience, human beings can merge their separate windows into one giant window."[3]
The fact that we all see the world from different points of view is what makes dialogue necessary, and the fact that some see through broader windows necessitates that we learn to argue well – because some have learned more and better, and so see more of the whole truth than others, and learning from those who have such expanded points of view can broaden us all.
This is the very essence of learning, but learning from others can also involve a sort of game of telephone, for they themselves may have been taught badly.
So how can one trust what one hears from others? The written word can sometimes help prevent confusion and deceit from taking root, but it can also proliferate untruth when the lie itself becomes written. It is this inevitable uncertainty about what comes from outside of us that requires that we use a more certain method, if we have one, by which the truth can be discerned, a method that goes beyond trusting the source.
For this reason, "we proceed by means of reasoning. When we reason, we use relationships among propositions to push our knowledge beyond the limits of what we can experience directly."[4](p.88)
The study of logic is the study of that reasoning process. It is a study which purports to be able to discern the "general principles that apply everywhere,” because the good thing about the truth is that it stays true, which is to say, “rivers in Tai wan must behave like rivers in our own environment."
This process of reasoning is, by its very nature, dialectic – back and forth – question and answer, thesis and antithesis. It matters not whether it dialogic, that is, between individuals or groups, or is within an individual who is arguing with him or herself, that is, deliberating. The whole point of reasoning is to determine the truth or falsity of propositions that we are not in a position to verify directly by sense perception."[5] Dialogue or deliberation is necessary, as Socrates says, "because nothing is an answer unless you've asked the question." Seen in this light, it is easy to see why the ancients understood that the source of both good and evil in this world is the right and wrong use of words.
And so we must distinguish between good reasoning and mere rhetoric, because not all reasoning is equally respectable. Bad reasoning is particularly insidious, especially today, since it is ubiquitous and can be broadcast to every corner of the world. And what it too often does in our age is create what the ancients understood to be the very source of suffering – human want. It is for this and many other reasons why it is critical that we learn to sort good from bad reasoning at a young age. Unfortunately, as noted earlier, we don't learn in our part of the world – early or sometimes ever -- what makes an argument good.
Put simply, a good argument is "an appeal to evidence in support of a conclusion," and technically, that is any "set of propositions in which some propositions – the premises – are asserted as support or evidence for another – the conclusion."[6] We make an argument whenever we make a case by citing reasons to draw one conclusion over another from the available premises. "An argument can also be described as an inference," because "the conclusion is inferred from the premises."[7]
By the time we are mature, we are in the habit of inferring much from what is said to us, and we recognize the basic organizing principles or structure underlying the language we use, though we've long since forgotten the rules of language by this point, and instead we just use them as if they're hard wired into us. We intuit the different patterns of communication, and can easily see the difference between different forms -- including narration (sequence of events being the organizing principle) and description (which tells us facts about something) neither of which involves arguments. An argument, by contrast, uses reasons to logically convince us that something is (or is not) true. These patterns differ further from an explanation, which goes on to show why something is (or is not) true.
"In an argument, we reason forward from premises to the conclusion; in an explanation, we reason backwards from facts to the cause or reason for that fact."[8] In both cases, we use indicator words (such as as, because, since, for this reason, assuming that, in as much as, etc.) to indicate premises we are citing as evidence. And we use others (such as therefore, thus, so, consequently, hence, as a result, it follows that, which means, or which implies) to indicate that a conclusion is being drawn.
We analyze arguments, not for their own sake, but for the sake of evaluating their logical strength. "A good argument is one that establishes the truth of its conclusion."[9]
The goal of the study of logic aims to establish standards for measuring logical strength. And the reason we need these is because when something doesn't make sense, these standards will help us locate the problem, the error in reasoning, and ideally, can help us correct it. Certainly, logic can help us sort out what's wrong with other's reasoning, but – as the ancient well knew – it is best used to help us sort out the errors in our own reasoning – before anyone else has to point it out to us. In this, it is an essential learning tool, and yet, few of us get the benefit of this skill that was the foundation of the first and truest form of philosophy.
A good argument has two essential attributes: its premises must be true, and "must be logically related to the conclusion in such a way that, if the premises are true, the conclusion is likely to be true as well."[10] That is, the truth of the premises gives us reason to think the conclusion is true. This "capacity of the premises to support the conclusion" is what we refer to (the referent) when we speak of the logical strength of an argument. This is what we mean when we say that something or somebody makes sense.
One important kind of argument, which we call deductive, is one in which the conclusions follows necessarily from the truth of the premises. This means that, if the premises are true, the conclusion also must be. We call a deductive argument valid when it has this kind of logical strength.
Arguments can be simple or complex, and can have a single premises or a whole network of dependent and independent premises. (When we diagram arguments, we use arrows (<= =>) to represent the logical connections between premises and conclusion.)
All told, an argument is only as strong as its strongest link, and "a chain of reasoning is no stronger than its weakest link." However, a web of reasoning "may be stronger than any one of its individual strands." [11]
Premises that are assumed, but unstated, are abundant in all our communication. They are implied (implicit) rather than expressed (explicit), and very often, it is the unstated assumptions that are the most controversial, which is to say, they call for more discussion -- indeed, argument -- than they are given in a particular context.
Arguments often seem more plausible than they really are because the weakest links go unstated. Indeed, to truly understand most people's arguments, we must supply the assumptions they are making in order to make sense of their reasoning. We fill in the gaps in the argument, without going beyond it.
For this reason, understanding other requires not only logical skill, but a kind of generosity that logicians call the principle of charity. This involves the faith that all parties of an argument are committed to not only listening without prejudice, but to helping the other along in making his or her case. We sometimes find that we even have to supply the conclusion itself. This is what tells us when someone is arguing only to win, rather than to understand, because they will not only not help make sense of the others case, but will often even try to make nonsense of it. Unfortunately, too many of us learn early on to use words as weapons, and this explains the prevalence of fallacy in our daily conversation. If you have ever tried to argue with such a BSer, you know that the experience is absolutely confounding, if not dumbfounding, because such a person does not even want to understand or reconcile, but aims specifically to confuse the subject in any of many ways that such fallacies make possible. Among the most powerful of such diversionary fallacies commonly used to kill discussion (and sometimes relationships altogether) is the best defense is a good offense, a form of fallacy called tu quoque, (meaning back at you or you too), often used by a scoundrel to divert attention from his guilt by attacking when he should apologize. Another is the fallacy of complex question -- such as that involved in the question, Have you stopped beating your wife? This one is built into the assumption that whoever brings up a problem is starting a fight; they may indeed be starting the discussion, but the problem itself started elsewhere, or there would be no need to bring it up. What’s more, whether it becomes a fight or not really depends on how the other reacts – with sincerity or BS. These are only a few of what are many examples of how easy it is to muddy the water of what might otherwise be a fruitful discussion.
In the world as it is, many tend to advocate or oppose positions as if it is all just so much opinion, which is to say, as if a mere belief is good enough to make a case on. But in fact, "questions of truth and falsity…are appropriate."[12] Indeed, as is presumed in the very word philosophy – i.e. love of truth – truth is to be loved above all else, even and especially winning, because winning does not advance anyone’s understanding, least of all the apparent winner. Ideally, philosophical argument should not lead to actual quarreling, but rather to mutual agreement and, ideally, mutual understanding and growth in learning – and nothing can be understood that is not actually true.
On the Danger of Empty Rhetoric
Philosophers aim to help themselves and others to sharpen their reasoning skills, for dull tools make it impossible for most people to see if and when they are being deceived, for deceitful words are the source of most of the ignorance and injustice in the world.
The enemy of good reason is bad rhetoric -- relatively empty words that may sound good, and often play on our emotions, but which do not actually add up; that is, they do not make sense.
Rhetoric can take many forms, and most often employs simple fallacy to persuade us to do, or buy, or believe what we would not, if we were thinking better. Mind you, it is important that we distinguish one sense of the term rhetoric from other senses you may have learned along the way. In and of itself, rhetoric is not necessarily manipulative or deceitful - it is possible to speak or write rhetorically toward just and honest ends. But words can delude, can hide the truth, and can as easily lead to evil as to good. So we distinguish empty rhetoric from more meaningful forms.
For words are often used to simply manipulate and confuse, rather than to reach understanding. As we’ve said, Socrates scolds those sophists who fight over words “like puppies fight over meat,” and in the process, turn young minds off to ideas altogether, and “make them hate the whole business when they get older."[13] This effect, which Socrates calls misology,[14] come of hearing contradictory things both called true. In this way, empty rhetoric is thus likely to prove unsuccessful in bettering the condition of one’s partner in dialogue.[15] He himself would have been turned off, Socrates says, if he had not had "so deep a passion" as to adhere him to the exercise of philosophic inquiry all his life.[16]
You will probably recognize many common fallacies. Most of us have grown up using them ourselves, without even knowing.
On Fallacies & the Unhealthy Educational Method
By contrast, logical fallacies are patterns of bad reasoning, errors of logical structure that look plausible on the surface, but when you consider them more thoughtfully, they simply do not make sense, do not lead to true conclusions, and certainly do not lead to mutual self-improvement. They are arguments that offer only bad reasons for their conclusions, though at first glance, they seem to make sense, and for this reason, can be especially difficult to refute.
For instance, Circular reasoning or begging the question is good example of a fallacy that gets much traction in our culture. 'The Christian God is the only God because the Bible tells me so…and the Bible is the word of God, so it must be right.' The conclusion is assumed at the outset. Sometimes these take the form of an appeal to ignorance, such as saying that we should believe in God because no one can prove that s/he doesn't exist. Or shifting the burden of proof, as if the fact that you can't prove that I'm wrong suffices to make me right.
Changing the subject in the middle of an argument is the fallacy of diversion. This is sometimes called a red herring when combined with an emotional appeal, because the scent of a red herring is so powerful that it will throw a dog off a scent it was trying to follow. This shows up all the time in personal discussions when a person changes the subject by subtle slight that draws the others attention from what was earlier being said. Likewise, on a social scale, support for a politician’s policies, for instance, can easily be undermined by even the whiff of scandal, with or without evidence. Indeed, as we have seen many times in democratic ages – from Pericles to Clinton – even the search for evidence to support the emptiest of accusations is enough to divert the public’s attention from the truth of the case or any good work that is being or might otherwise be accomplished.
A person who argues with fallacies in this way often walks away feeling like they have accomplished something, and indeed, even made sense, though his or her partner in debate may see perfectly well that the case that was made was pure nonsense. For this reason, a BSer often think they are making progress, when in fact, they are only leaving a trail of partners turned opponents, because trust is difficult to recover once lost.
Examples of fallacies abound. Many fallacies appeal to our emotions, such as those that are called an appeal to fear or appeal to pity. An example of an appeal to pity would include a case where, in court, someone says, 'You shouldn't find me guilty because I have small children to feed.' This may be a reason to feel sorry for someone or their children, but it has no bearing on their guilt or innocence. (This is one defense that Socrates refused to use in court...though as a 70 year old father of toddlers before an assembly known for being easy to sway, he might have lived had he used it.) Another common example of an appeal to pity is the politician who complains that his or her opponent is running attack ads. That may or may not be true, but this is no reason to think the opponent wrong or to vote for this person, for those ads may very well be true.
Examples of an appeal to fear include friends who implicitly, or even explicitly, threaten to ostracize you if you don't, say, turn your back on another friend or another group. If someone says or implies that you should believe this or that because I or someone will harm you if you don't -- well, that may be a good reason to defend yourself -- but it not a good reason for thinking something is true. A student recently called this kissing up and kicking down, and cited it as the reason high school is so difficult. This may seem, on the surface, to be an appeal to popularity, another popular fallacy, but it is not: an appeal to popularity would be when someone suggests that you should think or do this or that because ‘everyone is doing it,’ or that you should do or be or think this or that because it is not normal. John Stuart Mill called this the tyranny of the majority, and it is a process of stigmatizing that enjoys a particularly powerful efficacy in our age. This fallacy involves the implicit assumption that the majority opinion is infallible, as if to say, if large numbers of people believe something, it must therefore be right. In fact, millions of people drink to excess every day, but this does not mean that we should agree that millions of people can’t be wrong, or just stupid. The truth is, it may be the case that many or even most are or do this or that, but there is nothing to say that we should do it too, that we should all be alike, or that being average or mediocre is in any way wise or good. Because everyone else is doing something is not, in and of itself, a good reason for you or I to do it too. Parents sometimes come back in response to this claim with the retort, 'Well, if everyone were jumping off a cliff, would you do it too?' Unfortunately, these are often the same parents who encourage their young to fit in at all costs, so the conditioning of one generation after another is undoubtedly a big part of our problem.
Another example of an appeal to fear involves a parent, friend, or partner whose support depends on your maintaining a particular belief or attitude (say, a particular religious affiliation or political party). This is actually a form of bullying, and again, while it can easily win our compliance, this does not make it a good reason to think either this religion or party is in any sense right or true. Consider also a teacher who suggests that only those who agree with him or her will get good grades. Like a friend who holds that only people who dress, or look, or act a certain way are worthy, these too are attempts to breed conformity by intimidation. They can be very effective in controlling our behavior, but they should not carry weight with our thinking, for none of these provide good reasons to believe or think in any particular way. At the very most we might admit there could be a price to pay for being different or going against the pressure to conform, but there may also be hidden benefits, perhaps even many.
A slippery slope argument typically involves fallacies based on emotion. For instance, the claim that 'Same-sex marriage will destroy the family structure as we know it' is a form of slippery slope argument; it plays on a person’s affectional ties to the traditional family to stimulate a knee-jerk reaction against the supposed threat. There seems no good reason to believe that recognizing some alternative families would therefore destroy other more traditional forms (unless you think folks would leave their traditional marriages if the alternative were open to them, but this then doesn’t say much for those marriages either). Another would be the claim that limiting assault weapons will lead inevitably to outlawing all guns. Or that legalizing marijuana will lead to legalizing all drugs. These claims appeal to our emotional attachment to our families, our guns, and our way of life, and often play on a misunderstanding and mistrust of what one doesn’t know and can’t predict.
Mind you, it’s important to note that not all slippery slope arguments are fallacious, for some slippery slopes do actually exist. For instance, to say that “if we shush people from expressing their political views, we run the risk of disempowering the First Amendment” we have given an example of a slippery slope argument that actually is correct. Another might be the claim that preventing a given faith from expressing itself will undermine the constitutional protections of others faiths to express their faith as they see fit. Such claims are based on the suggestion that a little violation of the constitution won’t hurt, when in fact, it is a matter of where to stop – for if we can rationalize shushing some people or limiting some religions under some circumstances, then where is the line over which we will not step? It will be very hard to make a case for why we should not do the same under other circumstances. The question becomes, where do we stop? There is no clear line of demarcation between some cases and others, hence the slippery slope.
The difference between a fallacy, and what only appears to be a fallacy at first glance, is sometimes one that involves very subtle reasoning. Whether something is or is not a fallacy depends not merely on it’s surface form, but on whether there are good reasons to believe it is true, or not.
Similarly, there is the appeal to tradition ('that's the way it's always been done'), or the appeal to the future ('new is better'). Both are gross generalizations, and the truth requires looking closer at the particular case. Just because modern medicine has more shiny gadgets than ancient medicine, and we really like shiny gadgets, this is no reason to believe that modern medicine is inherently better than ancient or alternative medicine. The truth depends on a more even-handed weighing of the actual evidence about different methods of treating disease or viewing health.
Another fallacy is the appeal to the limits of what we've learned, such as the claim that, ‘That's just the way I was raised.' We may have habits, but this is no reason to think that our habits are necessarily good. Related to this is the true for you or subjective fallacy; the claim that something may be true for you, but it's not for me. Just because a given person doesn’t see or want to be aware of the truth, this does not mean that it doesn't exist, or that we can agree that truth is untruth. Truth, by definition, stays true, so it is true for everyone -- though we may not all see or be willing to look at it with veracity. It’s important to remember here is that the active root of ignorance is to ignore.
Appeal to authority is another widely used fallacy, very popular in advertising. To say you should buy this product because a popular celebrity endorses it is playing on our esteem for that celebrity or maybe our desire to be like him, but really has very little to do with his credibility as an authority about the worth of this or that product.
This can also take a serious form, such as when we hear something like, "Industry should not have to limit its CO2 emissions because corporate studies show no evidence that this has any effect on the environment.” Such a statement ignores that corporate studies have an interest in not finding a causal relationship that would cut into their profit margin. Another oft-heard proclamation these days is that “climate change is not being prompted by human activity,” as evidence by 53% of media reports that indicate scientific doubt about its causes. Never mind that 99% of scientific studies leave no room for doubt whatsoever. We don’t seem to know the difference these days between the authority of rigorous scientific inquiry and the mere beliefs and opinions of those who may not know what they’re talking about, especially when they have an interest in not seeing what they don’t want to see.
Another popular and especially effective form of fallacy is called ad hominem, or 'below the belt' reasoning, sometimes called 'mud throwing' -- attacking the person themselves instead of their record or their argument. Here is where political attack ads often are fallacious – when they do not show something true about the candidate they are opposing, but instead play on mere suggestion to create an adverse, usually emotional, reaction in voters minds. Very popular these days are claims that someone is a ‘radical environmentalist,’ or is ‘pro-abortion,’ or has a ‘homosexual agenda.’ Calling someone a ‘big spending liberal,’ or even a ‘socialist,’ who will ‘raise your taxes’ is very effective as well, especially when and because so much of the population is economically insecure and fearful of being even worse off. This is partly a survival instinct, and partly because we have raised out young to care more about money than any other goods, and to think of the function of leaders as protecting their immediate interests, rather than any of the other goods that government is charged by our constitution with seeing to – such as protecting people and the environment from exploitation by profit mongers, or protecting personal freedoms from unjustified constraint by government.
More than this though, we are vulnerable to empty political rhetoric because we have been raised to misunderstand the very meaning of the words that are being tossed around in such debates, such that people get away with using emotionally charged buzz words to push people buttons. Few would guess that not long ago, it was Republicans who were the liberals. Indeed, one of the most effective rhetorical devices is what we might call ‘the pot calling the kettle black,’ used most often by ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing.’ You might think that the proper response to such spin would be to say, ‘Look who’s talking?’ But this too can be a form of tu quoque, and it is seldom very effective, considering that two wrongs don’t make a right.
Ironically, one of the most effective claims are those made against what is called ‘big government,’ by which they mean, government that taxes those who can most afford it, and won’t let business operate unhindered at all costs to the broader interests of the people. Again, economic insecurity makes it easy to create the appearance of shared interest with those who have a short-term interest in jobs, or simply the conditioned will to accumulate wealth above all else, even if and when it opposes the long term interests upon which they truly depend in (such as safe products, a healthy environment, and even personal freedom and a right to government protection from large scale exploitation). But in fact these are used most often by those who would use government to usurp personal freedoms, such as a recent campaign commercial that in one breadth denounces government health care, claiming that it comes between doctor and patient, and in the next breadth advances a position that both doctors and patients (even those who have been raped, including those who have been raped by their own relatives) should be prosecuted for having or performing an abortion. Indeed, the same party that most touts this ‘big government’ banner is the same one that would prevent individuals from choosing who to love and how to constitute their families, bringing the weight of law directly into the bedrooms of individuals whose sexual orientation it judges wrong.
Sadly, what makes such deceit so effective is that we have been raised and raised our young to be incapable of telling the difference in what is truly good for them, and what is not. And this begins in a failure to educate that becomes a conditioned inability to tell the difference in bad reasoning and that good reasoning used by our forefathers to design a constitution that would protect the personal rights and freedoms that government under the inordinate influence of corporations (what they called fascism in Mussolini’s Italy) would override.
Another powerful example of this shows up in the claim made by those who purport to protect religious rights that ours was meant to be a ‘Christian nation.’ Ironic, again, that while our forefathers were, by and large, Christian (in a deist, rather than theist sense), it was specifically to protect every person’s right to think and believe as they choose that our constitution was designed to protect religious freedom itself, not the rights of any given group – even Christians – to impose their view on all. Apparently it doesn’t occur to most who adhere to this ‘Christian nation’ view that Christians themselves come in many denominations (such that in a classroom that identifies itself as 90% Christian, there are sometimes no two who share the same church identification). And as often as not, each of them has learned to judge all other so-called Christians as wrong. Indeed, having grown up Catholic myself, most of them are fairly sure I’m not a Christian at all – especially if I don’t identify with the part that waves that Christian nation banner. And if they were to get their wish, that is, the political power to impose Christianity on all Americans, what would prevent such leaders from circumventing their religious rights to be the kind of Christian they want to be? Apparently it has escaped the notice of most such folks that Jesus himself died, not for what we have since come to call Christianity, but for religious freedom, specifically his right to profess a faith different from the Jewish fundamentalism into which he was born. [17]
Perhaps the most effective spin at work in our age is called the straw man fallacy, which is a form of poisoning the well. We all know how easy it is to ruin another person’s reputation by spreading rumors or even lies about them. High schools would not be as they are were if not for the fact that we are so willing to believe everything we hear, even in the absence of any credible evidence. These devices are particularly effective when we want to make sure an opponent’s case is never heard, for if someone believes the water is poisoned, they will never drink it to find out for sure. This occurs when someone caricatures an opponent's argument, reducing it to one or a few absurd claims, in order to discredit it entirely and thus shoot it down easily. Two common examples are, 'Feminists are just man-haters,' or 'Environmentalists are just tree-huggers.' Fear of such ridicule is enough to persuade many people from ever even trying to understand a view that would be convincing, if they heard it, but instead, they reject it out of hand, so as never to be associated with it.
There is a particular politician-turned-educator in our age who has been the butt of a widespread campaign to discredit his urgent and especially credible message. Having won a presidential election that tested the metal of our democracy and ultimately proved that political power lies, not in the voice of the many, but in the vote of the few at the pinnacle of power (in this case, that of a single Supreme Court Justice who prevented the vote of the people from being counted), and his is a case that is especially worthy of examination. Not only because his message aims to save us from our lesser selves, that are so prone to fallacious thinking, but because the intelligence he would encourage would thwart the profit-at-all-cost purposes of corporations that are “running the world like a business in liquidation.”(*) Al Gore’s message – which is that governments ought to limit industrial CO2 emissions – is blocked at almost every turn by appeal to the fears and biases of those who most need to hear it. For instance, one of the most effective tu quoque fallacies at work in our age is that which aims to discredit such teaching with the claim that a person’s being wealthy (even when one’s living is made by advancing public understanding about global warming) somehow makes him a hypocrite. A claim that a person lives in a beautiful home would seem to suggest a whiff of hypocrisy, IF, in fact, his argument was that people should not be wealthy. While there does seem to be some correlation between irresponsibly acquired wealth and environmental destruction, there are indeed both better and worse ways to make a good living. So this attack against a wealthy environmentalist might hold water if such a person was claiming that people should never acquire wealth. On the contrary, since there is a right and a wrong way to do anything, the challenge for all of us, especially environmentalists, is to learn to earn our living in ways that advances awareness of sustainable practices. And as the world wakes up to its higher goods, there might be many a good living to be earned in this way.
In fact, there is no denying that our cities are increasingly surround by homes that look like they were built for what Bill McKibben calls “entry level monarchs,” and no one would think it environmentally sound to simply destroy them all. Rather, the question becomes, who will live in those homes? Indeed, who will we honor and even uplift to positions of privilege in the future? Will it be those who have earned their wealth responsibly by offering the world something it desperately needs in a way that is sustainable, which is to say, just? Or will it be those who take their profit at all cost? In fact, Gore’s message would not discourage the accumulation of wealth, except that accumulated irresponsibly. But it would have us consider what true wealth actually is. For our challenge is fundamentally “a crisis of spirit,”* that is an opportunity to rethink our truer interests, and perhaps save our children’s children from the future hell to which we are currently condemning them. To this end, Gore would promote what he calls sustainable capitalism (arguably closer to what Adam Smith had in mind) that does not discourage the accumulation of material wealth by honorable means, but would rather help us see that we are selling our souls and our children’s future – arguably, our truest wealth – for its sake.
This project – helping us see – is the mark of a great teacher, and the difference in a mere politician and a true leader. Less than true leaders master the most insidious rhetorical devices instead, such as hasty generalization -- including the claim that a given dictator must be taken down, however great the potential costs, because his political enemies have claimed he is hiding weapons of mass destruction. Half truths fall into this category as well, such as when a speaker or writer consciously or unconsciously draws a conclusion without all the relevant facts. An example that comes to mind might be a presentation to the UN Security Council of a model vial of anthrax and vague satellite images as ‘proof’ of a substantive collaboration between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.
Stereotypes too are a form of hasty generalization. We can generalize from the part to the whole, such as claiming that the 9/11 terrorists were Muslim, therefore all Muslims tend to be terrorists. Or we can generalize from the whole to the part, such as claiming that Christians tend to be good peace-loving people, and therefore all Christians have good peace-loving motives. Indeed, any generalization drawn on a small amount of evidence falls into this category. For instance, the claim that 'Most people who live in the town I grew up in are conservative Christians, therefore, America is a Christian culture."
Another particular dangerous form of fallacy is black and white thinking or false alternative, which oversimplifies a choice so as to offer only two of what might be many choices; 'You're either with us or you're against us.' Really? Are those the only choices? What if you agree on the ends, but not the means used to get there?
There are many others familiar to anyone listening to public dialogues these days. For instance, there is false analogy (Obama is like Hitler); consecutive relation (the bailout happened just as Obama took office, so it’s Obama’s bailout); irrelevancy (the American constitution is based on great principles, and therefore the death penalty is a great law); and false cause (such as the appeal to 'weapons of mass destruction' – enough said.).
[1](Suzuki 1964)
[2](Peat n.d., 8)
[3] (Kelly n.d., 88)
[4] (Kelly n.d., 88)
[5] (Kelly n.d., 105)
[6] (Kelly n.d., 89)
[7] (Kelly n.d., 89)
[8] (Kelly n.d., 91)
[9] (Kelly n.d., 105)
[10] (Kelly n.d., 105)
[11] (Kelly n.d., 108)
[12] (Kelly n.d., 89)
[13] (Plato’s Theaetetus168bc)
[14] (Plato, Pheado n.d.)
[15] (Plato’s Theaetetus168bc)
[16] (Plato’s Theaetetus169c) (Plato, Theaetetus n.d.)
[17] John Stuart Mill had this to say: "Far less would I insinuate this out of the doctrines and precepts of Christ himself. I believe that the sayings of Christ are all that I can see any evidence of their having been intended to be; . . . that everything which is excellent in ethics may be brought within them, . . . But it is quite consistent with this to believe that they contain, and were meant to contain, only a part of the truth; that many essential elements of the highest morality are among the things which are not provided for, nor intended to be provided for. . . "[p.61, "On Liberty"]
“While "everything which is excellent in ethics may be brought within…the doctrines and precepts of Christ himself….but they contain, and were meant to contain, only a part of the truth…"[p.61] And the consequent is that "it is scarcely too much to say that not one Christian in a thousand guides or tests his individual conduct by reference to those laws. The standard to which he does refer it is the custom of his nation, his class, or his religious profession. . . . The doctrines have no hold on ordinary believers--are not a power in their minds. They have habitual respect for the sound of them, but no feeling which spreads from the words to the things signified and forces the mind to take them in and make them conform to the formula. Whenever conduct is concerned, they look round for Mr. A and B to direct them how far to go in obeying Christ." With the consequent that the truths of Christianity become "dead beliefs." This "decline in the living power of the doctrine" happens when "the sayings of Christ coexist passively in their minds, producing hardly any effect beyond what is caused by mere listening to words so amiable and bland…."[p.48-52] By striking fear into the hearts of its followers, "Christian morality…is essentially selfish in character…it is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience, which inculcates submission to all authorities…"[p.60-61]
"I believe, too, that this narrow theory is becoming a grave practical evil, detracting greatly from the moral training and instruction which so many well-meaning persons are now at length exerting themselves to promote. . . . I believe that other ethics than any which can be evolved from exclusively Christian sources must exist side by side with Christian ethics to produce the moral regeneration of mankind; and that the Christian system is no exception to the rule that in an imperfect state of the human mind the interests of truth require a diversity of opinions. . . . The exclusive pretension made by a part of the truth to be the whole must and ought to be protested against; . . . If Christians would teach infidels to be just to Christianity, they should themselves be just to infidelity. It can do truth no service to blink the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith."[pp.62-63, "On Liberty"]
Again, "[I]t is not on the impassioned partisan, it is on the calmer and more disinterested bystander, that this collision of opinions works its salutary effect. Not the violent conflict between parts of the truth, but the quiet suppression of half of it, is the formidable evil; there is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides; it is when they attend only to one that errors harden into prejudices, and truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth by being exaggerated into falsehood. And since there are few mental attributes more rare than that judicial faculty which can sit in intelligent judgment between two sides of a question, of which only one is represented by an advocate before it, truth has no chance but in proportion as every side of it, every opinion which embodies any fraction of the truth, not only finds advocates, but is so advocated as to be listened to. . . . We have now recognized the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion . . ."[pp.63-64, "On Liberty"]
"Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction: it is, in great part, a protest against paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than active; innocence rather than nobleness; abstinence from evil rather than energetic pursuit of good; in its precepts . . . 'thou shalt not' predominates unduly over 'thou shalt.' In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism which has been gradually compromised away into one of legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life: in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to human morality an essentially selfish character, by disconnecting each man's feelings of duty from the interests of his fellow creatures, except so far as a self-interested inducement is offered to him for consulting them. It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all authorities found established; . . . What little recognition the idea of obligation to the public obtains in modern morality is derived from Greek and Roman sources, not from Christian; . . . a standard of ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognized, is that of obedience."[pp.60-61, "On Liberty"]