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III.8
Where Thinking Goes Wrong
More Errors in Natural Language Arguments or Informal Logic
If a concept is wrong, not even a sophisticated defense will vindicate it. Anonymous The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) When error is corrected whenever it is recognized, the path of error is the path of truth. . . . [and] Analysis of error begins with analysis of language. . . . And the abolition of error demands that somehow abstract thought be connected with what is observable (in the wider sense). Hans Reichenbach (1891-1953) Wisdom starts when we call things by their right names. Confucius (551-479 BCE) In addition to the fallacies mentioned in the chapter The Common logical Fallacies, the factors below also contribute to erroneous thinking and to the acceptance of misleading information. For additional critical thinking skills see Reasoned Argument. A. Common Errors
The eisegetical* thinker avoids standing by himself and saying what he thinks; for he might be wrong and would not know what to say if others followed his example and said what they thought. Such a situation would call for the evaluation of alternatives and invite the use of reason an the assessment of evidence. He is suspicious of reason and associates evidence with science and positivism. There would be no telling in advance where the argument might lead. Moreover, the result would be provisional, pending further evidence and argument. Confronted with the prospect of acrophobia, the exegetical thinker looks for a prop, for something to lean on. Being a man of words, he finds a text *(W.A.K. uses incorrectly the term exegetical). 5. Fallacious Intellectuality: a. An unreasonable belief in the effectiveness of reason or reasoned argument. b. Responding to the meaning of what is being said rather than to the point. c. Although a belief can be held "intellectually" or "evidentially," erroneous or defective beliefs occur when a belief is held only intellectually under conditions that ordinarily would permit it being held evidentially (Cheshire Calhoun, b. 1954). For a correction of this kind of fallacious thinking study the insights embodied in the concept of "rationalization" explained below. 6. Fallaciousness of the Natural Fallacy--The natural fallacy occurs when we pass from the factual is to the normative ought. But while it is correct that statements of pure fact cannot imply a value-judgment, because no statement is one of pure fact if it contains any element of a value-judgment; nevertheless, statements of pure fact might still provide good reasons for accepting some judgments of value. For if ought statements are not sufficiently supported by observational facts, what could they be supported by? 7. Fallacy Detector's Fallacy involves rejecting an idea or conclusion as false simply because the argument offered for it is fallacious. Having examined a particular argument, and found it faulty, it can be tempting to conclude that its conclusion is false. However, this would be to go beyond the evidence, for it demonstrates only that one or all its premises are not true and/or that the inferences are not valid or cogent.8. Framing or Box Thinking occurs by using a too narrow approach or description of the situation or issue. Instead, one has to move outside the frame or box and look at a problem from a new, broader perspective without earlier preconceptions. 9. Incestuous Amplification occurs when like-minded people, talking only with one another, usually end up believing a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk. It is the U.S. Military's term for what psychologists call "group polarization." A limited set of viewpoints is reinforced when individuals only talk with other like-minded individuals. It is a recipe that often leads to miscalculations and errors in judgment. Recent examples are the Vietnam War and the second Iraq War. 10. Lack of Overview, that is, absence of understanding, awareness, or view of the entire, full scope of something. For to really understand something, one must know its origins, its development over time, its current status, and how it connects to and fits into the larger whole or picture. 11. Lack of Sense of Proportion occurs when one devotes too much time and energy to trivial matters, thus, lacking these resources to investigate questions about the most crucial problems. 12. Learned Helplessness is a well-established principle in psychology. It holds that feelings of helplessness are often learned from previous experience; therefore, it should also be possible to unlearn them. Helplessness means here a perception of not being able to help oneself or others. Learned helplessness is a psychological condition in which a human being or an animal has learned to believe that it is helpless in a particular situation. It has come to believe that it has no control over its situation and that whatever it does is futile. As a result, the human being or the animal will stay passive in the face of an unpleasant, harmful or damaging situation, even when it does actually have the power to change its circumstances. (Source Wikipedia) Moreover, this perceived helplessness has been linked to depression as a results from a perceived lack of control over the events in one's life, which may result from prior exposure to (actually or apparently) uncontrollable negative events. It appears that the reality of the situation is not the determining factor--what matters is the perception that the situation is hopeless. A pioneer in "helplessness" research, Martin E. P. Seligman believes that the way people perceive and explain the things that happen to them may be more important than that what actually happens. These perceptions influence a person's behavior--hence, they affect his or her life and thru it that of others. This idea was already expressed by ancient Roman philosophers. It points in the direction that one should early on acquire a worldview that let one meet with equanimity even the greatest challenges. As Ina Corinne Brown expressed it: The one thing that really matters is to be bigger than the things that can happen to you. Nothing that can happen to you is half as important as the way in which you meet it. 13. Mental Masturbation occurs when close-minded individuals limit their thinking to their own ideas. It is limiting one's intellectual intercourse to oneself instead of that with others in social intercourse. "When two people engage in conversation, the flow of words between them closely resembles the series of actions one goes through during the act of sex. This is called intellectual intercourse. Masturbation can be defined as self-stimulation to cause sexual sensations. Like sexual intercourse, intellectual intercourse has a solitary side, for those who are too anti-social to converse with other humans. 14. Neglect of Probability occurs when one completely disregards probability when making a decision under uncertainty. 15. Non-Sensical Assertions are practiced by those who engage in speculations or assertions concerning the incorporeal, supernatural or transcendental--realms beyond the physical or material--also known as metaphysics (beyond physics). In the past they were founders of religions, but today they are interpreters of religions: the gurus and monks of Eastern religions, and the rabbis, priests and mullahs of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. The philosopher Rudolf Carnap (1891-1970) concluded: Metaphysicians cannot avoid making their propositions non-verifiable, because if they made them verifiable, the decisions about the truth or falsehood of their doctrines would depend on experience and therefore belong to the region of empirical science. Thus they are compelled to cut all connections between their propositions and experience; and precisely by this procedure deprive them of any sense. So the appearance of eternal truthfulness in many religious, foundational claims, are grounded in something beyond sense experience--they cannot be found out to be false. And because they cannot be falsified*, they are unassailable assertion that are non-sensical and at least in a technical sense, nonsense. *Falsifiability (or refutability or testability) is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, it means that it is capable of being criticized by observational reports. Falsifiability is an important concept in science and the philosophy of science. Some philosophers and scientists, most notably Karl Popper, have asserted that a hypothesis, proposition or theory is scientific only if it is falsifiable. 16. Omission Bias arises when harmful actions are condemned but equally harmful inactions or omissions not. For instance, the killing of innocent people is strongly disapproved but the neglect of not feeding starving people is not. 17. Outcome Bias occurs when a decision is judged by its eventual outcome instead of on the quality of the decision at the time it was made. 18. Condemnation of polemics occurs when polemics, the art or practice of rational disputation or controversy, is falsely judged as unnecessarily and inappropriately critical or even violent. It may indeed be rhetorical violence that is, however, justified and appropriate as "counter" violence when a preceding "primary" violence, whether in word or deed, has had or may have pernicious consequences for society. The polemics of the American, French, and Russian revolutions are good historical examples. Presently, much of freethought literature critiquing religion and the writings of the so-called left critiquing unjust social conditions fall under this justification. 19. Rationalization or to rationalize is to assign one's acts, decisions, beliefs, opinions, etc., to causes that superficially seem reasonable and valid but that actually are unrelated to the true, possibly unconscious and often less creditable or agreeable causes. The individual is usually not aware that these are not the real motive. It makes ourselves appear, to ourselves and others, more rational than we are. The philosopher Abraham Kaplan (1918-93) explains:
The theory of cognitive dissonance states that contradicting cognitions serve as a driving force that compels the mind to acquire or invent new thoughts or beliefs, or to modify existing beliefs, so as to reduce the amount of dissonance (conflict) between cognitions. Explanation: The introduction of a new cognition that is dissonant with a currently held cognition creates a state of "dissonance," the magnitude of which relates to the relative importance of the involved cognitions. Dissonance can be reduced either by eliminating dissonant cognitions, or by adding new consonant cognitions. The maximum possible dissonance is equal to the resistance to change of the less resistant cognition; therefore, once dissonance reaches a level that overcomes the resistance of one of the cognitions involved, that cognition will be changed or eliminated, and dissonance will be reduced. Also see "Self-Deception" below. 7. Compartmentalization--as Herbert Tonne deplores: Some depend on the amazing capacity of the human mind to adjust itself to anything it wishes. They put their scientific thinking into one "compartment" of their minds, their religious beliefs into another, and deliberately choose not to relate one to the other. Herbert Tonne (1904-99) 8. Confirmation Bias — the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. 9. Cultural Bias--Cultural bias is interpreting and judging phenomena in terms particular to one's own culture. It occurs when people of a culture make assumptions about conventions, including conventions of language, notation, proof and evidence. This is a danger in any field of knowledge that claims objectivity and universality, such as philosophy and the natural sciences. The problem of cultural bias is central to social and human sciences, such as economics, psychology, anthropology and sociology, which have had to develop methods and theories to compensate for or eliminate cultural bias. 10. Disconfirmation Bias -- occurs when one applies critical scrutiny to data that contradicts their prior beliefs but uncritically accepts info that is favorable to those beliefs. 11. Egocasting is to read, watch, and listen only to media that reflect one's own tastes or opinions. 12. Euphemisms and Dysphemisms--Words and phrases should be neutral, for if they are not, then they distort meaning, the truth, etc. A "euphemism" is a word or phrase that is less expressive or direct but considered less distasteful, less offensive, etc. than another. It is the substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener; or in the case of doublespeak, to make it less troublesome for the speaker. A "dysphemism" is roughly the opposites of a euphemism. It is an intentionally harsh word or expression instead of a polite or neutral one. Many subjects instead of describing them neutral, can be portrayed as favorable with euphemisms or depicted unfavorable with dysphemisms. Here are some examples where the middle term is neutral: attorney--lawyer--shyster; public servant--government official--bureaucrat; thrifty--cost-conscious--cheap, tight; freedom fighters--insurgents--terrorists; man of God--priest--sky pilot; holy father--pope--anti-Christ; imaginative--daydreamer--escapist; associates--coworkers--accomplices; emerging nation--undeveloped country--backward country; slender--thin--scrawny; lady of the evening--sex worker--prostitute. For example, in political discourse, "if-by-whiskey" is a relativist fallacy where the response to a question is contingent on the questioner's opinions and use of dysphemisms and euphemisms (e.g. "terrorist" as dysphemism and "freedom fighter" as euphemism). An if-by-whiskey argument affirms both sides of an issue, and agrees with whichever side the questioner supports. 13. Groupthink may be defined as peer pressure to conform to the opinions held by the group. 14. Herd Instinct — Common tendency to adopt the opinions and follow the behaviors of the majority to feel safer and to avoid conflict. 15. Identification takes place when an individual elevates his self-worth through crediting himself with qualities and ideals he admires in in other people or institutions. 16. Illusion of Control — the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or at least influence outcomes that they clearly cannot. 17. Illusory correlation — beliefs that inaccurately suppose a relationship between a certain type of action and an effect. 18. Indoctrination so as to instruct in, or imbue with, doctrines, theories, or beliefs, as of an ideology or religion. It is frequently used as a pejorative term because unlike education, indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies, etc. where the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned. For example, the world religions maintain their numbers by indoctrinate children before they even learn to think critically or how to examine belief systems. Noam Chomsky contends: For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of 'brainwashing under freedom' to which we are subjected and which all too often we serve as willing or unwitting instruments. 19. Irrational Behavior--Irrationality is the consequence of mental unsoundness or may indicate the utterly illogical nature of that which is directly contrary to reason. For example, the belief that the world is just and all get what they deserve. Unreasonable is a synonym and implies bad judgment, willfulness, prejudice, etc. as responsible for that which is not justified by reason.Theories of irrational behavior include*:
Some people find themselves in this condition by living "double" lives. They try to put on one "mask" for one group of people and another for a different group of people. Many will become confused as to which they really are or which they wish to become. *Source: Wikipedia 20. Just world hypothesis--this phenomena refers to the believe that the world is fair and that therefore people get what they deserve. The desire to hold this belief is very common and strong because it lets people go on with their life's when they witness, for example, poverty and injustice. Rather than doing something about it, they will rationalize it, that is, find reasons why the victim deserves it. This sedates their conscience without having to take some corrective action. They remain satisfied and at peace with themselves by continuing to believe the world is a just place, but they do it at the expense of blaming victims for things that were not their fault because it was not within their control. Examples are:
It is important to recognize that "intuitions" (of rightness, wrongness, absurdity, and so forth) have no special claim to epistemic* authority, being different from convictions only in being less readily formulated or explicated in terms of other current explanatory accounts and, it seems, in having been acquired more informally. While intuitions are therefore no less historically and otherwise contingent than other beliefs, they may be exceptionally powerful--that is, less responsive to changed conditions and less readily modified by new conceptual formulations--precisely because, in having been learned more informally and thus imperceptibly [not plain or distinct to the senses or the mind], they are especially resistant to the reflection that they were learned at all or could have been learned otherwise. *the conditions for acquiring knowledge 26. Projection is the unconscious act or process of ascribing to others one's own ideas, impulses, or emotions, esp. when they are considered undesirable or cause anxiety. 27. Repression occurs when thoughts, feelings, impulses, or memories that are unacceptable to the individual are prevented from reaching consciousness. For instance, painful memories are deposited and kept in the subconscious. 28. Scapegoating takes place when a person, group, or institution attempts to avoid criticism by blaming others for their failings or crimes. 29. Self-Deception, as observed by a third party, is substantially triggered and supported by unconscious mental processes. It is the denying or rationalizing away the relevance, significance, or importance of opposing evidence and logical argument as in the case of suppressing the uncomfortable tension that may result from having two conflicting thoughts at the same time or engaging in behavior that conflicts with one's beliefs (cognitive dissonance, see above). As Nietzsche put it: My memory says that I did it, my pride says that I could not have done it, and in the end, my memory yields. It appears that humans are, with few exceptions, highly susceptible to self-deception as everyone has emotional attachments to life-coping beliefs, which in some cases may be irrational. Some evolutionary biologists suggest that, because deception is such an important part of human behavior, an ability for self-deception can give a person a selective advantage. For instance, they can maintain their life-coping beliefs. Also, if someone can believe their own "lie," for instance, a claim that promotes their self-interest, they will consequently be better able to persuade others of its "truth."Abstract thinking allows many evolutionary advantages such as more flexible, adaptive behaviors and innovation. Since a life lie, and lies in general, are abstractions, the mental process of creating a lie can only occur in animals with enough brain complexity to permit at least some abstract thinking. 30. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy refers to the tendency to engage in behaviors that elicit results which will (consciously or not) confirm our beliefs. 31. Self-Handicapping is to impede one's own performance in order to have an excuse for failing; offering excuses for a poor performance before one has even attempted the task. 32. Self-Privileging is the granting of rights, advantages, favors, immunities to oneself or one's group. As explained by Barbara Herrnstein Smith: "No illusion is more powerful than that of the inevitability and propriety of one's own beliefs and judgment." The conviction of the necessity of one's convictions survives the most strenuous opposition and contradiction. Indeed, it feeds of them: self-privileging operates not merely as a self-sustaining mechanism but as a productive one, generating new perceptual and conceptual articulations--new beliefs, descriptions, interpretations, judgments, and justifications--even from "evidence" and "arguments" to the contrary. 33. Status Quo Bias refers to the tendency for people to like things to stay relatively the same (see System Justification below). 34. Stereotyping — expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without having actual information about that individual. 35. Sublimation occurs when an individual redirects instinctive, primitive, or socially unacceptable desires into socially acceptable activities. The sexually unfulfilled priest may sublimate his sexual energy into a hellfire and eternal damnation threatening sermon. 36. System Justification refers to the tendency to defend and bolster the status quo, i.e. existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives disparaged sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective well-being or other self-interests. 37. Theomania is the compulsion to explain everything in nature, and nature as a whole, as the work of a superhuman being. 38. Violating the Rules of Reasoned Discussions. These rules stipulate an ideal model for argumentative discussions. Violations of the discussion rules are said to frustrate the reasonable resolution of the difference of opinion and they are therefore considered fallacies. For an enumeration and explanation of these rules see the chapter Rules for Reasoned Discussions. 39. Weasel Words reflect poor thinking because they are used to avoid making a straightforward statement. Weasel words are also used to deceive, distract, or manipulate an audience. For instance, the statement "up to 50% off on all products that are on sale, is attractive because it advertises a high decrease in price. However, it does not even vaguely specify how many products are on sale. Weasel words suck the life out of the words next to them, just as a weasel sucks the egg and leaves the shell. Moreover, as one observer noted, generalizing by means of vague modifiers, such as 'many' or 'better', as well as the passive voice, such as 'it has been decided', enters into weasel wording because they conceals the full picture. In this way, one may evade responsibility for what may be inferred. On the other hand, vagueness detracts from the validity of a statement." 40. Wishful thinking may result in the formation of beliefs and decisions according to what might be desired even if it is unrealistic. Because evidence and logic is often neglected, this way of thinking may cause blindness to unintended consequences. Some unbelievers argue that much of theology, particularly arguments for the existence of God, is based on wishful thinking because it takes the desired outcome and tries to prove it on the basis of a premise through reasoning which is fallacious, but which may nevertheless be wished "true" in the mind of the believer. As Justin Kruger and David Dunning claim: People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains....This overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive [overarching] ability to realize it.C. Dirty Tricks 1. The Big Lie is a propaganda technique. It was defined by Adolf Hitler in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf as a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously". Moreover, the Nazis accused the English of following the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, stick to it, and keep up the lies even at the risk of looking ridiculous. The "Big Lie" phrase was also used in a report prepared during the war by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA, in describing Hitler's psychological profile: His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it. These "primary rules" are still practiced by totalitarian governments and institutions, as well as by some "democratic" governments that move toward totalitarianism. It often works because:
Explaining metaphysics to the nation— I wish he would explain his explanation. This fallacy is sometimes called Ignotum Per Ignotius, literally meaning (explaining) "the unknown by the more unknown." Others refer to this activity as "mystery mongering," and to those who practice it or hold such speculations as "mysterians." Examples: "God of the Gaps" is a hostile, derogatory phrase that characterizes theories appealing to the concept of God to explain anything science currently finds inexplicable, for example, the origins of life, details of the evolutionary mechanism, or of consciousness. Even theologians, now and generally, regard such assertions as creating only the illusion of an explanation that provides no valid basis or support for a belief in God. Within the traditional theistic view of God as existing in a realm "beyond nature", as science progresses to explain more and more, the perceived scope of the role of God and other "supernatural" phenomena has shrank considerably as a result. Kant's "noumenon" is the key term in his philosophy which claims that reality in itself cannot be known. For him, a "noumenon" is a thing as it is in itself, unable to be known through perception but postulated as the intelligible ground of a "phenomenon," which is a thing as it appears in perception. By disconnecting the "noumenon" from sense perception, Kant acts like a true metaphysician of whom Carnap declared: Metaphysicians cannot avoid making their propositions non-verifiable, because if they made them verifiable, the decisions about the truth or falsehood of their doctrines would depend on experience and therefore belong to the region of empirical science. Thus they are compelled to cut all connections between their propositions and experience; and precisely by this procedure deprive them of any sense. Also see "Non-sensical Assertions" above. 9. The Barrage of Objections and The Call for Perfection Overemphasis of objections demanding perfection pervert the argument because what is possible is only the real but not the ideal. D. Defense Mechanisms Defense mechanisms form a substantial part of self-deception and interrelate with all of the above and The Common Fallacies. For some common defense mechanisms see above: Compartmentalization, Identification, Projection, Repression, Rationalization, Stereotyping, Scapegoating, Self-Deception, Sublimation, Wishful Thinking. Also see "Strategies to Avoid Thinking for Yourself" and "Escape Mechanisms" in Intellectual Standards. |