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THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION

~ Science, logic, and ethics, from a Whiteheadian Pragmatist perspective (go figure)

THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION

Tag Archives: fallacies

Slippery Slope

13 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by Gary Herstein in Critical Thinking, fallacies, Inquiry, Logic

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Critical Thinking, fallacies, Logic

The “slippery slope” is the fallacy (if it is a fallacy – some might dispute that!) that says certain actions cannot ever be taken because they lead to other actions, which make still other actions possible, etc., leading finally to some kind of catastrophic action which can no longer be denounced or argued against because of all the little steps that led up to it and gave it permission. It is a frequent traveler with those who would argue against any sort of incremental changes to social institutions or the guarantee of civil rights. Thus, we’ve seen a great deal of slippery slope “reasoning” amongst conservatives denouncing marriage equality, with such claims being floated as, “If gays are allowed to marry, what is to prevent people from marrying farm animals, or young children?” (I’ll not link to any such claims; if the rock you’ve been hiding under these past several years has kept you shielded from such nonsense, I will not be the one responsible for breaking your bubble.)slippery-slope

What inspired me to write about this now was my recollection of how this fallacy relates to the famous sorites paradox: Sorites: noun so·ri·tes \sə-ˈrī-(ˌ)tēz\ The paradox (if it is a paradox) rotates around the question of how trivial actions, too small to have any consequence of their own, nevertheless can sum up to be massive and absolute distinctions. So, in a sense, slippery slope is going down the hill, while sorites is going up it. Continue reading →

I Chose My Data “Carefully” …

17 Monday Aug 2015

Posted by Gary Herstein in Cherry Picking, Critical Thinking, Logic

≈ 5 Comments

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cherry picking, Critical Thinking, fallacies, Logic

Cherry-picking data is often times (and somewhat inexplicably) not even classified as a fallacy. Thus for example, my favorite “go to” source on all things fallacious, the Fallacy Files, does not list it anywhere in its otherwise quite comprehensive encyclopedia. Cherry picking (Gary Curtis, over at Fallacy Files, and I exchanged some cheerful emails, and the simple answer as of this writing is that it simply hadn’t occurred to Gary to add an entry on the subject. He hopes to post something on his weblog in the not too distant future, and once it is up I’ll link to it HERE. [UPDATE: Gary Curtis has now posted his comments at Fallacy FIles.]) Continue reading →

Addendum on the Syllogism

10 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by Gary Herstein in Altemeyer, Authoritarians, Critical Thinking, Logic

≈ 2 Comments

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Altemeyer, Authoritarians, Critical Thinking, fallacies

Recall from my earlier post that the quantifiers in formal syllogism are represented by the letters “A,” “E,” “I,” and “O.” The choice of these letters has to do with millenia of tradition, and so is not the kind of thing one will casually change to make more readily memorable. The letters stand for:

A = All

E = None (or “There is no …”)

I = Some

O = Some Not

I want to expand a bit on my earlier discussion regarding authoritarian thinking and the syllogism by using these scripts to illuminate another common piece of fallacious reasoning, one that especially lends itself to the form of the syllogism, and which is often advanced by persons who score high on Altemeyer’s authoritarian spectrum. I’ll will introduce the simplifying symbolism in parentheses as I pose the argument itself.

So here it goes: It is frequently claimed that “There is no” ( = “E”) “Mention in the Constitution” ( = “M”) of a “Right to Privacy” ( = “P”). Therefore, The “Right to Privacy” ( = “P”) is not ( = “E”) a “Right that exists” ( = “R”). I’m taking for granted the reader’s ability to follow over my formalization above. In simplified form, this argument looks like:

E M P

(← Something is missing here!)

E P R      (Notice that the quantifier “E” has been pushed to the front of the sentence. This is necessitated by the form of the syllogism, but it leads to somewhat awkward phrasing: “There is no right to privacy that is a right that exists.” This type of not-quite idiomatic phrasing is sometimes unavoidable when formalizing an argument.)

The above is not a valid syllogism, because in order to be valid it would need a second premise. Not every formal, logical argument has just and only two premises, but this is the necessary structure of a formal syllogism. However, one could fill in that missing premise, making it a valid syllogism. This kind of incomplete, but theoretically completable syllogism, is what is known as an “enthymeme.” Moreover, if one understands the formal structures of syllogisms, one can construct the missing premise, and make the whole thing a valid argument, just from the above formalized schema, without knowing anything about the interpretations the non-logical (that is, non-quantifier) symbols. Thus, without even knowing how the “M,” “P,” or “R” are intended to be interpreted, that valid syllogism is:

E M P

A R M    

E P R

The presence of an “E” quantifier in the first premise and the conclusion requires that an “A” (“All”) quantifier lead in the second, previously missing premise. The “middle term” – the “M” – must be distributed, that is diagonalized, in the second premise. And the final term that appears in the conclusion, the “R”, must appear between the quantifier and the now distributed middle term, the “M”. This gives us the “A R M” premise. Given that the “M,” “P,” and “R” do have interpretations, and knowing what we know about the quantifiers, we can read the now provided premise as, “All rights that exist are mentioned in the Constitution.”

The above is now a formally valid syllogism, which means that IF the premises are true, THEN the conclusion follows by logical necessity.

But here’s the rub: the premises are not true. In particular, the second premise, the one that was conveniently skipped over, makes a claim that is explicitly denied by the 9th Amendment! Specifically, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Which is to say, no conclusion may be drawn about the existence of a right from its failure to be explicitly mentioned in the Constitution! This comes from both an understanding of the actual text of the Constitution, and a grasp of basic principles of logical reasoning. It is with such reasoning that Altemeyer’s authoritarians struggle so “inexplicably” — “inexplicably,” at least, from the purely logical point of view.

Thinking About Thinking 1

29 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by Gary Herstein in Critical Thinking, Philosophy of Logic

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Critical Thinking, fallacies

The study of philosophy – whether as an academic discipline, or the individually engaged pursuit of wisdom – has often been called “thinking about thinking.” This is a fairly vacuous description, not because it is wrong, but because it is so egregiously vague as to provide nothing beyond a comfortingly information-free verbalization that does not require us to attend to even a fourth word. 2500 years of written (which is to say, disregarding the purely oral traditions) speculative inquiry merits rather less of a trivialization in my book. Nevertheless, I did think it might be nice to spend a few posts thinking about good thinking from several useful perspectives, focusing, as it were, on the “logic” part of my mantra (Logic, Principles, Evidence, Facts.) This time out the gate, I want to talk a bit about “informal logic,” or that subject which is frequently found under the title of Critical Thinking.

The “critical” in “critical thinking” sometimes throws people off. This is not about being judgmental, or “you’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny” sorts of schoolyard pettiness. No, this is the criticism of the scientist and the art critic, the careful (but merciless!) evaluation of reason, BY reason. No cheap shots, but no free passes, either.

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