Political Philosophy and Ethics discussion
Both Pol. and Ethical Philosophy
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Reason, Informal Logic, Evidence, and Critical Thinking
On Nov 27, 2021 #456 Feliks wrote: "Something going on lately --and I admit I haven't got any more than this observation to offer --is what might be labeled the extreme socialization of knowledge. Not a ground-breaking insight, I'm sure. But my interactions with digiteratti lately, hint that today's social butterflies wish only to retain whatever knowledge everyone else in their networks possesses. They only feel obliged to know whatever their friends know, to facilitate a shared frame-of-reference for chatter. Nobody wants to stumble or slow a chat with questions..."I was of the impression that the bulk of humanity has always been like this. The bulk of humanity isn't looking for knowledge and truth per se but social acceptance, even if they do not explicitly recognise that that is what they are looking for. In as much as some knowledge is required for that social acceptance, they will naturally seek that level of knowledge and no more. In fact seeking above the minimum required and being vocal about it has the potential to disrupt social harmony, so they actually have a disincentive to seeking above the minimum required for social acceptance.
On Nov 28, 2021 #460 Feliks wrote: "There's a subtle danger in being part of a mob even when the mob is not out in the streets with pitchforks and torches. "Going with the flow'; being a "yes man", an "organizational man", being a "B..."True...but the problem is that mob members don't see themselves as being part of a thoughtless mob. They see themselves as being sociable and having people skills.
On Nov 28, 2021 #461 Alan wrote: "Generally, my experience is that there is often a conflict between preservation (keeping one's job) and honesty (always saying what's on one's mind). The rub comes when a boss insists that the employee do something that is unethical or even illegal. I had to take a stand a few times in my law career refusing to do something unethical, illegal, or just plain stupid. On one such occasion, my boss was dead drunk (calling me near the end of a 5-martini lunch with a client), and I just didn't do what he demanded despite his insistence that I do it immediately and that I would be fired if I refused. The next day, when he was back at the office, he sheepishly realized that he was wrong (and even crazy) in giving me such an order and was glad I didn't comply. But, for 24 hours, I wondered whether I was going to get fired for refusing to comply with his earlier directive, My boss in my next firm progressed from alcohol to cocaine. He tried to get me involved in his unethical (perhaps illegal) schemes, but I delayed doing so for month after month (giving him excuses) until I finally got a job in another law firm. Then, the boss in my new firm told us lawyers that his personal rule (evidently mentioned in order to encourage us to act the same way) was that one had to be willing to go to jail for one's client. ..."Jesus!! Is this what lawyers go through???
Given how we think here in Nigeria, I sincerely doubt one can find even one lawyer who believes one ought to be willing to go jail for one's client. The more likely reaction would be something like...."Did I ask him to go and commit crime??....nonsense!!!"
On Jan 15, 2022 #471 Alan wrote: "Regarding the correlation between free-market thinking and science denial, a correlation, of course, is not a causal relationship. I guess what the authors of the paper may be saying is that they both derive from irrational thinking. This would be ironic, since free-market thinking originally went hand-in-hand with the Enlightenment. See Adam Smith, David Hume, Thomas Jefferson, et al...."Another interpretation could be that combating climate change requires the kind of government intervention/regulation that a typical free marketer abhors, which serves as an inducement to the free-marketer becoming a climate-skeptic, hence the correlation.
There is a school of thought that suggests that once a country has reached a certain level of industrial development, it pays to have and clamor for global free-market policies. I have seen one or two references that I can't recall which suggest that Britain had reached this stage at the time Adam Smith was writing The Wealth of Nations. The US as well has long reached this stage but it was not always so. In his Report on Manufactures, Alexander Hamilton argued that in the transition from an agrarian economy to an industrial one, protection of infant industries is necessary (that was probably, the first known use of the term). In the 19th century, at the height of America's industrialization, Hamilton's recommendations were applied in full and the US had one of the most protected markets at the time.
I think I should point out that while Adam Smith generally espoused free markets, he was a lot more nuanced in this thinking and not dogmatic like his modern-day followers. He was willing to make concessions in situations where concessions would improve the lot of the common man. To this end, he probably made the famous quote, “No society can surely be flourishing and happy of which by far the greater part of the numbers are poor and miserable. ”
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Alan wrote: "Re Abdul's posts 504–7 (August 31, 2022): Thank you, Abdul, for your knowledgeable and wise comments."Always welcome Alan.
On Feb 13, 2022 #481 Alan wrote: "Postmodernism is an academic doctrine that arose in the second half of the twentieth century. Although it is a very complicated ideology, whose followers have different and sometimes contradictory positions, one of its hallmarks is that reason and evidence are inventions of the white, straight, male patriarchy and, as such, are to be rejected...."There is something I don't understand. If Postmodernists reject reason and evidence, how do they prove their claims? Without reason and evidence, nobody has a basis for claiming anything including them, unless of course Postmodernism is supposed to be a religion and accepted on the basis of faith, but that leaves one to reject it the same way the typical christian rejects Islam and vice versa.
It's never hard to prove a negative, critical, or null claim.
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Postmodernism is, in effect, a secular religion or cult. For example, it requires faith in (not proof of) its premise that everything is about power relations: the oppressors against the oppressed. Although historical evidence does exist that such facts sometimes exist (e.g., colonialism, slavery, etc.), postmodernism in its popular form asserts it as an absolute general principle, which, of course, contradicts its relativism. But then relativism always contradicts itself by postulating a general rule that is implicitly asserted as immune from relativism. In support of the foregoing statements, see the writings I and others have cited on this subject in this forum (do a word search for “postmodernism” in the search box in the upper right space at the top of this webpage).
Alan wrote: "Abdul wrote post 510 (September 1, 2022): "There is something I don't understand. If Postmodernists reject reason and evidence, how do they prove their claims? Without reason and evidence, nobody ..."Thank you Alan.
On Jun 22, 2021 #445 Alan wrote: "Kuhn shows that when a scientific revolution is occurring, books describing the new paradigm are often addressed to anyone who may be interested. They tend to be clearly written and jargon free, like Darwin’s Origin of Species. But once the revolution becomes mainstream, a new kind of scientist emerges. These scientists work on problems and puzzles within the new paradigm they inherit. They don’t generally write books but rather journal articles, and because they communicate largely with one another, a specialized jargon develops so that even colleagues in adjacent fields cannot easily understand them...."I would add that the reason for the dichotomy is that an emerging scientific field is much closer to philosophy, and therefore requires nuanced, fluid thinkers with a deepened understanding of the world, who have the ability to apply concepts from established fields in new areas. Take Darwin for instance. Criticial inspiration for Origin of Species came from reading economist Thomas Malthus' An Essay on Population. Malthus himself was trained in Mathematics at Cambridge and applied his fertile mathematical imagination to reveal startling insights about population growth (demography) and food production (agriculture). Bonus points to Darwin for being a committed slavery abolitionist. The book Darwin's Sacred Cause discusses that. This suggest that he would have been well informed of some of the most important social issues of his day. He came from a family of abolitionists actually. His maternal grandfather, industrialist Josiah Wedgewood, once ran for office on the platform of slavery abolition. His elder brother Erasmus, was a close friend to Harriet Martineau, a noted abolitionist, who I think even had a price put on her head in the American South. Darwin even almost disowned his son for attending a party thrown for a commandant of a slave camp in the Caribbean, who had returned home.
Once a scientific field becomes well-developed, specialist technical knowledge takes precedence over philosophy, hence the second type of scientist appears.
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In my post 445 (June 22, 2021), I was quoting from Norman Doidge, The Brain’s Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity (New York: Penguin, 2016), 354. It has been many decades since I myself read Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I now understand that not all thinkers and scholars agree with Kuhn’s basic approach, but I would have to restudy Kuhn and others to formulate my own view of that subject.
I am not a scientist, and my admittedly unexpressed purpose in setting forth the quotation from research psychiatrist Doidge was not to opine on “scientific revolutions” as such but rather to point out the unnecessary jargonization prevalent in many fields other than science and the specialized professions. I have no doubt that technical vocabulary is necessary in the sciences and in professional fields like medicine and law (where I necessarily employed it for more than thirty years as a practicing lawyer). But I have always been doubtful that it is necessary to extensively jargonize the social sciences and humanities. One of the reasons I never became a professor was my distaste for what I regard(ed) as unnecessary academic jargon in these fields. My view, of course, is not shared by most professors in the social sciences and the humanities. Indeed, it is my understanding that these fields are today being increasingly infiltrated by postmodernist jargon (most of which was invented after my student years in college, graduate school, and law school).
Thank you, Abdul, for the very interesting information about Darwin, of which I was previously unaware.
Alan wrote: "Abdul wrote: "On Jun 22, 2021 #445 Alan wrote: "Kuhn shows that when a scientific revolution is occurring, books describing the new paradigm are often addressed to anyone who may be interested. The..."Ah...I see. I have a distaste for jargon as well where it does not seem necessary.
Thank you, Abdul, for the very interesting information about Darwin, of which I was previously unaware.
You are welcome.
We have a post somewhere in this forum on both Malthus and (perhaps even better) Joseph Townsend's theory derived from the San Fernandez islands.
On Feb 19, 2020 #319 Alan wrote: "Plato's Republic, Strauss thought, was an eternal demonstration of the impossibility of combining philosophy and politics. Plato's Seventh Letter was along the same line, albeit in the context of actual, concrete historical circumstances. Unlike some scholars, Strauss considered the Seventh Letter to be authentic.I have always affixed a question mark to Strauss's remarks on the theory-practice issue, and I still don’t know what my exact position is on this. I started out, as Plato says he himself did (Seventh Letter 324b), being interested in a political career, but, again like Plato (Seventh Letter 324c-26b), I soon realized that such a career would be impossible for me—and not only for the obvious reasons. ..."
Hi Alan. Please if you don't mind, could you explain why Plato thought it was impossible to combine philosophy and politics, and specifically why it was an impossibility for you? You say that there are obvious reasons. I am sorry, I guess I am too ignorant to know what these obvious reasons are. I am asking all this because I am having trouble understanding why having a background in political philosophy or philosophy in general would pose a problem for someone who wants to embark on a political career. Churchill sounds like someone who had a philosophical or at least classical background, he obviously didn't see it as a stumbling block to a political career neither did Thomas Jefferson who was a Locke acolyte and essentially based America's Declaration of Independence on Locke's 2nd Treatise of Government. Then there is the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) program at Oxford (A program that The Guardian newspaper described a few years back as the degree that rules Britain), whose specific aim is to produce Britain's political elite and has actually contributed a significant amount (some would say astonishing amount) of members to Britain's political elite. It has come under serious criticism in recent years but then, anything that influential is bound to have its critics. Finally, I don't think the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau etc would have been as revered if their philosophies didn't have an impact on the practice of western politics, so it adds to my difficulty of understanding why being schooled in the works of these scholars or even in having a particular philosophical bent of your own would pose a problem to having a political career.
I have actually ofen wondered before now why you didn't embark on a political career.
Feliks wrote: "We have a post somewhere in this forum on both Malthus and (perhaps even better) Joseph Townsend's theory derived from the San Fernandez islands."Okay. I will be on the look out.
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Strauss may have gone a bit further than Plato on this question. In his Seventh Letter, Plato didn’t say it was impossible, only that it was highly unlikely. Plato appears to have been greatly affected by Socrates's execution by the Athenian democracy and by the assassination of his student Dion in Syracuse. See my Master’s essay, “The Teaching of Plato’s Seventh Letter” (https://www.academia.edu/22999496/The...), in which I discuss these historical events and Plato’s reaction to them at some length.
My own experience was somewhat similar, though not as dramatic as Plato’s. I participated in some political campaigns in high school and college. I witnessed the insanity that affected both the Left and Right in the United States during the 1960s. I myself was deeply affected by the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. during that decade. Such experiences convinced me that I would never be successful in politics. I don’t have the “people skills,” not to mention the willingness to compromise on ethical matters, to be a successful politician. When I was young, I was, as a political philosophy professor told me, naïve. The above-mentioned contacts with political reality made me abandon my early interest in becoming a politician.
Yes, there have been some successful political leaders who were enlightened and rational (regarding both ends and means) to a great extent, e.g., Cicero, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, Churchill, and John F. Kennedy. But Cicero was assassinated; the political careers of Madison and Jefferson probably would have been impossible without their personal dependence on slavery and upon the elitism that was acceptable in the early US republic (as distinguished from today, where the advanced intellectual elitism of Madison and Jefferson could not get them elected dogcatcher); Lincoln had to make many concessions to political reality and was eventually assassinated; Churchill firmly believed in British imperialism (affecting his judgment in his leadership during World War II and after); and JFK was not only assassinated but was ethically ruthless in his rise to political power (including bribing West Virginia voters with his father’s money during the 1960 primaries) and was, moreover, hardly philosophic in his personal life (having numerous extramarital affairs).
So, like Plato in his Seventh Letter, I conclude that the conjunction of philosophy and political power is highly unlikely, though perhaps not impossible. There are, however, gradations of better and worse, and the examples I mentioned in my preceding paragraph were probably much better and more philosophic than the available alternatives during their times and places.
Alan wrote: "Abdul wrote (#518, post 518 (September 6, 2022): "Hi Alan. Please if you don't mind, could you explain why Plato thought it was impossible to combine philosophy and politics, and specifically why ..."Thanks Alan. That was a wonderful answer.
On May 04, 2020 Alan wrote: "Isn’t the assertion that there are no truths self-contradictory? If there are no truths, then the assertion that there are no truths is, by definition, not true.Or is the principle of noncontradiction itself an untruth? Perhaps that principle does not apply to ultimate questions about metaphysics (see Professor Kant). But if it does not apply to everyday life and human history, what then? Is the statement “totalitarianism is evil” merely an opinion and not a truth? I’ve recently heard the assertion that “the speed of light is a patriarchal construct.” Must we throw science out the window as well as common logic?.....We should not assert an equivalence between knowledge and mere opinion"
The way I see it, the destruction of science and more broadly, what is formally called knowledge is the inevitable endpoint of the postmodernist project. Postmodernism as I have been made to understand is an attack on reason, objectivity and evidence, and these 3 form the foundations of what we consider science and useful knowledge. The equivalence of knowledge and mere opinion seems to me, to be postmodernism's mission.
Ultimately I see postmodernism as the latest phase of the age old tension between reason and emotion. It is at heart, emotion unrestrained by reason except where reason pays them like in their arguments about social justice, which is why I think relativism is an essential part of post-modernist thought because with emotions as with relativism, anything goes.
If the speed of light is a just a patriachial concept, I can't help but wonder if the law of gravity is also a patriachial concept. I would sure like to see some post-modernists jump off the empire state building in order to show the rest of us that gravity is just a patriachial concept.
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Alan wrote: "Thanks, Abdul. I agree entirely with the analysis in your preceding comment."You are welcome Alan.
On Jul 25, 2019 #257 Alan wrote: "Feliks wrote: "interesting-looking book just caught my eyeThe Age of American Unreason"
Great book! I read it in 2008."
The book's description brings to mind a question that has nagged me for a while. Over the years I have heard assertions by people with an intellectual bent that there is less serious readership now than in the past. I am not saying that the assertion is mistaken. I would just like to see rigorous studies that back it up. I have this notion, though I freely admit I could be mistaken as I have no data to back it up, that those of us that are into serious reading might be over-estimating how much serious reading was done in the past. I think what is happening is that we are understandably impressed with the authors that we can't but help have a more favourable view of readership in their times.
Was the ancient Greek likely to read The Iliad, The Republic, The Statesman or more likely indulge in the popular culture of his day? I think the same could be asked of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter or Orwell's 1984.
Alan, you have pointed out to me groups like the Christian Reconstructionists and before now I have heard of crazies like QAnon, but I can't help wondering if these people haven't always existed and in the proportions in which they exist now (Here I am referring to their individual numbers as people with such views and not necessarily have them coalesced into a group) but just that ICT is giving us greater awareness and monitoring of their activities. It must be admitted though that ICTs would certainly help with their coordination and dissemination of their views and thus a plausible increase in their numbers.
Please I reiterate, this is not a critique of the position of the decline of serious readership. I just want to be sure that this is in fact happening.
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Was the ancient Greek likely to read The Iliad, The Republic, The Statesman or more likely indulge in the popular culture of his day?"
With regard to the production and reading of books in the Athens of Socrates’s and Plato’s time, see posts 29 (August 22, 2016) through 46 (August 24, 2016) passim in the Ancient History topic.
I am not aware of any hard data on book readership of the present or earlier times or of the quality of material read. I do have the impression that people today (especially younger people) are more interested in videos (especially short and entertaining videos) than in books, but I don’t know of any studies that back this up. I have often pondered the extent to which people of the US founding generation read, for example, the Federalist, which was serialized in newspapers in 1787 and 1788. There may be no good way of ascertaining the answers to such historical questions.
“ICT” was a new abbreviation for me, and I had to look it up. The website at https://www.techtarget.com/searchcio/... states: “ICT, or information and communications technology (or technologies), is the infrastructure and components that enable modern computing. . . . Although there is no single, universal definition of ICT, the term is generally accepted to mean all devices, networking components, applications and systems that combined allow people and organizations (i.e., businesses, nonprofit agencies, governments and criminal enterprises) to interact in the digital world.”
(edited about two hours after the forgoing comment was posted)
Re #526With regard to the production and reading of books in the Athens of Socrates’s and Plato’s time, see posts 29 (August 22, 2016) through 46 (August 24, 2016) passim in the Ancient History topic.
Thanks for this
I have often pondered the extent to which people of the US founding generation read, for example, the Federalist, which was serialized in newspapers in 1787 and 1788.
Yeah...that would be interesting to know.
“ICT” was a new abbreviation for me, and I had to look it up.
Sorry...my bad
Alan wrote: "I have this notion, though I freely admit I could be mistaken as I have no data to back it up, that those of us that are into serious reading might be over-estimating how much serious..."re: #525. It's not an over-estimate. I've gathered hard data on this trend from a wide host of sources. Tracking this used to be an obsession with me. So much so, that Alan saw it creeping into many of my posts in this group; and I cut back on my spouting off about it rather than become a Savonarola.
Over time, I gradually tapered off my monitoring of the situation. Reason: the reports on failing literacy grew at such a rate that I could no longer manage to stay atop it. The evidence is now of enormous length, and simply not pertinent to discuss in this forum.
I'm weary of playing Tiresias; tired of attacking and tired of arguing. Declining literacy is just one strand of the disaster that too much electronics and digitization has wrought today. But consumers simply won't be steered away from modern electronics. It's futile to try and change this.
re #528Okay. Thanks Feliks.
Hi Alan. Please is this a topic we can continue discussing in this thread? If not, is it one we can continue discussing in the Education thread? I ask because I would very much like to see Feliks' links to the hard data and if you don't mind my asking Feliks' a question:
Declining literacy is just one strand of the disaster that too much electronics and digitization has wrought today.
I admit that this is very much plausible. I have seen a few articles taking the same position but I can't help but wonder if the people currently spending so much time engaging in various inanities on their cellphones aren't more likely to do something else other than read if electronics and digitization didn't exist. For instance wouldn't the children go out more and play with their friends and the adults hang out more in bars, cinemas, shopping malls, restaurants etc or simply just indulge in plain old gossip with and about the neighbours more?
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Okay. Thanks Feliks.
Hi Alan. Please is this a topic we can continue discussing in this thread? If not, is it one we can continue discussing in the Education thread? I ask because I would ..."
This topic doesn't fit well into any of the existing threads. To my mind, it is, ultimately, a matter of individual ethics, and I cover it, at least implicitly, in Chapter 3 of my book Reason and Human Ethics.
Feliks seems to have something of an anti-technology obsession, blaming technology for many evils. He and I have been arguing about this kind of thing in this forum for many years. It reminds me of the right-wing mantra that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” That saying is not quite accurate, because people would not kill other people with guns unless guns were available. The abolition of guns is not going to happen in the United States in the foreseeable future. It is, quite simply, politically impossible. Similarly, technology in general is not ever going to be abolished in the world, and it is my view that it should not be abolished. We don’t want to go back to the Stone Age, when, of course, rudimentary technology already existed. The human species cannot survive without technology. The solution to the problem of the misuse of technology is not to abolish advanced technology (which is impossible absent a totalitarian regime, which then would have a monopoly on technology). It is, rather, to improve human ethics, of which reason, in my view, is an essential part. Again, see Chapter 3 (and Chapter 2) of Reason and Human Ethics.
This issue could be discussed in either the present topic on reason (which includes reason regarding ends as well as means) or in a topic in the ethics folder of this group. Since reason and ethics are essentially interrelated, in my view, it might as well be discussed here. I don’t think it belongs in the education topic, since it is not a school issue. It might be considered in a broader definition of personal education, but that gets back to the principles of reason and ethics as such.
So, if I may rephrase the old conservative saw: Technology doesn’t destroy minds; people destroy their minds by misusing technology. The solution is not to destroy technology but rather to improve ethics.
During the twentieth century, this issue usually appeared in the context of nuclear weapons. The danger of technology was understood to mean the danger of nuclear war. I certainly would not be opposed to the elimination of all nuclear weapons. The problems are (1) to get all state and militant nonstate actors to agree to eliminate nuclear weapons, and (2) to verify that they have done so. These problems were not solved in the twentieth century and, mostly likely, will not be solved in the twenty-first century. But at least that problem is solvable in principle. Abolition of cell phones and other advanced technology is not doable absent a totalitarian regime.
re #530This issue could be discussed in either the present topic on reason (which includes reason regarding ends as well as means) or in a topic in the ethics folder of this group. Since reason and ethics are essentially interrelated, in my view, it might as well be discussed here.
Okay. Thanks Alan.
So, if I may rephrase the old conservative saw: Technology doesn’t destroy minds; people destroy their minds by misusing technology. The solution is not to destroy technology but rather to improve ethics.
Agreed
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Bill Kristol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Kr...) is a famous American neoconservative. He was a big supporter of the Iraq War during the administration of President George W. Bush and a booster for Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential candidate for the Republican Party and John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election. One might think it impossible for Kristol to change his mind about these and other political things. However, change his mind he has, as related in an interview reproduced at https://wapo.st/3qnZTRA. (As a result of my Washington Post subscription, the foregoing link can be accessed without charge for fourteen days, notwithstanding the usual Washington Post paywall.)
On Nov 12, 2017 #97 Feliks wrote: "What else was covered..ah yes the principles of socialism vs capitalism. First I had to explain that socialist theory is actually pretty noble in its aims; (which he had never heard of). I also explained the principle of the exploitation of labor. Nevertheless in his view, the free market is still the best system because it gives everyone an incentive to climb. ..."Sorry to take you back Felix. The context of your statement is the arguments you have with your capitalist friend that you go pub crawling with. I agree with you that socialist theory is noble in its intentions but in response to that, I can't help but remember the words of John Kenner, a character in Michael Critchton's novel State of Fear that goes "Good intentions combined with bad information is a recipe for disaster". What I mean by that is this. I think socialism's biggest flaw is its refusal to acknowledge that aspect of human nature that is driven by self-centeredness, which from both introspection and relating to others seems to me, to loom large in human affairs. I believe this is what forced the communist regimes of the 20th century, despite their noble intentions, to become totalitarian because as I pointed out to a very brilliant socialist in this group with whom I have been having a private back and forth messaging session, even if you don't accept that some people are naturally smarter than others, it is self-evident that some people will work harder than others and that there will be some people who will want different from what society prescribes for them and they will feel entitled to have or pursue this so long as they are not trampling on the rights of others. These two groups (possibly among others) will naturally resist the socialists' aims and if the socialists has full power like in the former Soviet Union or Communist China (Present China for all practical purposes are communist in name only. What they really have is a unitary system of government presiding over a capitalist economy), they will almost inevitably resort to totalitarian suppression and create in the process, a worse evil than the one they were trying to cure. To make matters worse, because of their noble intentions, they will feel justified in their perpetration of totalitarian evil. The same socialist I was having an argument with at some point said that it was unfortunate China's cultural revolution ended. I had to remind him that many people were forcibly relocated from urban areas to work on farms, universities closed down, people imprisoned and killed on the suspicion of trying to reintroduce capitalism. Also since they can't possibly know who is for and against them, they have to extend the mass surveillance to all of society.
This isn't to argue that there is no place for socialism in the world, far from it. It too springs from another aspect of human nature, the part that is concerned with the well being of humanity in general and not just ourselves. Socialism or at least socialist thinking can play a key role in keeping capitalism honest and also giving it a human face. Like I have indicated previously, I like Scandinavia's blend of capitalism and socialism. It probably isn't perfect but I appreciate the attempt to cater to these two opposing aspects of human nature.
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On page 151 of my book Reason and Human Ethics, at the beginning of a section titled “Transition to Authoritarianism?: The Presidency of Donald J. Trump (2017–21),” I write: “Donald J. Trump’s presidency, like that of George W. Bush, was characterized by his self-advertised ‘gut instinct’ rather than by reasoned consideration of factual evidence and policy alternatives.” I cite chapter and verse in support of this proposition. However, additional evidence of Trump’s irrational decision-making style has now been presented in audiotapes of twenty interviews with Trump that journalist Bob Woodward has just made available on Amazon: see The Trump Tapes: Bob Woodward’s Twenty Interviews with President Donald Trump (https://www.amazon.com/Trump-Tapes-Wo...).
In an October 23, 2022 op-ed regarding these recordings, Woodward states, among other things: “In these interviews, you hear Trump relishing the authority of the presidency and relying on his personal instincts as the basis for major decisions. It’s a self-focus that gets in the way of his ability to do the job.” (Bob Woodward, “The Trump Tapes: 20 interviews that show why he is an unparalleled danger,” Washington Post, October 23, 2022 [https://wapo.st/3DoJSAH]). (As a result of my Washington Post subscription, the foregoing link can be accessed without charge for fourteen days, notwithstanding the usual Washington Post paywall.)
I am cross-filing the foregoing comment in the “Citizen and Political Ethics” topic of this Goodreads group.
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I discuss the question of the life of reason versus the life of passion in my book Reason and Human Ethics, especially Chapter 2 (“Human Reason”), which is posted online at https://www.academia.edu/82835731/Exc....
Political philosopher Thomas Pangle recently posted an essay titled “The Life of Wisdom: Rousseau vs Socrates” at https://www.academia.edu/91657830/The.... He contrasts the life of reason, exemplified by Socrates, with the life of passion, exemplified by Rousseau. This is an excellent analysis, which I highly recommend. My only question is his discussion of Socrates's statements about his daimonion. I have always thought that these statements were exoteric, a position with which Pangle may or may not agree. I have posed that question to him in an Academia discussion. If he responds, I will update the present comment.
I am cross-filing this post in the following topics of this Goodreads group: “Reason, Informal Logic, Evidence, and Critical Thinking,” “Human Ethics: Basis, Principles, Applications,” “Ethical Philosophy of Socrates and Plato,” “Plato,” “Rousseau,” and “Leo Strauss and the ‘Straussians’.”
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Professor Pangle responded today as follows: “I don't think the statements about his daimonion are simply exoteric, though that is one dimension of them. They point to the fundamental problem or question, which is one of interpreting crucial spiritual experiences.” I’m not sure what Pangle means by this, but I am not pursuing it further in the Academia discussion.
I am cross-filing this post in the following topics of this Goodreads group: “Reason, Informal Logic, Evidence, and Critical Thinking,” “Human Ethics: Basis, Principles, Applications,” “Ethical Philosophy of Socrates and Plato,” “Plato,” “Rousseau,” and “Leo Strauss and the ‘Straussians’.”
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This December 22, 2022 Washington Post article (https://wapo.st/3PNNj9V) is titled “In rural Georgia, an unlikely rebel against Trumpism.” It explains how one person raised in an irrational environment was able, notwithstanding that environment, to become a rational human being, and it also possibly explains the 2022 US midterm results in which Trumpist candidates fared much worse around the country than expected by both Republicans and Democrats. (As a result of my Washington Post subscription, the foregoing link can be accessed without charge for fourteen days, notwithstanding the usual Washington Post paywall.)
Having grown up in a small, rural town, I empathize with the subject of this article. However, his environment was much worse than mine, and his intellectual journey was longer and more difficult than my own. Unlike him, I was able to escape to a university in a large city at which, during the 1960s, I witnessed irrational extremism on the Left as well as the Right. But there again, as with some teachers in high school, I had a few role models among my professors who stood against the ideological lunatics.
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I have just finished reading C. D. C. Reeve’s introduction (2022) to his recent translation of Plato’s Laws. In the final paragraph of that introduction, Reeve states:
Guardedly, and in the language of the Republic, we might say that for all the differences there are between that work and the Laws, it is still mathematical science, amalgamated with practical city management and aided by those discussions in the Nocturnal Council meetings that are the analogs of dialectic (if not the thing itself), that offers us the only route out of the cave of false and exploitative ideology into the clear light of the sun. In a post-truth, post-fact society, where ideology is king and science denigrated, there simply is no—in any case, no peaceful—way out.I believe Reeve is referring to both far-right authoritarianism and far-left postmodernism in his remark about “post-truth, post-fact society, where ideology is king and science denigrated . . . .” Although I don’t necessarily agree with all of Reeve’s other comments about the Platonic corpus, I think his foregoing judgment is correct, understanding, however, that Plato did not recognize the fact-value dichotomy of much of modern science and philosophy. For Plato, human “values”—ethics—had an objective, rational basis. For further discussion of this point, see Chapters 1 and 2 of my book Reason and Human Ethics, which are reproduced online at https://www.academia.edu/82835731/Exc....
I am cross-filing this post in both the “Plato” and “Reason, Informal Logic, Evidence, and Critical Thinking” topics of this Goodreads group.
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This inaugural February 5, 2023 New York Times column by David French is a good exposition of the perils of ideology and groupthink, with particular application to police and educational issues: see https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/05/op.... (As a result of my New York Times subscription, the foregoing link can be accessed without charge for fourteen days, notwithstanding the usual New York Times paywall.)
I am cross-filing the present comment in the “Reason, Informal Logic, Evidence, and Critical Thinking,” “Education,” and “Police” topics of this Goodreads group.
Question: was the total list of logical fallacies always the same, or has it evolved over time? How long did it stay the same? Was it constant for many decades, and only lately seeing new ones added? I wonder who determines new inductees to the current rankings of known fallacies.
Here's one I never heard of before, but it's quickly become my favorite. I think this particular fallacy is running rampant today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_s...
These exercises in logic are beautiful in their way.
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There is no “official” list of fallacies. Aristotle was the first Western philosopher to come up with a list and analysis of fallacies, but there have been many other—and more comprehensive—lists in later centuries and millennia. For a discussion of common fallacies, see the sections “Some Famous Fallacies” and “Critical Thinking” on pages 40–60 of Chapter 2 of my book Reason and Human Ethics (Chapters 1 and 2 and the endnotes to same are accessible in PDF at https://www.academia.edu/82835731/Exc...). My account is not, however, exhaustive. For other accounts, see the list of references in endnote 22 (to Chapter 2) on pages 195–96 of my book. The numbers and discussions of fallacies have varied over time. See generally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of... (note: I don’t necessarily agree with all of the specifics of that discussion).
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The second edition of Brooke Borel’s The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking was published on May 23, 2023. Although I have only read a few scattered pages of it so far, it appears to be very informative and helpful for readers, writers, editors, and professional fact-checkers.
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A few days ago, I became aware of a fallacy that I had not earlier heard named: the “Kafkatrap fallacy.” This fallacy is defined as a “sophistical rhetorical device in which any denial by an accused person serves as evidence of guilt.” Etymology: “From Kafka + trap, coined by American computer programmer, author, and advocate for the open source movement Eric S. Raymond in 2010 . . . in reference to the book Der Proceß (The Trial, 1925) by the Bohemian author Franz Kafka (1883–1924), in which a man is accused of crimes that are never specified, and every defense is treated as proof of guilt.” (Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kafkat....)
In his online blog “The Logical Liberal,” David Edward Burke refers to this and other fallacies in his essay “The Intellectual Fraud of Robin Diangelo’s ‘White Fragility’ ” (https://thelogicalliberal.com/white-f...). As his blog title indicates, Burke is a liberal, not a conservative, and he promotes liberal policies in other articles on this blog. But he finds Diangelo’s book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism to be filled with logical fallacies while, occasionally, having some genuine insights. (By the way, Diangelo is White.) I tried to read White Fragility a few months ago but only read a few pages of it, having discerned many of the same fallacies cited by Burke and finding Diangelo’s writing to be insufferable.
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I don’t agree with everything Bertrand Russell said and wrote, but his following statement well epitomizes what I regard as the essence of critical thinking:
The fact is you cannot be intelligent merely by choosing your opinions. The intelligent man is not the man who holds such-and-such views but the man who has sound reasons for what he believes and yet does not believe it dogmatically. And opinions held for sound reasons have less emotional unity than the opinions of dogmatists because reason is non-party, favouring now one side and now another. That is what people find so unpleasant about it.This quote is from a newspaper article (“On Orthodoxies”) that he published on August 23, 1933. It can be found on pages 233–34 of the following book: Bertrand Russell, Mortals and Others: American Essays 1931–35, vols. 1 and 2 (London: Routledge, 2009), Kindle.
I am cross-filing this comment in the “Reason, Informal Logic, Evidence, and Critical Thinking” and “Apt Quotes” topics of this Goodreads group.
Alan wrote: "THE KAFKATRAP FALLACY (...) sophistical rhetorical device in which any denial by an accused person serves as evidence of guilt ..."Thinking a bit further about this Kafkatrap (which I too, only found cached by this new phrase, very recently).
Seems to me it is a tool designed all too well for any society where either State/party politics or State-sanctioned religious groups overshadow civics and law.
I wouldn't be surprised to hear it was encountered in classical Greece where religious zeal often affected wisdom (ex, Socrates' trial).
Rome's civil wars; French Revolution; the Rome-Portugal-Spain Inquisitions vs Jews ...Salem's witch trials, Mussolini's Rome, or HUAC. It would lend itself to any of these episodes.
And, especially, Bolshevik Russia. There, we see it well documented by Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Koestler's life aim encompassed much more than just his one most famous novel, ('Darkness at Noon' where Kafkatrap is dramatized so bitingly). p.s. I hadn't realized until just now that he --like Stefan Zweig --were both suicides.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_...
In nonfict, Solzhenitsyn dissects Kafkatrap particularly well with case after case from Stalin's purges recounted in detail. This is some of the most harrowing history I've ever read.
As Solzhenitsyn makes clear, KT was so deadly a rhetorical weapon that many of Russia's most brilliant thinkers could not escape being hung by it. Some of the shrewdest intellectuals in the world, were made helpless.
I recall that one of the only ways to escape death under Stalin's prosecutors was if you were lucky enough to have a 'fellow citizen step forward and advocate for you'.
This was naturally something your neighbor might be reluctant to do, under such a system. You yourself might be apprehended as a fellow-suspect.
Similarly, in religious communities or religious pogroms which over-rely on traditional Muslim, Biblical, or Talmudic law; the principle of 'bearing witness'; bearing 'false witness' and the like. You survive your trial only if someone of good standing speaks for you.
This is partly why KT is so fearful. It breeds 'in-groups' and 'out-groups'. Kafkatrap reinforces cliques and factions; instead of evidence-based justice. It freezes legal machinery anywhere cultural bias runs too rampant.
Thankfully, in modern-day USA --it wont ever be 'overtly' present in an American courtroom. But as 'us vs them' divisiveness expands, I'd sure be nervous facing any contemporary jury. In private, our neighbors roil with latent biases no less than those in any of the societies I named above.
Frex, how exactly does one prove one is not 'corrupting youth' as part of a Congressional "child prostitution ring"? How exactly does one prove one is not really one of the 'reptiloids' secretly leading the 'shadow government'? [I can't. Obviously, if I am one of those sneaky upright reptiles, everything I say is 'just a cover-up'.]
Another: as a member of the white elitist patriarchal ruling class, how do I convince a militant leftist that I can actually, 'see the water I swim in'? I can't. Just 'trying to save my own skin', of course.
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I have downloaded on Kindle the following recently released book: Justin Buckley Dyer and Constantine Christos Vassiliou, eds., Liberal Education and Citizenship in a Free Society (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2023). I have now read the first chapter: Lorraine Smith Pangle, “The Modern Academy and the Ancient Virtue of Phronesis.” The author is (quoting the description in the book’s list of contributors) “Professor of Government and Co-Director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas at the University of Texas at Austin. Her prior publications include Reason and Character: The Moral Foundations of Aristotelian Political Philosophy (2020), Virtue is Knowledge: The Moral Foundations of Socratic Political Philosophy (2014), The Political Philosophy of Benjamin Franklin (2007), and Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship (2003), alongside numerous academic articles on related topics.”
Lorraine Smith Pangle’s chapter in Liberal Education and Citizenship in a Free Society is a very wise discussion of current academic trends and an alternative approach rooted in Aristotle's concept of phronesis, which she translates as “active wisdom.” I quote here the last few paragraphs of her essay:
As a university, we need a renewed dedication to a common project of pursuing truth, with a working faith that truth can be found and that more open discussions can yield richer understandings, with a willingness to bravely if carefully question anything, and with a shared sense of the importance of this project and the difficulty of getting it right. If Aristotle is right about the close connection between the intellectual and moral virtues, our task involves envisioning together the kind of community of thoughtful discourse we want to create and the virtues and habits we might need to cultivate to make robust free speech work well for us. With a view to advancing that discussion, I would like to suggest a few more virtues and habits to supplement phronesis itself.I couldn’t have said it better myself, though I addressed some of these same themes in my book Reason and Human Ethics.
Perhaps most fundamentally, a university needs a spirit of inquiry, curiosity, and intellectual openness. This means actively welcoming diversity, especially viewpoint diversity, and ensuring that diverse perspectives, including views that we ourselves oppose, are heard and taken seriously in our classrooms. It includes respecting others’ rights to speak and publish their thoughts, whatever they are; to hear any speakers they wish to invite to address them; and to debate any question they wish to raise. Most of all, it means a commitment to depth of inquiry, to asking hard questions, connecting them to more fundamental questions, and helping one another to articulate and test different answers to them.
The second virtue a university needs is intellectual honesty. This virtue, rooted in the love of truthfulness and even more the love of truth, is the essential source of all genuine fair-mindedness. Intellectual honesty begins with the determination to discover and question one’s own prejudices and unexamined assumptions. It continues with the process of continually striving to frame one’s ideas in ways that recognize the merits of alternative views, that invite testing and correction, and that show a willingness to learn from discussion.
Third, we need civility. Civility means not just politeness or tact; civility constitutes the habits of discourse necessary to sustain a free, self-governing community. We often think of civility as primarily a quality of speech, but true civility begins with the way we listen to others before we speak. Civility means hearing the other out, seriously trying to understand the other’s experience and thoughts, looking for common ground, and making certain and evident that one has understood the other before voicing disagreement. Civility means presenting one’s own arguments in such a way as to maximize the chances of their being fairly considered and to minimize the chances of deepening divisions. It means avoiding sweeping generalizations. It means responding to arguments with counterarguments and not by impugning others’ motives. Civility means respect. It means refraining from vilifying, demeaning, or spreading rumors about any individual or group. It means never assuming that another is unable to learn or improve, and never assuming that someone who does not share our experiences or background is incapable of understanding us or of joining in any intellectual inquiry. When problems arise, civility means confronting them honestly and directly, in ways designed to build or restore mutual trust. The American Association of University Professors, in its statement on academic freedom, makes a good case that it is best not to try to legislate civility. The lines between civility and incivility are hard to draw with the blunt instrument of the law, especially when we get so close to vital rights that involve us in passionate disagreements. Except in extreme cases formal sanctions are not well suited to instill the behavior we need on campuses, for at heart civility is a matter not of following rules but of intention, judgment, and good taste. But if civility cannot be legislated, that is all the more reason why it is incumbent on each of us to practice it and to gently, civilly push our friends to practice it too.
Finally, we need to cultivate resilience. It takes resilience to tolerate the rough-and-tumble of free debate. Ideas are powerful and can be powerfully disturbing, and diverse communities can be uncomfortable. But resilience can be learned. It is possible to learn to take pride in being open to learning and in being able to acknowledge what we do not know. Socrates claims it is in fact better to lose an argument than to win it: when we lose, he says, we learn more. Resilience means realizing that someone else’s rudeness or insensitivity is something about them—or indeed merely about their momentary state of mind—and not something about us. Resilience means knowing that we have options: we can get angry if we want to, but we do not have to. Resilience means taking pride in finding the resources we need to solve our own problems and to create the kind of life we want for ourselves and our community.
No citizen can think every important question through independently to the bottom, and most of us can at most hope to find good guides to trust and imitate. But we can all do a better job of listening, suspending judgment, and cultivating open-mindedness and fair-mindedness. We can learn to take pride in becoming more rational and more curious versions of the beings that we are. If we do, we may succeed in bequeathing to the next generation an American academy that can be a blessing to all of us.
I am cross-filing this comment in the “Education,” “Public Discourse and Rhetoric,” and “Reason, Informal Logic, Evidence, and Critical Thinking” topics of this Goodreads group.
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The foregoing is the title of a July 30, 2023 Politico article (https://www.politico.com/news/magazin...) by Marcel Danesi, who is a professor of semiotics and linguistic anthropology at the University of Toronto and the author of the recent book, Politics, Lies and Conspiracy Theories: A Cognitive Linguistic Perspective.
Here are the first two paragraphs of this article:
Why do people believe some politicians’ lies even when they have been proven false? And why do so many of the same people peddle conspiracy theories?Overall, I think Danesi’s analysis is probably correct. I would, however, interject this caveat: Not all “conspiracy theories” are false. History is replete with actual conspiracies. See the section titled “Conspiracies—Actual, Probable, Possible, and Fictional: An Exercise in Critical Thinking” on pages 60–62 of my book Reason and Human Ethics (reproduced at https://www.academia.edu/82835731/Exc...). Danesi should have used the language “baseless conspiracy theories” instead of “conspiracy theories.”
Lying and conspiratorical [sic : should be “conspiratorial”] thinking might seem to be two different problems, but they turn out to be related. I study political rhetoric and have tried to understand how populist politicians use language to develop a cult-like following, divide nations, create culture wars and instill hatred. This pattern goes back to antiquity and is seen today in leaders including former President Donald Trump, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. These leaders are capable of using words and speeches to whip people into such an emotional tempest that they will do things like march on the seat of Congress or invade a neighboring country.
I am cross-filing the present post in the “Reason, Informal Logic, Evidence, and Critical Thinking,” “Public Discourse and Rhetoric,” and “International Populist Authoritarianism” topics of this Goodreads group.
Thanks Bob Hanna for a much needed and succinct defense of and reminder of the value and importance of public libraries to support a critically thinking populace as a refuge and resource for many who are not able to access these resources at home.
You're most welcome!, Charles.It's easy to forget, or even not notice, that the moral right to free reading is every bit as important as the moral right to free speech....
Political Philosophy and Ethics
Books mentioned in this topic
The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume 4: The Metaphysics of Symbolic Forms (other topics)Mythical Thought (other topics)
The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms 3: The Phenomenology of Knowledge (other topics)
Ernst Cassirer: The Last Philosopher of Culture (other topics)
The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, Volume 1: Language (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Arthur Koestler (other topics)Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (other topics)
Edward R. Tufte (other topics)
Richard Saul Wurman (other topics)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...