Determination and Control

We are all manipulated by social media like Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Pinterest and searching engines like Google. Everybody knows or can know. Much has been said about it already and as a result these media etc. promise to better their lives. Maybe they’ll do, or maybe they only say that they’ll do, but do we really care about it? Perhaps we should think like Burrhus Skinner, who asked in his book Beyond Freedom and Dignity why we should worry about being covertly controlled and manipulated if it makes us happy. Your first reaction may be that he is right and it is my first thought, too. However, on second thoughts, I don’t feel at ease with the idea of being manipulated, even if I don’t know it and even if I shall never know that it happens and shall not have the slightest suspicion that it happens. Why?

Actually there is nothing special about being limited by external causes and influences in what we do. You have broken a leg and cannot walk for a long time. You have even to stay in hospital at first. A bridge has collapsed and we must make a detour. There is a power failure and the fridge, the Internet and a lot more don’t work for hours. So, why shouldn’t we adapt to the manipulation by the social media just as we must in these cases? It sounds reasonable. Life is that way. Is it?

Take the case of the bridge, but the same could be said about the other cases. The bridge has been built according to the newest insights and has been well maintained, but it has been destroyed by an earthquake. It’s a mere natural disaster. We are sad that it happened, but it happened. But what if the bridge would have been blown up by terrorists? Then we are not sad but angry. Apparently there is a difference between natural limitations and human limitations. Even more, we may find the latter objectionable, while we’ll never use such a word for natural causes.

Once we see this, we are close to the solution of our problem. For “objectionable” has everything to do with objectives, so with purposes. We cannot find what nature does objectionable. Nature doesn’t have purposes but in nature everything just happens, and that’s it. The word “objectionable” can be applied only to human agents, namely to what they do and to the effects of what they do. As Robert Kane says in his book The Significance of Free Will: “Objectionable control is exercised by purposeful agents, not natural forces.” And, referring to Daniel Dennett, he continues: “For, while nature may determine us, nature (‘not being an agent’) does not control us.” (p.69). So, while both nature and the purposeful agent constraint us and limit us in what we can do, nature has no interests in doing so and doesn’t act intentionally. The purposeful agent, however, does have interests, like earning money in the case of the owners of the social media. In view of these interests the purposeful agent sets his aims and tries to manipulate and so constraint our behaviour intentionally. By doing so this agent impedes the wills of the persons who are his objects. That’s why we don’t simply say that the agent determines what we do but that he controls what we do. In this way he limits our freedom, even in case we don’t know he does. But why should we follow the will of the other? Freedom is “the power to be the ultimate source or origin of one’s own ends or purposes rather than have that source be in something other than you.” (id., p.70) In short, freedom is being yourself. That’s what you give up, if you allow yourself being controlled by social media like Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and searching engines like Google, and so on. But maybe you are happy with it.

Source

Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998; pp.67-71.

Playing the man

Playing the man or playing the ball?

Not so long ago the mayor of my town organised a meeting with the inhabitants because a serious incident had taken place here. Also some other authorities that were responsible for the incident were present. At the beginning of the meeting the rules were established. One rule was “Don’t say ‘you are stupid but it is stupid that ...’ ” Actually this rule referred to one of the most important fallacies in discussions: The argumentum ad hominem. Someone who uses it attacks his or her opponent as such and not what s/he says. In sports terms we say that you play the man instead of the ball, and – like in sports – in the meeting in my town the rule was set in order to keep the meeting decent and fair and especially in order to avoid verbal aggression. For a public meeting this is important, but it’s not the real reason that you must avoid the argumentum ad hominem. The real reason is that it is a fallacy and that an argument is only good or bad because of its content and not because it is uttered by a person with such and such qualities. Bullying a person does not disqualify the truth of his or her claims.

Playing-the-man arguments often go this way:

- “You say so because you are a socialist” (Ignoring that the person concerned presents figures that show that the measured proposed is bad for poor people; you should attack the figures, not the membership of the socialist party).

- He is not a Christian, so it is not surprising that he committed the murder (As if non-Christians or non-religious persons in general do not have morals).

- He looks like a tramp so he cannot be trusted (As if a suit and a black tie or a neat dress makes you more reliable; but alas, many people think so. In a discussion it can mean that you believe a dressed up person sooner rather than a “tramp”; or just the other way round, depending on your psychological make-up).

- “How can you think so, you are only an ordinary wo/man.”

The essence of the argumentum ad hominem is that we don’t judge a person on the arguments produced in the discussion but – actually or openly – on his or her character, morals, appearance, reputation or anything else that is the supposed reason behind the argument; so actually the person is judged on our prejudices. It can happen, of course, that someone produces a socialist argument, because s/he wants to follow the party line in order to make career within the party; or the tramp lies because it is the only way to survive; etc. But this can only be a sound argument if it has been proved to be the real reasons of the socialist, tramp etc. Otherwise it has nothing to do with the arguments produced.

A fallacy related to the argumentum ad hominem is “guilt by association”. For example, you make a certain claim and another person, who happens to be a crook, makes the same claim; so your claim must be false just because of that. Two weeks ago I discussed in my blog already a special example of this fallacy, the reductio ad Hitlerum, like that you are a vegetarian and Hitler was a vegetarian as well, so it is bad to be a vegetarian. Or another example of the “guilt by association”: John cannot be trusted because he has criminal friends (does just this makes him untrustworthy?). The logical inverse of the guilt by association exists as well: the honour by association fallacy. For instance, she must be a feminist, for she comes from Sweden (supposing, as I do, that feminism is a positive value). Another related fallacy is the tu quoque argument, or the you-also fallacy, but I suppose that now you are smart enough to find out what it involves. As such I hope that these blogs about fallacies have made you smarter and that I have drawn your attention to the way you can be tricked in discussions. And you’ll certainly be smarter after having read Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations.

False reasoning

Fallacies are flaws in reasoning that are not easily noticed, or anyway aren’t noticed at first sight. However, some are easier to discover than others. Some are even quite silly, so Aristotle, and some are even clear “to the man in the street”, especially those that play with the double meanings of words. Many jokes are like that, “e.g. ‘Where are you bound?’ ‘To the yard arm’; and ‘Which cow will calve afore?’ ‘Neither, but both behind’ ”. (182 b 15)

Here is a type of reasoning that seems to have been used often by Sophists (travelling teachers). It has been constructed by me:

1) Carl wrote a history of American capital

2) Washington (D.C.) is the American capital

3) So Carl wrote a history of Washington (D.C.)

Or one that Aristotle ascribes to the Sophists:

1) John has ten

2) John gives one to Pete

3) John no longer has ten, so he has nothing.

I admit that the last one is a bit difficult to understand, because it is based on a weird twist of the mind, but it seems that the Sophists often reasoned that way. Since many people fell into such traps or didn’t understand what was wrong with them, Aristotle decided to write his Sophistical Refutations.

As I see it, the book has two main themes. One theme is an analysis of fallacies. The other theme is how to debate and how to defend yourself against fallacies. The themes are mixed together in the book, though. I think that for a current reader the analysis of fallacies is more interesting than what Aristotle tells us about the technique of debating. The reason is that Aristotle supposes a type of discussion that is currently seldom performed. Aristotle supposes that there is a questioner (the Sophist) and someone who defends a thesis. The former holds then the opposite thesis and tries to refute the thesis upheld by the latter by asking all kinds of questions and producing all kinds of reasons why the defender is wrong. Of course, the defender tries to make clear why s/he is right. Sophists often used fallacies to win the debate. However, nowadays discussions are usually of another kind. They are often debates between two or more advocates of different points of views that are not necessarily the opposite of what the other participants in the debate say (political debates are a case in point). A participant tries to convince the other participant(s) that his or her views are the best. And if s/he cannot convince the other participant(s), s/he hopes at least to convince the public that her or his view is preferable. Discussions as supposed by Aristotle do occur but not so often, but if you are interested in debating techniques, anyhow, you should certainly read Aristotle’s treatise.

In the Sophistical Refutations Aristotle analyzes thirteen fallacies. I’ll not give a description of the fallacies, let alone an analysis, but the main flaws are double meanings, weak or incorrect conclusions and circular arguments. Above I gave already examples of the double meanings of words. Also questions can be confusing in this way. For example, a question like “Did you stop smoking every day?”, can mean to ask whether you stopped smoking, or whether you smoke now less than before, for example one cigarette every other day, or one once a week. An example of a false conclusion is: “Plato is different from Aristotle. Aristotle is a man. So Plato is not a man.” Maybe you’ll not fall into this trap, but one that often happens is the so-called “post hoc - propter hoc” fallacy: “If p is the case then q is the case. q is the case, so p is the case.” An example: If it has rained, the street is wet. Now the street is wet, so it has rained. Of course this need not be true, for it’s possible that a leaking tank lorry has just passed. This fallacy happens more often that you think, for instance in political discussions! The last main flaw I mentioned, the circular argument, is also called petitio principi or begging the question. A circular argument is often hidden in a long chain of reasoning, in which the conclusion is the same as the point of departure of the reasoning. This makes it difficult to give an example here. I know that it is weak to say so, but my excuse is that also Aristotle doesn’t give an example but simply says that the flaw often happens (see 181 a 15).

All this can give only an impression of Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations. The book is a rather detailed treatise of argumentative reasoning and the first one ever written. Aristotle was aware of this and thought that without a doubt the book would need improvement. Nevertheless, the book was used as a guide to argumentative reasoning till far in the 20th century. Can there be a better proof of the quality of the Sophistical Refutations?

Note on the sources of this blog

The numbers in the text refer to the standard system for referring to passages in the Sophistical Refutations. The quotes are from the online edition mentioned in my blog last week. For writing this blog I have used the introduction to the Dutch edition: Aristoteles, Over drogredenen. Translated and annotated by Pieter Sjoerd Haspers and Eric C.W. Krabbe. Historische Uitgeverij, Groningen; 2018.

Sound reasoning

Aristotle with the Dutch translation of 
De Sophisticis Elenchis, in English Sophistical Refutations

When Aristotle wrote his book on fallacies (De Sophisticis Elenchis, in English Sophistical Refutations) he will not have realized that it would last 1500 years before it would become a standard work of argumentation. This book, which belongs to his Organon (a collection of six methodological works), is the first systematical treatise on reasoning ever written. It analyzes a range of fallacies often used by people in their argumentations and it describes also how to perform a discussion. The book was especially directed against the Sophists. These were, as the Encyclopaedia Britannica tells me, “lecturers, writers, and teachers in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, most of whom traveled about the Greek-speaking world giving instruction in a wide range of subjects in return for fees.” Basically what the Sophists did was okay, but some – or too many – applied intentionally false arguments in order to win their debates and so to earn money. It made that the Sophists got a bad reputation. For Aristotle it was a reason to write his book.

After some time the Sophistical Refutations and most other works written by Aristotle became forgotten. At least this was so in Europe for in the Arab world they remained influential. Only from the 12th century on they became known again in Europe, especially thanks to the Arab philosopher Averroes and Jewish scholars in Andalusia. Also the Sophistical Refutations was rediscovered and it became even the standard work for argumentation till far in the twentieth century, although it didn’t remain without criticism. We saw already in my blog two weeks ago that Descartes was not satisfied with Aristotle’s argumentation theory, because it was only useful for arranging knowledge but not for acquiring new knowledge. The authoritative status of the Sophistical Refutations was only undermined when Charles Hamblin published in 1970 his book Fallacies. Since then it is still seen as an important book on sound reasoning, but it is recognized that there is more to say about argumentation and that Aristotle’s theory must be adapted and supplemented in view of later developments.

I just started reading Aristotle’s book, so I don’t know whether he treats the fallacy under another name, but one that Aristotle certainly doesn’t discuss is the Reductio ad Hitlerum, the “Reduction to Hitler”, a term coined by professor Leo Strauss in 1951. Sometimes the fallacy is also called the Argumentum ad Hitlerum (Argument to Hitler) or “Playing the Nazi-card”. It’s a version of the association fallacy, which says: A has property p and B has also has property p, so A and B are the same (at least in some relevant aspects). In the case of the Reductio ad Hitlerum the reasoning is that someone has a certain view and, since this view was also held by Hitler, this person is wrong. For instance, it’s not good to be a vegetarian, because Hitler was also a vegetarian.

Forty years later the American attorney and author Mike Godwin developed the Argumentum ad Hitlerum into what became known as Godwin’s Law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1”. So, if an Internet discussion lasts long enough, sooner or later a statement by one of the participants will get the reply “Hitler (or the Nazis) said the same”. But, as my example just given made clear, a view hold by Hitler is not automatically wrong. Even so, such an argument can pollute a debate, which makes that some moderators of Internet discussions have decided to finish a thread, as soon as the Argumentum ad Hitlerum is put forward. Of course, someone can use the Hitler-argument with the intention to end a discussion, but often people use incorrect arguments like this one without knowing that they are fallacies. They sincerely belief that their factual fallacies are sound arguments. In view of the latter, although it is true that the time has come to improve and supplement Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations, even after more than 2300 years it still keeps its value.

You can find an Internet version of Sophistical Refutations on https://web.archive.org/web/20061004164921/http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/sophistical/