Critical Thinking, Neuroscience, & Rhetoric

Potemkin science (Pierce, 2009)

Charles P. Pierce's term for the pseudoscience used by climate change deniers attempting to dispute scientific findings that affirm global temperature increases and their attendant adverse consequences. Pierce maintains that antagonists of climate change use the syntax of science but not its vocabulary to make their baseless arguments. The term is derived from Catherine the Great's minister Grigori Potemkin who allegedly set up opulent building facades in the Russian countryside to impress the Empress. Reference Pierce, Charles P. (2009). Idiot America.

Anecdotes . . . (Shermer, 1997)

"Anecdotes--stories recounted in support of a claim--do not make a science. Without corroborative evidence from other sources, or physical proof of some sort, ten anecdotes are no better than one, and a hundred anecdotes are no better then ten." Michael Shermer Why People Believe Weird Things (1997)

American Philosophical Association "Consensus Statement Regarding Critical Thinking" (1990)

"Critical Thinking is essential as a tool of inquiry. As such, Critical Thinking is a liberating force in education and a powerful resource in one's personal and civic life. While not synonymous with good thinking, Critical Thinking is a pervasive and self-rectifying human phenomenon. The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-minded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues, orderly in complex matters, diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit." American Philosophical Association, "Consensus Statement Regarding Critical Thinking," 1990

critical thinking . . . (Levitin)

"Critical thinking doesn't mean we disparage everything; it means that we try to distinguish between claims with evidence and those without." Daniel J. Levitin, A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age

"Every conviction has its history . . . (Nietzsche, 1895)

"Every conviction has its history, its primitive forms, its stage of tentativeness and error: it becomes a conviction only after having been, for a long time, not one, and then, for an even longer time, hardly one. What if falsehood be also one of these embryonic forms of conviction? Sometimes all that is needed is a change in persons: what was a lie in the father becomes a conviction in the son." Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist (1895)

Storytelling and story believing . . . (Cline)

"Human beings are storytelling creatures. We structure reality in terms of narratives. In other words, we start at Point A and get to Point B, and everything in between is called hope. If you're a human, you're a storyteller, a story believer . . ." Andrew Cline as cited in Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free (2009), Charles P. Pierce

Irrationality . . . (Ovid)

"I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong." Ovid, Metamorphosis, Book VII

Collaborative idiocy . . . (Pierce, 2009)

"Idiot America is a collaborative effort, the results of millions of decisions made and not made, to reduce everything to salesmanship. Debate becomes corrupted argument, in which very point of view is just another product, no better or worse than all the others, and informed citizenship is abandoned to the marketplace. Idiot America is the development of the collective Gut at the expense of the collective mind. It's what results when we abandon our duty to treat the ridiculous with ridicule. It's what results when politicians make ridiculous statements and we not only surrender our right to punish them at the polls but also become too timid to punish their ideas with daily scorn--because the polls say those ideas are popular, and therefore they must hold some sort of truth, which we should respect." Charles P. Pierce Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free (2009)

Intuitions and reasoning . . . (Haidt, 2012)

"Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. You'll misunderstand moral reasoning if you think about it as something people do by themselves in order to figure out the truth." Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion (2012)

"organized in advance of experience" (Marcus, 2004)

"Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises. . . . 'Built-in does not mean unmalleable; it means 'organized in advance of experience." Gary Marcus, The Birth of the Brain (2004)

No scientific method . . . (Wolpert, 2000)

"No one method, no paradigm, will capture the process of science. There is no such thing as the scientific method." Lewis Wolpert (2000), The Unnatural Nature of Science

Public opinion and liberty . . . (Madison)

"Public opinion sets bounds to every government and is the real sovereign in every free one. . . . The larger the country, the less easy for its real opinion to be ascertained, and the less difficult to be counterfeited; when ascertained or presumed, the more respectable it is in the eyes of individuals. This is favorable to the authority of the government. For the same reason, the more extensive a country, the more insignificant is each individual in his own eyes. This may be unfavorable to liberty." James Madison (1791)

Schools . . . (Sumner, 1906)

"Schools make persons all on one pattern, orthodoxy. School education, unless it is regulated by the best knowledge and good sense, will produce men and women who are all of one pattern, as if turned in a lathe. An orthodoxy is produced in regard to all the great doctrines of life. It consists of the most worn and commonplace opinions which are common in the masses. The popular opinions always contain broad fallacies, half-truths, and glib generalizations" (p. 630). Williams Graham Sumner Folkways (1906)

Thinking over subject . . . (Einstein)

"The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost, not the acquisition of specialized knowledge." Albert Einstein

Hume's Maxim

"The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'that no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish; and even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.' When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion." David Hume An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1758) Section V, Part I, "Of Miracles"

Social persuasion before reasoned persuasion (Haidt, 2012)

"Use social persuasion to prepare the ground before attempting to use reasoned persuasion." Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion (2012)

Truth . . . (Tiselius)

"We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language." Arne Tiselius

reasoned judgement

A decision that requires time and effort and results from careful information gathering, generation of alternatives, and evaluation of alternatives.

amphiboly

Amphiboly (from the Greek word "indeterminate"): This fallacy is similar to equivocation. Here, the ambiguity results from grammatical construction. A statement may be true according to one interpretation of how each word functions in a sentence and false according to another. When a premise works with an interpretation that is true, but the conclusion uses the secondary "false" interpretation, we have the fallacy of amphiboly on our hands. In the command, "Save soap and waste paper," the amphibolous use of "waste" results in the problem of determining whether "waste" functions as a verb or as an adjective.

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1758), David Hume

An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in English in 1758, is considered a classic in skeptical analysis. It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739-40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell dead-born from the press," as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his more developed ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. The end product of his labours was the Enquiry. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. For example, Hume's views on personal identity do not appear. However, more vital propositions, such as Hume's argument for the role of habit in a theory of knowledge, are retained. This book has proven highly influential, both in the years that would immediately follow and today. Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described "dogmatic slumber." The Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature.

Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963), Richard Hofstadter

Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963) by Richard Hofstadter won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. In this book, Hofstadter set out to trace the social movements that altered the role of intellect in American society. In so doing, he explored questions regarding the purpose of education and whether the democratization of education altered that purpose and reshaped its form. In considering the historic tension between access to education and excellence in education, Hofstadter argued that both anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism were consequences, in part, of the democratization of knowledge. Moreover, he saw these themes as historically embedded in America's national fabric, an outcome of its colonial European and evangelical Protestant heritage. He contended that American Protestantism's anti-intellectual tradition valued the spirit over intellectual rigour. He also noted that Catholicism could have been expected to add a distinctive leaven to the intellectual dialogue, but American Catholicism lacked intellectual culture, due to its failure to develop an intellectual tradition or produce its own strong class of intellectuals.

apodictic

Apodictic" or "apodeictic" (Ancient Greek: "capable of demonstration") is an adjectival expression from Aristotelean logic that refers to propositions that are demonstrably, necessarily or self-evidently the case. Apodicticity or apodixis is the corresponding abstract noun, referring to logical certainty. Apodictic propositions contrast with assertoric propositions, which merely assert that something is (or is not) true, and with problematic propositions, which assert only the possibility of something being true. Apodictic judgments are clearly provable or logically certain. For instance, "Two plus two equals four" is apodictic. "Chicago is larger than Omaha" is assertoric. "A corporation could be wealthier than a country" is problematic. In Aristotelian logic, "apodictic" is opposed to "dialectic," as scientific proof is opposed to philosophical reasoning. Kant contrasted "apodictic" with "problematic" and "assertoric" in the Critique of Pure Reason, on page A70/B95.

Argument from the Negative

Argument from the Negative: Arguing from the negative asserts that, since one position is untenable, the opposite stance must be true. This fallacy is often used interchangeably with Argumentum Ad Ignorantium (listed below) and the either/or fallacy (listed above). For instance, one might mistakenly argue that, since the Newtonian theory of mathematics is not one hundred percent accurate, Einstein's theory of relativity must be true. Perhaps not. Perhaps the theories of quantum mechanics are more accurate, and Einstein's theory is flawed. Perhaps they are all wrong. Disproving an opponent's argument does not necessarily mean your own argument must be true automatically, no more than disproving your opponent's assertion that 2+2=5 would automatically mean your argument that 2+2=7 must be the correct one. Keeping this mind, students should remember that arguments from the negative are bad, arguments from the positive must automatically be good.

Discrimination learning

Discrimination Learning is defined in psychology as the ability to respond differently to different stimuli. This type of learning is used in studies regarding operant and classical conditioning. Operant conditioning involves the modification of a behavior by means of reinforcement or punishment. In this way, a discriminative stimulus will act as an indicator to when a behavior will persist and when it will not. Classical conditioning involves learning through association when two stimuli are paired together repeatedly. This conditioning demonstrates discrimination through specific micro-instances of reinforcement and non-reinforcement. This phenomenon is considered to be more advanced than learning styles such as generalization and yet simultaneously acts as a basic unit to learning as a whole. The complex and fundamental nature of discrimination learning allows for psychologists and researchers to perform more in-depth research that supports psychological advancements. Research on the basic principles underlying this learning style has their roots in neuropsychology sub-processes.

moral claim

Does not address what we like, but what we believe is true or right.

Glaser's Three Elements of Critical Thinking

Edward M. Glaser proposed that the ability to think critically involves three elements: 1) An attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one's experiences 2) Knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning 3) Some skill in applying those methods. Educational programs aimed at developing critical thinking in children and adult learners, individually or in group problem solving and decision making contexts, continue to address these same three central elements. The Critical Thinking project at Human Science Lab, London, is involved in scientific study of all major educational system in prevalence today to assess how the systems are working to promote or impede critical thinking. Contemporary cognitive psychology regards human reasoning as a complex process that is both reactive and reflective. This presents a problem which is detailed as a division of a critical mind in juxtaposition to sensory data and memory. The psychological theory disposes the absolute nature of the rational mind, in reference to conditions, abstract problems and discursive limitation. Where the relationship between critical thinking skills and critical thinking dispositions is an empirical question, the ability to attain causal domination exists, for which Socrates was known to be largely disposed against as the practice of Sophistry. Accounting for a measure of "critical thinking dispositions" is the California Measure of Mental Motivation and the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory. The Critical Thinking Toolkit is an alternative measure that examines student beliefs and attitudes about critical thinking.

Effortful processing

Effortful processing is just as the name implies; learning or storing (encoding) that requires attention and effort. We have the capacity to remember lots of things without putting forth any effort. However, there are lots of times when we must practice, rehearse, and try to remember things. When we engage in any technique to help remember information better, we are engaging in effortful processing.

Geoffrey Hodson (1886-1983)

Geoffrey Hodson (12 March 1886 in Lincolnshire - 23 January 1983 in Auckland, New Zealand) was an occultist, Theosophist, mystic, Liberal Catholic priest, philosopher and esotericist, and a leading light for over 70 years in the Theosophical Society.

Adler's Third Level of Reading: Analytical Reading

Here, Adler sets forth his method for reading a non-fiction book in order to gain understanding. He claims that three distinct approaches, or readings, must all be made in order to get the most possible out of a book, but that performing these three levels of readings does not necessarily mean reading the book three times, as the experienced reader will be able to do all three in the course of reading the book just once. Adler names the readings "structural", "interpretative", and "critical", in that order. Structural Stage: The first stage of analytical reading is concerned with understanding the structure and purpose of the book. It begins with determining the basic topic and type of the book being read, so as to better anticipate the contents and comprehend the book from the very beginning. Adler says that the reader must distinguish between practical and theoretical books, as well as determining the field of study that the book addresses. Further, Adler says that the reader must note any divisions in the book, and that these are not restricted to the divisions laid out in the table of contents. Lastly, the reader must find out what problems the author is trying to solve. Interpretive Stage: The second stage of analytical reading involves constructing the author's arguments. This first requires the reader to note and understand any special phrases and terms that the author uses. Once that is done, Adler says that the reader should find and work to understand each proposition that the author advances, as well as the author's support for those propositions. Critical Stage: In the third stage of analytical reading, Adler directs the reader to critique the book. He asserts that upon understanding the author's propositions and arguments, the reader has been elevated to the author's level of understanding and is now able (and obligated) to judge the book's merit and accuracy. Adler advocates judging books based on the soundness of their arguments. Adler says that one may not disagree with an argument unless one can find fault in its reasoning, facts, or premises, though one is free to dislike it in any case. The method presented is sometimes called the Structure-Proposition-Evaluation (SPE) method, though this term is not used in the book.

How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), Dale Carnegie

How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936) is a self-help book written by Dale Carnegie. Over 15 million copies have been sold worldwide, making it one of the best-selling books of all time. In 2011, it was number 19 on Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential books. Twelve Things This Book Will Do For You - Get you out of a mental rut, give you new thoughts, new visions, new ambitions. - Enable you to make friends quickly and easily. - Increase your popularity. - Help you to win people to your way of thinking. - Increase your influence, your prestige, your ability to get things done. - Enable you to win new clients, new customers. - Increase your earning power. - Make you a better salesman, a better executive. - Help you to handle complaints, avoid arguments, keep your human contacts smooth and pleasant. - Make you a better speaker, a more entertaining conversationalist. - Make the principles of psychology easy for you to apply in your daily contacts. - Help you to arouse enthusiasm among your associates. The book has six major sections. The core principles of each section are explained and quoted from below. Fundamental Techniques in Handling People - Don't criticize, condemn, or complain. Human nature does not like to admit fault. When people are criticized or humiliated, they rarely respond well and will often become defensive and resent their critic. To handle people well, we must never criticize, condemn or complain because it will never result in the behavior we desire. - Give honest and sincere appreciation. Appreciation is one of the most powerful tools in the world. People will rarely work at their maximum potential under criticism, but honest appreciation brings out their best. Appreciation, though, is not simple flattery, it must be sincere, meaningful and with love. - Arouse in the other person an eager want. To get what we want from another person, we must forget our own perspective and begin to see things from the point of view of others. When we can combine our desires with their wants, they become eager to work with us and we can mutually achieve our objectives. Six Ways to Make People Like You - Become genuinely interested in other people. "You can make more friends in two months by being interested in them, than in two years by making them interested in you. The only way to make quality, lasting friendships is to learn to be genuinely interested in them and their interests. - Smile. Happiness does not depend on outside circumstances, but rather on inward attitudes. Smiles are free to give and have an amazing ability to make others feel wonderful. Smile in everything that you do. - Remember that a person's name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language. "The average person is more interested in their own name than in all the other names in the world put together." People love their names so much that they will often donate large amounts of money just to have a building named after themselves. We can make people feel extremely valued and important by remembering their name. -Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. The easiest way to become a good conversationalist is to become a good listener. To be a good listener, we must actually care about what people have to say. Many times people don't want an entertaining conversation partner; they just want someone who will listen to them. -Talk in terms of the other person's interest. The royal road to a person's heart is to talk about the things he or she treasures most. If we talk to people about what they are interested in, they will feel valued and value us in return. - Make the other person feel importat--and do it sincerely. The golden rule is to treat other people how we would like to be treated. We love to feel important and so does everyone else. People will talk to us for hours if we allow them to talk about themselves. If we can make people feel important in a sincere and appreciative way, then we will win all the friends we could ever dream of. Twelve Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking -The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it. Whenever we argue with someone, no matter if we win or lose the argument, we still lose. The other person will either feel humiliated or strengthened and will only seek to bolster their own position. We must try to avoid arguments whenever we can. - Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say "You're wrong." We must never tell people flat out that they are wrong. It will only serve to offend them and insult their pride. No one likes to be humiliated; we must not be so blunt.If you're wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically. Whenever we are wrong we should admit it immediately. When we fight we never get enough, but by yielding we often get more than we expected. When we admit that we are wrong people trust us and begin to sympathize with our way of thinking. - Begin in a friendly way. "A drop of honey can catch more flies than a gallon of gall." If we begin our interactions with others in a friendly way, people will be more receptive. Even if we are greatly upset, we must be friendly to influence people to our way of thinking. - Start with questions to which the other person will answer yes. Do not begin by emphasizing the aspects in which we and the other person differ. Begin by emphasizing and continue emphasizing the things on which we agree. People must be started in the affirmative direction and they will often follow readily. Never tell someone they are wrong, but rather lead them where we would like them to go with questions that they will answer "yes" to. - Let the other person do a great deal of the talking. People do not like listening to us boast, they enjoy doing the talking themselves. Let them rationalize and talk about the idea, because it will taste much sweeter to them in their own mouth. - Let the other person feel the idea is his or hers. People inherently like ideas they come to on their own better than those that are handed to them on a platter. Ideas can best be carried out by allowing others to think they arrived at it themselves.Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view. Other people may often be wrong, but we cannot condemn them. We must seek to understand them. Success in dealing with people requires a sympathetic grasp of the other person's viewpoint.Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires. People are hungering for sympathy. They want us to recognize all that they desire and feel. If we can sympathize with others, they will appreciate our side as well and will often come around to our way of thinking. - Appeal to the nobler motives. Everyone likes to be glorious in their own eyes. People believe that they do things for noble and morally upright reasons. If we can appeal to others' noble motives we can successfully convince them to follow our ideas. - Dramatize your ideas. In this fast-paced world, simply stating a truth isn't enough. The truth must be made vivid, interesting, and dramatic. Television has been doing it for years. Sometimes ideas are not enough and we must dramatize them. - Throw down a challenge. The thing that most motivates people is the game. Everyone desires to excel and prove their worth. If we want someone to do something, we must give them a challenge and they will often rise to meet it. Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment -Begin with praise and honest appreciation. People will do things begrudgingly for criticism and an iron-fisted leader, but they will work wonders when they are praised and appreciated. - Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly. No one likes to make mistakes, especially in front of others. Scolding and blaming only serve to humiliate. If we subtly and indirectly show people mistakes, they will appreciate us and be more likely to improve. - Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person. When something goes wrong, taking responsibility can help win others to your side. People do not like to shoulder all the blame and taking credit for mistakes helps to remove the sting from our critiques of others. - Ask questions instead of giving direct orders. No one likes to take orders. If we offer suggestions, rather than orders, it will boost others' confidence and allow them to learn quickly from their mistakes. - Let the other person save face. Nothing diminishes the dignity of a man quite like an insult to his pride. If we don't condemn our employees in front of others and allow them to save face, they will be motivated to do better in the future and confident that they can. - Praise every improvement. People love to receive praise and admiration. If we truly want someone to improve at something, we must praise their every advance. "Abilities wither under criticism, they blossom under encouragement." - Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to. If we give people a great reputation to live up to, they will desire to embody the characteristics with which we have described them. People will work with vigor and confidence if they believe they can be better. - Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct. If a desired outcome seems like a momentous task, people will give up and lose heart. But if a fault seems easy to correct, they will readily jump at the opportunity to improve. If we frame objectives as small and easy improvements, we will see dramatic increases in desire and success in our employees. - Make the other person happy about doing what you suggest. People will most often respond well when they desire to do the behavior put forth. If we want to influence people and become effective leaders, we must learn to frame our desires in terms of others' desires. Letters That Produced Miraculous Results This section was included in the original 1936 edition but omitted from the revised 1981 edition. In this chapter, the shortest in the book, Carnegie analyzes two letters and describes how to appeal to someone with the term "do me a favor" as opposed to directly asking for something which does not offer the same feeling of importance to the recipient of the request. Seven Rules For Making Your Home Life Happier This section was included in the original 1936 edition but omitted from the revised 1981 edition. - Don't nag. - Don't try to make your partner over. - Don't criticize. - Give honest appreciation. - Pay little attentions. - Be courteous. - Read a good book on the sexual side of marriage.

Bacon's Idola Fori

Idols of the Marketplace (Idola fori): This is due to confusion in the use of language and taking some words in science to have a different meaning than their common usage. Francis Bacon Novum Organon (1620)

The world is my representation . . . (Schopenhauer)

Immanuel Kant had argued the empirical world is merely a complex of appearances whose existence and connection occur only in our representations. Arthur Schopenhauer reiterates this in the first sentence of his main work: "The world is my representation." We do not draw empirical laws from nature, but prescribe them to it. Schopenhauer praises Kant for his distinction between appearance and the things-in-themselves that appear, whereas the general consensus in German Idealism was that this was the weakest spot of Kant's theory, since according to Kant causality can find application on objects of experience only, and consequently, things-in-themselves cannot be the cause of appearances, as Kant argued. The inadmissibility of this reasoning was also acknowledged by Schopenhauer. He insisted that this distinction was a true conclusion, drawn from false premises. Reference Arthur Schopenhauer The World as Will and Representation (1818/1819)

Principle of Charity

In philosophy and rhetoric, the principle of charity or charitable interpretation requires interpreting a speaker's statements in the most rational way possible and, in the case of any argument, considering its best, strongest possible interpretation. In its narrowest sense, the goal of this methodological principle is to avoid attributing irrationality, logical fallacies, or falsehoods to the others' statements, when a coherent, rational interpretation of the statements is available. According to Simon Blackburn "it constrains the interpreter to maximize the truth or rationality in the subject's sayings."

underdetermination of the evidence (underdetermination)

In the philosophy of science, underdetermination is the idea that evidence available to us at given time may be insufficient to determine what beliefs we should hold in response to it. Underdetermination says that all evidence necessarily underdetermines any scientific theory. Underdetermination exists when available evidence is insufficient to identify which belief one should hold about that evidence.

symptomatic reading

John Thurston (1993, p. 638) introduces the concept of "symptomatic reading": "Symptomatic reading is used in literary criticism as a means of analyzing the presence of ideology in literary texts. French Marxist philosophers Louis Althusser and Étienne Balibar develop the technique of symptomatic reading in Reading Capital". Dorfman and Mattelart later used symptomatic reading as a means of analyzing the presence of imperialist ideology in Disney.

Kettle logic (la logique du chaudron)/kettle argument

Kettle logic (la logique du chaudron in the original French) is a rhetorical device wherein one uses multiple arguments to defend a point, but the arguments are inconsistent with each other. Jacques Derrida uses this expression in reference to the humorous "kettle-story", that Sigmund Freud relates in The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) and Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905). The name "logique du chaudron" derives in Jacques Derrida from an example used by Sigmund Freud for the analysis of "Irma's dream" in The Interpretation of Dreams and in his Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Freud relates the story of a man who was accused by his neighbour of having returned a kettle in a damaged condition and the three arguments he offers. That he had returned the kettle undamagedThat it was already damaged when he borrowed itThat he had never borrowed it in the first place. Though the three arguments are inconsistent, Freud notes that it is so much the better, as if even one is found to be true then the man must be acquitted. The kettle "logic" of the dream-work is related to what Freud calls the embarrassment-dream of being naked, in which contradictory opposites are yoked together in the dream. Freud said that in a dream, incompatible (contradictory) ideas are simultaneously admitted Freud also presented various examples of how a symbol in a dream can bear in itself contradictory sexual meanings. To expand on the kettle logic of dreams, one should understand the relationship between kettle logic itself and the nature of contradiction. Kettle logic, although a tool that may be simply noticed, is meant to present itself as truth. In other words, kettle logic is a way of combining contradictions to make a case. These contradictory arguments are put together next to each other; they are presented as if the contradictions themselves do not exist. This relates to one of Freud's views on dreams. An example of this is the aforementioned dream of being naked. This is one aspect of the "exorbitant" logic of dreaming, where the logic itself lies closely to illogical thought.

lifelong learning

Lifelong learning is the "ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated" pursuit of knowledge for either personal or professional reasons. Therefore, it not only enhances social inclusion, active citizenship, and personal development, but also self-sustainability, as well as competitiveness and employability.

Narrative knowledge (Lyotard)

Narrative knowledge has no recourse to legitimation - its legitimation is immediate within the narrative itself, in the "timelessness" of the narrative as an enduring tradition - it is told by people who once heard it to listeners who will one day tell it themselves. There is no question of questioning it. Indeed, Lyotard suggests that there is an incommensurability between the question of legitimation itself and the authority of narrative knowledge. Conceptualized by Jean-François Lyotard.

Non Sequitur (literally, "It does not follow")

Non Sequitur (literally, "It does not follow"): A non sequitur is any argument that does not follow from the previous statements. Usually what happened is that the writer leaped from A to B and then jumped to D, leaving out step C of an argument she thought through in her head, but did not put down on paper. The phrase is applicable in general to any type of logical fallacy, but logicians use the term particularly in reference to syllogistic errors such as the undistributed middle term, non causa pro causa, and ignorantio elenchi. A common example would be an argument along these lines: "Giving up our nuclear arsenal in the 1980's weakened the United States' military. Giving up nuclear weaponry also weakened China in the 1990s. For this reason, it is wrong to try to outlaw pistols and rifles in the United States today." There's obviously a step or two missing here.

Clarence Cook Little (1888-1971)

PSEUDOSCIENTIST. Clarence Cook "C.C." Little (October 6, 1888 - December 22, 1971) was an American genetics, cancer, and tobacco researcher and academic administrator. Little gained notoriety for his support of eugenics and his conclusion that cigarette smoking did not cause cancer. Little died of a heart attack in 1971 in Ellsworth, Maine at the age of 83. The C. C. Little Science Building at the University of Michigan was named in his honor. In 2017, five faculty members and an undergraduate student submitted a formal request to University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel to change the building's name because of Little's previous support of eugenics. The building's sign without Little's name was replaced on March 29, 2018.

Models of Moral Reasoning (Haidt, 2012)

Platonic Model = reason should rule the emotions. Humean Model = reason is slave to the passions. Jeffersonian Model = Reason and emotion are co-rulers of the moral mind. Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion

Raven's Progressive Matrices

Raven's Progressive Matrices (often referred to simply as Raven's Matrices) or RPM is a nonverbal group test typically used in educational settings. It is usually a 60-item test used in measuring abstract reasoning and regarded as a non-verbal estimate of fluid intelligence. It is the most common and popular test administered to groups ranging from 5-year-olds to the elderly. It is made of 60 multiple choice questions, listed in order of difficulty. This format is designed to measure the test taker's reasoning ability, the eductive ("meaning-making") component of Spearman's g (g is often referred to as general intelligence). The tests were originally developed by John C. Raven in 1936. In each test item, the subject is asked to identify the missing element that completes a pattern. Many patterns are presented in the form of a 6×6, 4×4, 3×3, or 2×2 matrix, giving the test its name.

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899)

Robert Green "Bob" Ingersoll (August 11, 1833 - July 21, 1899) was an American writer and orator during the Golden Age of Free Thought, who campaigned in defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed "The Great Agnostic." "The only evidence, so far as I know, about another life is, first, that we have no evidence; and secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and wish we had."

scientific law

Scientific laws or laws of science are statements that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. A scientific law is a statement based on repeated experiments or observations that describe some aspect of the natural world. The term law has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) across all fields of natural science (physics, chemistry, biology, geology, astronomy, etc.). Laws are developed from data and can be further developed through mathematics; in all cases they are directly or indirectly based on empirical evidence. It is generally understood that they implicitly reflect, though they do not explicitly assert, causal relationships fundamental to reality, and are discovered rather than invented. Scientific laws summarize the results of experiments or observations, usually within a certain range of application. In general, the accuracy of a law does not change when a new theory of the relevant phenomenon is worked out, but rather the scope of the law's application, since the mathematics or statement representing the law does not change. As with other kinds of scientific knowledge, laws do not have absolute certainty (as mathematical theorems or identities do), and it is always possible for a law to be contradicted, restricted, or extended by future observations. A law can usually be formulated as one or several statements or equations, so that it can be used to predict the outcome of an experiment, given the circumstances of the processes taking place. Laws differ from hypotheses and postulates, which are proposed during the scientific process before and during validation by experiment and observation. Hypotheses and postulates are not laws since they have not been verified to the same degree, although they may lead to the formulation of laws. Laws are narrower in scope than scientific theories, which may entail one or several laws. Science distinguishes a law or theory from facts. Calling a law a fact is ambiguous, an overstatement, or an equivocation. The nature of scientific laws has been much discussed in philosophy, but in essence scientific laws are simply empirical conclusions reached by scientific method; they are intended to be neither laden with ontological commitments nor statements of logical absolutes.

extraneous variable

Something unwanted or unexpected that might affect the dependent variable.

Copenhagen Interpretation (of quantum physics)

The Copenhagen interpretation is an expression of the meaning of quantum mechanics that was largely devised from 1925 to 1927 by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It remains one of the most commonly taught interpretations of quantum mechanics. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, physical systems generally do not have definite properties prior to being measured, and quantum mechanics can only predict the probability distribution of a given measurement's possible results. The act of measurement affects the system, causing the set of probabilities to reduce to only one of the possible values immediately after the measurement. This feature is known as wave function collapse. There have been many objections to the Copenhagen interpretation over the years. These include: discontinuous jumps when there is an observation, the probabilistic element introduced upon observation, the subjectiveness of requiring an observer, the difficulty of defining a measuring device, and the necessity of invoking classical physics to describe the "laboratory" in which the results are measured. Alternatives to the Copenhagen interpretation include the many-worlds interpretation, the De Broglie-Bohm (pilot-wave) theory, quantum Bayesianism, and quantum decoherence theories.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. The hoax, which was shown to be plagiarized from several earlier sources, some not antisemitic in nature, was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century. According to the claims made by some of its publishers, the Protocols are the minutes of a late 19th-century meeting where Jewish leaders discussed their goal of global Jewish hegemony by subverting the morals of Gentiles, and by controlling the press and the world's economies. Henry Ford funded printing of 500,000 copies that were distributed throughout the United States in the 1920s. The Nazis sometimes used the Protocols as propaganda against Jews; it was assigned by some German teachers, as if factual, to be read by German schoolchildren after the Nazis came to power in 1933, despite having been exposed as fraudulent by The Times of London in 1921. It is still widely available today in numerous languages, in print and on the Internet, and continues to be presented by some proponents as a genuine document.

rational skepticism

The skeptical movement (British spelling: sceptical movement) is a modern social movement based on the idea of scientific skepticism (also called rational skepticism). Scientific skepticism involves the application of skeptical philosophy, critical-thinking skills, and knowledge of science and its methods to empirical claims, while remaining agnostic or neutral to non-empirical claims[definition needed] (except those that directly impact the practice of science). The movement has the goal of investigating claims made on fringe topics and determining whether they are supported by empirical research and are reproducible, as part of a methodological norm pursuing "the extension of certified knowledge". The process followed is sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry. Roots of the movement date at least from the 19th century, when people started publicly raising questions regarding the unquestioned acceptance of claims about spiritism, of various widely-held superstitions, and of pseudoscience. Publications such as those of the Dutch Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij (1881) also targeted medical quackery. Using as a template the Belgian organization founded in 1949, Comité Para, Americans Paul Kurtz and Marcello Truzzi founded the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), in Amherst, New York in 1976. Now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), this organization has inspired others to form similar groups worldwide. "What skeptical thinking boils down to is the means to construct, and to understand, a reasoned argument and, especially important, to recognize a fallacious or fraudulent argument. The question is not whether we like the conclusion that emerges out of a train of reasoning, but whether the conclusion follows from the premises or starting point and whether that premise is true." Carl Sagan (1995), The Demon-Haunted World

The Challenge of Critical Thinking

To actively and purposely seek improvement in critical thinking. Difficult not just because it requires effort, but because the desire to change can represent an unavoidable challenge to existing beliefs and opinions that are deeply integrated in daily functioning, ideology, and social life. The Challenge often results in flight back into comfortable and dependable ignorance. c.f. Brookfield (2012) Teaching for Critical Thinking and Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" in the Republic. Richard Paul and Linda Elder Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life (2014)

False dilemma (False dichotomy, either-or fallacy)

When only two choices are presented yet more exist, or a spectrum of possible choices exists between two extremes. False dilemmas are usually characterized by "either this or that" language, but can also be characterized by omissions of choices. Another variety is the false trilemma, which is when three choices are presented when more exist.

empty verbal rituals

Words, phrases, idioms, and other locutions that serve semantic or syntactic functions but which the language user does not know, or appreciate, the meaning of. Also used for expressions that are so trite or poorly understood that they have no appreciable effect or affect.

antecedent and consequent skepticism (Hume, 1758)

antecedent skepticism: doubting anything that has no infallible antecedent criterion for belief. consequent skepticism: corrects the consequences of our fallible senses through reason. David Hume An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1758)

Critical Reading and Epistemology

critical reading is related to epistemological issues. Hermeneutics (e.g., the version developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer) has demonstrated that the way we read and interpret texts is dependent on our "pre-understanding" and "prejudices". Human knowledge is always an interpretative clarification of the world, not a pure, interest-free theory. Hermeneutics may thus be understood as a theory about critical reading. This field was until recently associated with the humanities, not with science. This situation changed when Thomas Samuel Kuhn published his book (1962) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, which can be seen as an hermeneutic interpretation of the sciences because it conceives the scientists as governed by assumptions which are historically embedded and linguistically mediated activities organized around paradigms that direct the conceptualization and investigation of their studies. Scientific revolutions imply that one paradigm replaces another and introduces a new set of theories, approaches and definitions. According to Mallery; Hurwitz & Duffy (1992) the notion of a paradigm-centered scientific community is analogous to Gadamer's notion of a linguistically encoded social tradition. In this way hermeneutics challenge the positivist view that science can cumulate objective facts. Observations are always made on the background of theoretical assumptions: they are theory dependent. By conclusion is critical reading not just something that any scholar is able to do. The way we read is partly determined by the intellectual traditions, which have formed our beliefs and thinking. Generally we read papers within our own culture or tradition less critically compared to our reading of papers from other traditions or "paradigms."

delusion

delusion is a firm and fixed belief based on inadequate grounds not amenable to rational argument or evidence to contrary, not in sync with regional, cultural and educational background. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, or some other misleading effects of perception.

self-deluded experience

experience that is undependable as information because a person has engaged in a process of self-delusion.

philosophical zombie (p-zombie) argument

philosophical zombie or p-zombie argument is a thought experiment in philosophy of mind and philosophy of perception that imagines a being that, if it could conceivably exist, logically disproves the idea that physical stuff is all that is required to explain consciousness. Such a zombie would be indistinguishable from a normal human being but lack conscious experience, qualia, or sentience. For example, if a philosophical zombie were poked with a sharp object it would not inwardly feel any pain, yet it would outwardly behave exactly as if it did feel pain. The argument sometimes takes the form of hypothesizing a zombie world, indistinguishable from our world, but lacking first person experiences in any of the beings of that world. Philosophical zombie arguments are used in support of mind-body dualism against forms of physicalism such as materialism, behaviorism and functionalism. It is an argument against the idea that the "hard problem of consciousness" (accounting for subjective, intrinsic, first person, what-it's-like-ness) could be answered by purely physical means. Proponents of the argument, such as philosopher David Chalmers, argue that since a zombie is defined as physiologically indistinguishable from human beings, even its logical possibility would be a sound refutation of physicalism, because it would establish the existence of conscious experience as a further fact. However, physicalists like Daniel Dennett counter that philosophical zombies are logically incoherent and thus impossible.

Conceptual Dimension

that which can be conceived. Ideas, beliefs, theories.