mcdspot

ARE YOU THE SAME PERSON WHO STARTED READING THIS ARTICLE?

Persuasion theory.

The Edge Foundation is a public idea crucible with the purpose of promoting “inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society.” Each year they ask a very serious question and ask leading minds to answer it. The question for 2008 is this:

When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy.
When God changes your mind, that’s faith.
When facts change your mind, that’s science.

WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?

Science is based on evidence. What happens when the data change? How have scientific findings or arguments changed your mind?

165 very smart people from around the world have answered. You can read their answers here.

Get me off of Wikipedia. I spent hours tonight learning from my new favorite philosopher, Heraclitus, who invented the concept of logos (see the Gospel of John, line 1) and contributed to the idea of panentheism, a most hopeful ideology. He was an originator of process philosophy (i.e understanding the universality of change) and was, consequently, an early dialectic philosopher (in which opposing views are to be continually synthesized). All that aside (as if), I liked this:

“By cosmic rule, as day yields night, so winter summer, war peace, plenty famine. All things change. Air penetrates the lump of myrrh, until the joining bodies die and rise again in smoke called incense.”

I’ve posted something like this before, but The Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies is a fascinating voyage into the thicket of errors in reasoning. It’s actually quite helpful if you can learn to recognize the all-too-common ones. For example, the “Masked Man” fallacy is one that occurs frequently in jury trials. The formula is where a = b, and C is believed to be a, C is also (and erroneously) believed to be b. The popular example is this:

• The masked man is Mr. Hyde.
• The witness believes that the masked man committed the crime.
• Therefore, the witness believes that Mr. Hyde committed the crime.

For one trying to convince you (erroneously or not) that Mr. Hyde committed the crime, this inference is highly desirable. The opponent would need to expose the fallacy by proving that there could have been another masked man on the scene. Understanding this distinction can be crucial.

Other fallacies aren’t necessarily logical per se. Another common one is the “Appeal to Nature” fallacy which plays on the (natural) supposition that anything natural is good and anything unnatural is bad. The best example is on food labels. Everything is “all-natural” these days, even though it is clear that the word natural has a very specific meaning when it appears on a label. It think it’s safe to say that most of these fallacies appear in or on advertisements every day of our lives. Read the list, get hip. Or better yet, buy a book:

We’ve all been there.

old & busted: The Ten Commandments

new hotness: Ten Commandments for Living a Bold Life

Wonderful list of paradoxes on wikipedia.

The Nietzsche Family Circus

Guide to Philosophy.

When in doubt, compare your opponent to Hitler.

From Schopenhauer’s “The Art of Controversy.”

Confuse the issue by changing your opponent’s words or what he or she seeks to prove.
Example: Call something by a different name: “good repute” instead of “honor,” “virtue” instead of “virginity,” “red-blooded” instead of “vertebrates”.

The books which defined the way The West thinks now. Condensed and abridged to keep the substance, the style and the quotes, but ditching all that irritating verbiage.

Via some random Cornell student. (No, I’ve never heard of most of these schools of thought either.)

The Teleologist: We aren’t meant for each other.
The Deontologist: We aren’t right for each other.
The Consequentialist: We aren’t optimal for each other.
The Solipsist: It’s not you, it’s me.
The Empiricist: I think we should see other people.
The Rationalist: I’m not a priority to you any more.

The Rationalist, v 2.0: I’ve been doing some thinking…
The Rationalist, v. 3.0: If you can’t see your faults, there’s nothing more I can say.
The Content Externalist: Ever since we moved, you’ve changed.
The Continentalist: You’ve lost that love and feeling.
The Egalitarian: This is the best thing for both of us.
The Paternalist: In time you’ll come to see that this is the best thing.
The Humean: Just because we’re always together doesn’t mean we BELONG together.
The Humean, v. 2.0: Relationships need to be about more than just constant conjoining.
The Reliabilist: This just isn’t working anymore.
The Nagelian: You just don’t know what it’s like to be me.
The Functionalist: I don’t care about accommodating your feelings.
The Quinean: I’m sorry, but you don’t mean anything to me anymore.
The Foundationalist: We have nothing left to build upon.
The Foundationalist, v2.0: I need to be able to branch out more.
The Relativist: It’s no one’s fault.
The Atheist: These things just happen.
The Kantian: You lied to me!
The Consequentialist, v 2.0: You should have lied to my mother about her pot roast!
The anti-Fictionalist: I’m sick of faking it.
The Cartesian: I don’t clearly and distinctly perceive a future together.
The Hegelian: Do we have to go through this again?
The Lockean: Our primary qualities simply aren’t compatible.
The Lockean, v. 2.0: Compared to my last partner, I’m not getting nearly enough, nor as good.
The Quasi-Realist: Of course we’re going to be together forever…
The Motivational Externalist: Even though I believed it at the time, I know now that I never really loved you.
The Behaviorist: I just can’t keep going through the motions anymore.
The Presentist: There just isn’t any future for us.
The Eternalist: At least we’ll always have that weekend in Paris.
The Modal Realist: This will never work—we’re from different worlds.

(I did study St. Anselm in college, so I could at least laugh at this one):

Anslem -
p1 We can conceive of a most perfect breakup.
p2 Whatever is conceived exists in the mind of the conceivers.
p3 Whatever exists in the mind of the conceiver and also in reality is better than the same thing that exists only in the mind of the conceiver.
C1 Therefore, a breakup conceived, than which no greater breakup can be conceived, exists in reality as well as in the understanding.
p4 Ours is a breakup greater than which none greater can be conceived.
c2 Our breakup exists in reality.

(click)

How to give and receive criticism.

These conversational cheat shots are so recognizable that even you should understand them. My favorite: “Didn’t we already have this argument just before you went through the de-tox program?”

Interesting site here with a list of cartoons on rather heady topics like epistemology, logic, and aesthetics. Will provide plenty of amusement … along with hours of introspection.