McGowan: Reasoning Seems so Obsolete
by Richard McGowan, Ph.D.
A few years ago, Ward Farnsworth wrote a good book, “The Socratic Method: A Practitioner’s Handbook.” He argued that “social media has weakened logic and good reasoning to the point of societal demise,” though social media may only be partial cause for societal demise.
A few responses come to mind. First and probably most importantly, “nothing is new under the sun.” Plato dealt with the problem of persuasion being more valued than truth. In his dialogue, “Meno” (precursor to his famous “Republic,” Socrates says to Meno in his first oration, “He got you in the habit of answering any question you might be asked, with the confidence and dignity appropriate to those who know the answers.”
That is, Meno answers questions whether he knows what he is talking about or not. Meno chooses to appear smart, whether he is or not. He does not recognize his ignorance.
When I taught, I told my students that in the last 30 years, I was able to answer every question put to me by students. Of course, they did not believe me so they’d ask, “What is the 47th element on the atomic chart?” Or, “how high is the highest structure in Fort Wayne?” I answered, “I don’t know. And if ‘I don’t know’ is one of your answers, you can answer every question, too.”
I wanted them to understand the limit of human knowledge and that ignorance is not a problem. Not learning or not seeking an answer is the problem. I added, “But if it is a question relevant to this course, I will do the research and provide a more satisfactory answer.”
Biased Premises — When I taught informal logic, with its linguistic and other fallacies, I emphasized the fallacy of biased premises, the delimiting evidence so that a conclusion is accepted. The New York Times reported that in such and such a year, there were “612 hates crimes against the Jewish population and institutions” but omitted to state, “ that is more hate crimes by religious bias that any other faith.” In an article about teen suicide, it is positively irresponsible journalism to leave out the fact that males represent about 80 percent of the suicides among young people. I have made a cottage industry of pointing to that fallacy in many journals and newspapers.
Dogmatic Skepticism — The other “non-starter” for reasoning is the fallacy of dogmatic skepticism. If an argument has all true premises, and the reasoning is valid (meaning if the premises are all true, then the conclusion is … must be true), then the conclusion cannot be rejected as false. I can’t tell you how many times I have asserted this claim: More research has been done on women than men in the last 50 years, and then provided the data from PubMed only to have my scientist friends reject the claim.
They do so without any argument against, no contrary evidence, no critical analysis of the reasoning, just outright rejection. That is dogmatic skepticism, an enemy of logical thought.
Those are the two fallacies reject logic and good reasoning, though they dominate media and popular culture. In other words, there are a lot of Menos running around today, people who have little or no respect for the limitations that good reasoning imposes; many of the Menos populate newspapers and the popular press. Some Menos are in politics, too. (“It depends on what is, is,” anyone?)
Ethical Relativism — Finally, the problem Socrates faced with Meno, and that our culture faces today, leads to ethical relativism and disrespect for reasoning itself. When I was at Butler, the chief ethics officer for Eli Lilly gave a talk. I encouraged my students to attend. The speaker defended the rape of women in Afghanistan. “What we find unacceptable is accepted in their culture.” To their credit, my students “ate her up.” She could not satisfactorily respond to the problems her response allowed. (Nazis, anyone?) If Germans exterminate Jews, it’s just their culture? As I said, my students had her for lunch.
To her credit, she did tell me that the Butler group was the most challenging audience she ever experienced, “even more than Harvard students.”
Plato had to contend with the illogic and relativism of Protagoras, who said, “Man [each person] is the measure of all things.” Okay, should that man be Jefferey Dahmer? Protagoras might say, “No, I don’t mean foreach person.” But Jeffery Dahmer is a problem in the same way that the culture of antisemites is a problem.
J.K. Rowling saw a culture heading out to the pastures of irrationality. If reasoning does not bind truth, no ethical truth exists. In the second to last chapter of the first Harry Potter book, he-who-shall-not be-named … ah heck, Voldemort, says, “Silly boy, there is no good or bad, there is only power.”
Is Voldemort correct? I think not, but I sometimes feel like I’ve been put out to pasture, too, and I’m grazing with too few other horses.
Richard McGowan, Ph.D., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, has taught philosophy and ethics cores for more than 40 years, most recently at Butler University. Research citations for Dr. McGowan’s articles are available at www.inpolicy.org.
Comments...