Being Unreasonable
Is it possible that there are some people who try to be reasonable, but are inescapably unreasonable, at least in some respect?
For example, someone who tries over and over again to present a valid argument against someone else, but keeps begging the question over and over again, without realising it, and even when this is identified and explained over and over again, and even though there is information available on the internet which explains this fallacy, the person is inescapably stuck in the pattern of behaviour of committing the fallacy over and over again. Maybe they even understand the fallacy, and could tell you what it is upon request.
I suppose this is a skill. A skill that some people just lack, and have real trouble picking up. How should one treat such people? Should one try to show them the error of their ways? If so, and if this doesn't succeed, then when should you give up trying? What if, for example, you had spent hours and hours of your own time, without pay?
Is The Philosophy Forum sometimes like a place where unpaid teachers go to bang their head against the wall with difficult students? :lol:
For example, someone who tries over and over again to present a valid argument against someone else, but keeps begging the question over and over again, without realising it, and even when this is identified and explained over and over again, and even though there is information available on the internet which explains this fallacy, the person is inescapably stuck in the pattern of behaviour of committing the fallacy over and over again. Maybe they even understand the fallacy, and could tell you what it is upon request.
I suppose this is a skill. A skill that some people just lack, and have real trouble picking up. How should one treat such people? Should one try to show them the error of their ways? If so, and if this doesn't succeed, then when should you give up trying? What if, for example, you had spent hours and hours of your own time, without pay?
Is The Philosophy Forum sometimes like a place where unpaid teachers go to bang their head against the wall with difficult students? :lol:
Comments (56)
Yes, as evidenced by the many mistakes people, including very smart people, have made in the history of philosophy.
Human minds are not perfect reasoning machines.
Quoting S
The skill is not using reason, which everyone with working mental faculties is capable of. The skill is questioning yourself and your biases.
In light of your recent behaviour in your thread on idealism, perhaps a little self-reflection might be helpful.
Maybe because too many don't even have a basic understanding of philosophy or dialectic procedures? I do however find that for a forum that is open to all and that features discussions on religion and politics, it never really goes off into mindless-rant-closed-threads-directions. That's a positive thing I guess.
Personally, I find there to be a bit too much religious apologist-rants. Some believer who read Aquinas or Kalam-arguments only and then rants of without any logical reasoning at all. "First cause"-arguments keep popping up like weed and it doesn't matter how much you point out fallacies and flaws, they keep going, even though the likelihood of them "proving Gods existence" after thousands of years of philosophy, in an age of strict scientific methods, is close to zero, especially on a philosophy forum without any papers published at all.
I know there's nothing to be done about that, but it's clogging the system and you need to wade through them to reach other discussions.
Is there a way to block some sections off? Like, if I don't want to see threads posted in "Philosophy of religion" at the top? Also, all the "first cause" arguments should go into that section, Metaphysics/Epistemology is at the moment a dumping ground for first cause-arguments.
Another thing is that I think new members shouldn't be able to post subjects until they have at least 20-30 posts. I've seen this on other forums and it works great, it settles them into the forum and keeps trolls out.
With that, those with a higher score shows as "respected member" or "quality member" or something. I guess we could make a whole argument-discussion out of such a system, but it would help distinguish between those who time after time just rant nonsense and those who come here for a proper philosophical discussion.
Yes, because even if someone is guided by fear or wishful thinking, they don't see what guides them but believe that their flawed arguments are "good enough".
Noone, except for philosophers and most scientists want to know that their arguments are bad. Everyone wants to think of themselves as reasonable people.
But a philospher listen and analyses if someone points out a flaw, or should be able to do so as they put truth higher than being right themselves.
They might even be happy if they learn or upgrade their thinking.
A normal person, will instead put being right over truth if truth means that they have to change the way they understand the world into a way that is more uncomfortable than their current view of the world.
Changing the way you think the world works is extremely difficult for some if it means that they have been wrong for a long time or that they will think differently than everyone around them.
Such situation just completely blocks the mind in many grownups and they simply refuse to accept arguments that leads to such conclusions.
A bit like 'voluntary discomfort' ?
Time, patience and energy spent to seeming no avail. But other people might just be following the discussion and get something from it. Including yourself.
You can give up any time. When you've had enough. Or realise that the pattern of behaviour is unlikely to change.
A matter of judgement.
But you know that, doncha ? Were you just letting off steam ?
Peace :pray:
Joy :sparkle:
and Love :love:
In history, it's understandable that there's been flawed thinking because as science evolved, so did how we do rational and reasonable arguments. The thing that I don't understand is why so many who discuss philosophy won't adhere to current methods of dialectics. It's like they ignore the last 150 years of development in how to do a rational argument and when they hear counter-arguments they don't evolve their argument, just point out that they are right because [insert fallacy here].
Quoting Echarmion
Fallacy and bias-knowledge is extremely low within the general public and that's understandable, but on a philosophy forum, it's mind-boggling.
Mods should put a pin to the top of this forum with a list of fallacies and biases and prompt people to keep them in mind.
We used to have this feature but we voted to remove it.
What was the reason? I understand that this could be abused and get out of hand, but maybe a form that would is different would work. But if there are good reasons/experiences not to, I understand.
The history of philosophy is not a straight line though. There is no equivalent to the scientific method that just builds on previous observations for philosophy as a whole.
Quoting Christoffer
This is an internet forum. Not everyone here has any formal education in philosophy. I don't. So not everyone will be able to follow complex terminology or logical constructions. I don't know if my arguments are in line with "current methods", but I think that I can nevertheless construct a rational argument if I try.
No, but it is possible that generally reasonable people may adhere to a belief.
Argument is a waste of time when confronted with belief.
Here was the discussion/vote.
Quoting Christoffer
Yes, go the the category (e.g. https://thephilosophyforum.com/categories/7/philosophy-of-religion) and at the bottom of the page is an eye icon that you can click to cross it out and it will no longer appear on the main page.
It was 3 years ago. Maybe @jamalrob will be open to a new vote now that we're a much bigger community with many more members.
Aren't we considering "how we make an argument" something that has been refined over the years? With a growing list of fallacies and biases to guide us past the flaws of human reasoning? Those things have been built upon past understandings of how to compose arguments.
Quoting Echarmion
Yes, and I don't either, but I've been seriously autodidacting how to do arguments, how to try and avoid fallacies and biases. Even if no one has formal education, it's I think at least at a minimum required to understand basic philosophy on a philosophy forum. The guidelines even state that you need to apply proper arguments. And while I'm not saying I manage to be perfect in this sense, especially compared to those with academic philosophical training, I at least try and follow how things need to be done and if someone has a problem with how I write something or rationalize I try and listen in order to understand and evolve my argument, like a dialectic is supposed to.
The problem though, is that some don't even apply the basics and discuss just like they would on say, Facebook or other forums. Philosophy, at least in my opinion, requires at least to apply yourself to the basics of it and especially listen to counter-arguments properly, instead of spamming the same thing over and over again.
Sometimes an argument just goes in circles between a few people saying the same thing over and over, other people shake their heads and leaves the discussion to those people and the thread just dies. Just because people aren't even applying anything close to a dialectic.
I think there should be an addition to the top of the forum beside guidelines, which have some tips on how to form an argument, a list of fallacies and biases and a note on the importance of reading and understanding someone's counter-argument before answering. It would be helpful for everyone who has little to no knowledge of philosophy when registering on this forum.
I think it's possible to have a vote system again. Maybe just skip the "downvote" since that's seriously able to be abused. Voting someone up can only be done once and you can remove that vote if you want, but never downvote. Then if someone votes on someone as being a good dialectical sparring partner but then realize that person is misbehaving, later on, he/she can just remove the vote.
Through that, no one can just downvote someone because they don't like what they say, they can only vote positive on someone they think is behaving properly and if they change their mind, just remove the vote. The numbers apply to a "respected" scale, meaning, it's not about who is "the best at philosophy", but if you reach over a certain number of votes you become "respected" or "quality poster".
Might that work? Or are there any problems I'm not seeing with this?
Downvotes weren't actually an option, just upvotes. The main issue was that there was a cumulative total on a user's profile and an option on the members list to list members by the total number of votes they received creating a hierarchy of users, and most people didn't want to live in my shadow.
But surely you agree that reasonable people reasonably think others are being unreasonable. So no, what you say above isn't the only explanation for this situation.
Quoting Judaka
Does your "handled with care" rule out straightforwardly pointing things like this out? Or perhaps only to those who we think can handle the criticism? The rest we must refrain from such criticism or sugarcoat it so that it's easier to swallow? The priority is people's feelings over speaking the truth straightforwardly?
Spit it out, then. What exactly are you suggesting? You think that I indicated bias and did not question myself enough? Or something else? Please clarify and elaborate. One of the upshots with me is that you don't have to worry about refraining from making a [i]relevant[/I] criticism or having to sugarcoat it. I assure you, I can handle it.
My prediction is that some people will use this discussion as another opportunity to disapprove of my tone, instead of talking about the topic of being unreasonable. But I could be wrong.
I'm not unaware that in creating this discussion, some people could effectively view that as me painting a large target on my chest. Fire away! (But try to be reasonable).
I prefer it without the point scoring system. And one problem I see with wanting it to be a reflection of reasonableness is that I doubt that that would show with someone who is reasonable but who is also pretty blunt or sarcastic or whatever, things that can get on people's nerves. There was that comparison of Socrates with a gadfly, and if Athens had a point scoring system, I doubt that that gadfly would have fared too well under it, not that he'd care a great deal. He had higher priorities.
That's why science and philosophy are hard to do. We are intentionally breaking our habits to obtain a different outcome.
:grin:
That's the best suggestion I've heard for this place in a long time. :100:
Please explain. To be clear, in response to my first question, I would like a reason why not. (I don't doubt what you say is possible). And in response to my second question, I'd like an elaboration.
Understandable, but what if you removed the ability to list by rank or see how many votes?
I mean that if the rank score is invisible to everyone, including yourself and then, let's say 10 votes, gives you a "sign" beside your name on posts that say something like "Reliable Poster", then at 15, it switches to "Respected Poster", then at 25 it says "Quality Poster" and at 50, "Platinum member" and at 100, "Gold member" and a star of approval.
And a post describing the different levels with an explanation about what it means.
That way there's no real hierarchy, only personal stats and it might even give the incentive to behave better in order to earn a better status. Instead of competition, it's about your own effort put into the posts you write.
(of course, we can have funnier levels, like "Sokrates Master" as the highest or something :grin: )
Unforunately the software doesn't allow for that, which incidentally was our preference.
I didn't mean in terms of absolutes, I meant in general, or in a specific respect. We can be reasonable or unreasonable in the sense I meant.
I think you did not question yourself enough. You refused to restate your points or expand on them. You also assumed any criticism or request for clarification was made in bad faith, or from an incomplete understanding of your argument.
Restating or explaining your position is often a learning experience, as you have to actually understand your argument to explain it. If you simply refuse to deal with any criticism that does not precisely fit into some narrow window you defined, you come across as not really interested in discussion, and more in feeling superior.
When and for what reason, though? That's very important. You're suggesting that that indicates that I didn't question myself enough, but there are a multitude of other explanations for that. So why your explanation over others? Maybe I refused because I thought that people weren't engaging fairly, like I thought about Terrapin, or for the wrong purpose, like I thought about Michael, or maybe I refused out of exasperation of not getting through despite trying, as with Metaphysician Undercover. Those reasons don't strike me as unreasonable. What strikes me as unreasonable is not having any such rules and limits for engaging with people.
Quoting Echarmion
Maybe I did think that at times, but they weren't necessarily assumptions as opposed to reasonable beliefs. And I think that I'm often quite careful with my wording. For example, I might say that I [I]suspect[/I] such-and-such. A suspicion isn't an assumption or an accusation. It's just an expression of what I have an inkling might be the case. But sure, I don't deny that I'm not always that careful, and I'm less likely to be careful like that if you've become an exasperation for me.
Quoting Echarmion
You have to be strict with some people, though. Don't you agree? It's very important to stay on topic and on point. That approach isn't guaranteed to work, of course. But I also have to consider the effort that I'm putting in each time. When you put the effort in, you expect results, and if you keep putting in the effort, but you don't get results, then that's when eventually it begins to justify cutting things short or trying to [i]really get them to focus on this one thing that they just keep on seeming to neglect[/I].
Take any example of unreasonable behaviour. Once the behaviour is understood, the unreasonableness disappears. Of course, we might not like a person's behaviour even when we understand it.
What the heck does [i]that[/I] mean? And why? :chin:
Quoting sime
No, I don't think so. It doesn't disappear, it's just explained. Why would it disappear? And what do you even mean by that? That it would cease to be unreasonable? But why would it?
Guy across the street threw the snow from his driveway into the street because he didn’t want the road treatment chemicals on his lawn. He told the cops he thought the plow would take it away. Although true, the plow would take the snow away, and true, road chemicals don’t belong on lawns, still the unreasonableness of the behavior itself remains.
Understanding doesn’t necessarily alleviate illusory reason, just exposes it for what it is.
Unless you meant something else, maybe?
The road of reason navigates a landscape of values. Different landscapes, different roads. Though it's true some are stuck in ideological potholes, trolls are more interested in bridges, and the logically illiterate never passed their driving tests.
This should be a primary fear of anyone seeking out a philosophy forum.
Maybe some of us are so afraid of this, we're unwilling/unable to stand the dissonance when confronted?
In my opinion, if someone has been:
1) Unreasonable (illogical),
2) Informed of this, and
3) Persistently unreasonable (illogical),
Then, they are not trying to be reasonable (logical).
Sure.
If someone persists in being unreasonable (illogical), they have abandoned reason (logic) in favour of expressing a belief (as I mentioned), another propositional attitude, an emotion, or the application of a heuristic (as others have mentioned), etc., whereupon; further communication (information exchange) using human language argument (informal logic) cannot occur.
I'm more pointing out that we are all probably reasonable from our own perspectives and unreasonable in at least a few other peoples' perspectives. Is it the result of information asymmetry or unreasonable people being unable to realise they are unreasonable? And if it is the latter then those who are unreasonable are here on this thread agreeing with you about how terrible it is that everyone else is so unreasonable.
That's why it is pointless to talk to a group of people about this problem. In my experience, by calling someone unreasonable they are likely to think you are being unreasonable because how can a reasonable person call a reasonable person (like themselves) unreasonable? Alternatively, it's just ad hominem which is also unreasonable.
It is entirely possible that many reasonable people think other reasonable people are unreasonable because of miscommunication, information asymmetry, the difference in opinions being perceived as too stark. That's why I think people should
1. Constantly question whether they are being reasonable or not
2. Constantly question whether the other person is being unreasonable or not
3. If someone is genuinely unreasonable, just avoid them
If someone really is unreasonable, it's not worth trying to reason with them. There's not much you can do and you will lose the argument even if you win.
You asked me for my honest thoughts. I am not going to prove to you that I am right. You can consider what I said or you don't.
Quoting S
Cursiously, though, you seem to be the only one who is hell bent on enforcing those kinds of rules in their conversations. Everyone else seems to be able to engage in a discussion without putting up lots of barriers that dictate what can and cannot be said. You seem to be indicating that you think your behavior is somehow necessary self defense. But against what?
Quoting S
What reasons do you have to assume established members like Terrapin or Michael are arguing in bad faith? It doesn't come across as particularly reasonable to me.
Quoting S
This sounds awfully self-absorbed. If you're afraid of putting in effort that isn't rewarded, what are you doing here? There is no guarantee that anything you write on an internet forum will be appreciated. Everyone else is dealing with that, too. Noone here is obligated to deliver results to you, and you are not in a position to dictate the rules of discussion.
Of course there are always some who simply want to win an exchange with bad arguments. We should remember, in such cases, the ad hominem fallacy - just because someone is being unreasonable doesn't mean his claim is false.
An ''advantage'' of talking to unreasonable people is they provide opportunity for us to sharpen our thinking skills.
Anyway, is anyone that good a philosopher to find others unreasonable and him/herself perfectly rational?
The contention here seems to be that ordinarily people understand reason as being prescriptive, such that a reasoned argument tells us what we ought to do in a situation, but by that understanding a rational argument involves appealing to emotions and ethical intuitions in a way that transcends mathematical formalism and the conventions of semantics. A difficulty of this view is how to justify a distinction between the coolness of logic and the passion of rhetoric.
The same is also true of logically minded Platonists who identify reason with physically transcendent and convention-transcendent standards of deduction and induction whose perfection the human logician only adheres to on rare occasion. They might say to a failing student who wrote 2+2=5 that he ought to realise that 2+2 necessarily equals 4 because it is a necessary fact, and not merely a preference of the mathematical community. To me, these platonists also identify reason with ethics although they would probably disagree with me, in their failing to pay attention to the role of their own emotions when they insist upon the correctness of a proof they view as being necessarily correct.
On the other hand, naturalistically inclined philosophers identify reason as describing the optimal course of actions an agent has to perform, given assumptions concerning the agent's preferences, their available courses of action and the state of the world. Unless these philosophers are platonists or are happy to reduce reason to emotion, they have no means of supplying reason with a normative dimension, since their understanding of an agent's preferences is in terms of the agent's average behaviour, while their understanding of the agent's reasoning is in terms of what the agent actually does. Hence the naturalist's distinction between an agent's rationality and the agent's preferences is purely a matter of convention.
On logically minded Platonists understanding reason as being prescriptive...agreed.
On people in general ordinarily understanding reason as being prescriptive.....not so much.
I don’t think people ordinarily understand reason, the noun, at all, prescriptive or otherwise, even while using reason, the verb, continuously their entire conscious lives, We see this, as you say, in rational arguments appealing to emotions and ethical intuitions, which are more often specious or illusory at best, and therefore are more often detrimental to sound rationality itself, for emotions seldom conform to rules. Hence, the supervenience of the coolness of logic by the passion of rhetoric.
On the other hand.......there’s always an other hand......throwing accusations of logical fallacies, as a Platonist is apt to do, at a co-conversant doesn’t really help the one not recognizing the prescriptive nature of reason. Pretty hard to inflict a truth on a mind that has regressed to emotion as its fundamental ground.
By naturalistically inclined philosophers, do you mean empiricists? If so, then I concur with the naturalist’s distinction between rationality and preference being purely a matter of convention, or, perhaps, repetitive habit, re: Joe has always done this so he will likely do this again under similar circumstance. Or what's worse, Joe has always thought Bob a dope because of that time in 3rd grade, so Bob is going to be a dope for the rest of his miserable life.
Often, I find there is an absence of epistemic humility on the board. The concept of epistemic humility is an understanding that in many of the questions we discuss on here there are no definitive answers. They are not factual matters. They are reasoned arguments in support of an idea or concept. It is possible that reasonable people, can have reasonable beliefs in opposition. Epistemic humility is an awareness of limits of our knowledge, and an understanding that much of what we think we know is filtered, constructed and interpreted. The ultimate right or wrong of much of what we discuss here is unknowable, yet we are all very fast to assign right to our view and wrong to the other.
This IMO is at the heart of this issue, are we debating to win, or sharing divergent views. And can we have the epistemic humility to stay aware that in most of these discussions there is no factual correct answer.
Yes, but who's who?
What if you inform someone, but they don't understand? That way, is it not possible that they could still be trying? Or, with your second premise, do you mean to suggest that they'd understand by virtue of being informed? I wouldn't use the term that way. I think it makes sense to say that I informed him that such-and-such, but he didn't understand.
So? They can think what they want. What matters is whether they're right.
Quoting Judaka
That's probably how they would see it from their perspective, yes. So?
Quoting Judaka
No, it's not an ad hominem. Believe it or not, I genuinely think that people, sometimes, are unreasonable in certain respects, and that that includes every single one of us. But some people are worse than others, and some people here on this forum are worse than other people here on this forum. I don't need to name names.
Quoting Judaka
That sounds sensible. I admit that it may well often be the case that I'm not sensible insomuch as I probably continue to keep trying when I should have just given up already. Some kind of naive optimism? Some kind of masochism?
All I did was ask you a few questions and express a few thoughts. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. No one has a gun to your head, do they?
Quoting Echarmion
If it seems to you that I'm the only one here who acts like I do (and no, I wouldn't word that in your [i]obviously loaded[/I] way of putting it), then I suggest that you observe others more, and give it some more thought.
And isn't it clear what it's in defence of from what I said? I spoke of unfairness, the wrong purpose, and exasperation. One shouldn't make a reasonable effort to protect oneself against these kind of things? :brow:
Quoting Echarmion
I just explained, did I not? This response from you doesn't seem to have taken into account that explanation. When I'm most reasonable, I don't assume such things, I express reasonable beliefs or suspicions. When I've become exasperated, I'm less likely to be at my most reasonable, and so I might make such assumptions where I would otherwise be more careful.
Quoting Echarmion
I don't think that that's a charitable interpretation of what I said.
As a side note, I like the irony of the situation we're now in, where it seems like you are biased against me, in a discussion which began with you suggesting that I was biased.
Have we not met? :wink:
I can't. He's dead.
:lol:
I equate understanding with decoding a message, which entails information. In either case (whether one understands and rejects, or doesn't understand, a message) the result is the same: information exchange has ended.
I don't think that we really disagree here, but I think that what you say could be better worded. It's better put that in cases where one doesn't understand the information, the information has been exchanged, but not... well... [I]understood[/I]. I'm struggling to think of a better term than "understood" here. It's a bit like if you upload a video file, and then I download that file, but then the video doesn't play for me. My computer can't process that kind of file at present. You could be talking to me about the video, but I wouldn't be able to fully relate - at least not to the same extent, given that you've watched the video, but I have not, even though we exchanged information.
We very much disagree. You say there is information exchange; I say, there is not. My wording is consistent with Shannon & Weaver's Mathematical Theory of Communication.
Your unplayable video scenario is an example of physical, not semantic, data encoding and messaging (transmission, conveyance, and reception). It would only be relevant to this discussion if there were some physical (e.g., sensory) cause for a person's inability to understand your posts.
Yes. When I said that we don't "really" disagree, I meant that it was merely a semantic disagreement.
Quoting Galuchat
Ooh, lar de dar. :lol:
Quoting Galuchat
It's called an analogy. Don't be so literal.
What's your problem? The information exchange is evident through the pages of discussion, and the people like you and I who are reading it. I can type up a post containing information about a logical fallacy. Someone else can read and understand it, yet fail to understand that they're committing the fallacy in an argument here that they've made. Or they might not even understand the fallacy, even if they think that they do. Thus, information exchange, yet lack of understanding.
This seems obvious. If your booky wook has lead you to believe otherwise, it's possible that it's mistaken, or, ironically, that you've misunderstood it, thereby proving the very point I'm making. Although those aren't the only possibilities.
My suggestion would be to display the name of the people who upvoted so we can determine if any favoritism is skewing the results. In such systems I've witnessed people upvoting illogical statements and claims of others simply because they like the person and agree with their position.
We should have a committee, lead by me, to determine whether favouritism has skewed the results, who's responsible, and what actions are to be taken in light of our findings.
It won't be corrupt. You have my word.
We have no control over the software.
That's just what they want you to think.
Members of this noble forum, if you elect me as your supreme leader, I will implement these proposals and more. You have my word.