It is often asserted by those who tend to have a Leftist ideology that they are attacked for commenting on the RNL simply because they have an opposing point of view.  Furthermore, those who complain about being attacked often express the opinion that such attacks are personal.  I can only speak for myself, but – with a few notable exceptions – I can confidently say – without any hesitation of reservation – that I do not ‘attack’ these people.  I address their ideas and arguments, but this is not a personal attack.  Furthermore, I generally tend to attack a position only when it can be demonstrated that the position is false or flawed, and I seldom – if ever – attack an opinion unless it has been asserted as factual.

This brings us back to a reoccurring theme here on the RNL: that of the inability of the majority of Americans – not just those on the left – to conform to the established rules of reason.  I have often made the assertion that logic has rules, and that there are rules for how to use logic to reason correctly.  This process even has a formal name: it is called right reasoning.  This is the subject I wish to address – again.  However, rather than address the subject in relation to anyone associated with the RNL, I took the time to find an excellent example to help me illustrate my points.  I found this blog page:

The Rules of Right Reason

The blogger starts by posting the following:

The Rules of Thought. (as posited by Barry Arrington and cited by blogger Elizabeth on her blog, The Skeptical Zone)

The rules of thought are the first principles of right reason. Those rules are:

• The Law of Identity: An object is the same as itself.
• The Law of Non-contradiction: Contradictory statements cannot both at the same time be true.
• The Law of the Excluded Middle: For any proposition, either that proposition is true or its negation is true.

And claims:

Note that the three laws of thought cannot be proven. They are either accepted as self-evident axioms – or not. The fundamental principles of right reason must be accepted as axioms for the simple reason that they cannot be demonstrated. There is no way to “argue for argument” and it is foolish to try to do so. If one’s goal in arguing is to arrive at the truth of a matter, arguing with a person who rejects the law of idenity is counterproductive, because he has rejected the very concept of “truth” as a meaningful category.

At this point, I would like to insert some of my own commentary before moving to the blogger’s response.  First, I would add that everything about logic starts from the simple statement that a thing either is, or it is not.  This comes even before defining what that thing is.  After this is established, it follows that a thing is what it is – even if we cannot properly define it.  An inability to define it does not mean it is impossible to define; at best it means we cannot agree or that we do not have sufficient information to properly and/or thoroughly define that thing.  It also follows that a thing cannot both be and not be at the same time.  This would be a contradiction, and a contradiction is an absurdity.  From an absurdity, all things follow.  Finally, the law of excluded middle would work something like this:

Suppose our thing we are talking about is a plane.  We could then claim our plane is either flying, or it is not flying.  One or the other has to be true because we could not say our plane is only partially flying.  That would be a contradiction.

Next, we must have an understanding of how the rules of right reasoning work.  We use these rules to construct what is known as an argument.  I know this is distracting to some, but I find that it is necessary, so:

Definition of ARGUMENT

2a : a reason given in proof or rebuttal b : discourse intended to persuade

3a : the act or process of arguing : argumentation b : a coherent series of statements leading from a premise to a conclusion

Next, our argument must be sound:

Definition of SOUND

3a : free from error, fallacy, or misapprehension <sound reasoning> b : exhibiting or based on thorough knowledge and experience <sound scholarship> c : legally valid <a sound title> d : logically valid and having true premises

This is why I so often mention fallacies when attacking another person’s argument because, if it can be shown that an argument is based on false premises or fallacious reasoning, the argument has already been defeated.  The only catch is, if you are going to make a claim of false premise or fallacious reasoning, you must be specific in your attack by providing evidence against the premises and/or naming the fallacy committed.  If you do this and the person who made the argument cannot or will not offer a proper defense, then you have defeated their argument.  If they cling to it after this point, they are being irrational.

Next, your argument must be valid:

Definition of VALID

2a : well-grounded or justifiable : being at once relevant and meaningful <a valid theory> b : logically correct <a valid argument> <valid inference>

 

This is another point where an argument can contain fallacious reasoning.  Even if you have true premises, you must be careful to draw valid conclusions from them.  Here is an example to help you understand this concept:

VALID

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

The first two sentences are true, therefore, the last one must also be true.

NOT VALID

 All men are mortal.
Socrates is mortal.
Therefore, Socrates is a man.

The first two sentences are true, but, in this case, Socrates could be a dog.

Finally, an argument must be rational:

Definition of RATIONAL

1a : having reason or understanding b : relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason : reasonable <a rational explanation> <rational behavior>

In this case, it is possible to construct an argument with true premises and valid conclusions, and yet, the argument can still fail because those conclusions are irrational.  Generally, this means the conclusions defy common sense or observed reality.  An example might be:

Most people can learn to play golf.

Most people can get better with practice.

You can beat Tiger Woods at golf.

Now, the two premises and even the conclusion are true, but this could be viewed as an irrational argument because the probability of you ever beating Tiger Woods in a game of golf is low enough to be considered null.

There is one last point that needs to be made.  When I was in college, my first logic professor was a boy wonder.  At the age of 24, he had done 5 years in the Air Force and was finishing his doctorate degree. The first thing he told us in our logic 101 class was that, if you are presented with a sound, valid and rational argument and you cannot show produce a better one, yet you refuse to accept the conclusions of that argument, you are irrational.  Now, being a liberal, being rational was part of his definition of being human, so he then told the class that irrational people are not people and can be ethically killed as a result.  He then told us that our challenge for the semester was to either prove God exists or that the unborn is a child.  I did both, and he could not refute my argument, yet he refused to accept my conclusions.  So, as I was walking up to his podium, I asked him if my argument was sound: he said yes.  I asked him if it was valid: he said yes.  I asked him if it was rational: he said yes.  By now, I was walking across the stage toward him looking as menacing as I could (I was still in the Marines at this time), and I asked him if he was going to accept my conclusion: he said no.  I asked him if he had a better argument: he said no.  So I said (with a smile) “I guess that makes you irrational then, doesn’t it?”  It was at this point he suddenly realized I had trapped him in front of the entire class, and he tripped as he tried to backpedal away from me.  I helped him up and told him his life now belonged to me and depended on my benevolence (We got along great from the start. He may have been a bleeding heart liberal but, for some reason, he liked me).  The point is, refusing to accept a sound, valid and rational argument when you can’t offer a better one or refusing to abandon a failed argument makes a person irrational — by definition.

All of what I just took you through is attributed to the Greek philosophers and forms the foundation for Western civilization and the modern scientific method.  However, starting about the time of the enlightenment, we started to see the rise of a series of philosophers who rejected all of this.  They argued that reality is either what we make it – individually – or that it is impossible for us to know anything about the true nature of reality at all.  This led to what is now known as post-modernism: an ideology that frequently fines itself in the cross hairs of one of Utah’s many vehement attacks against its total lack of reasoning – and rightly so.  The reason I agree with the classic understanding of logic and right reasoning is because it agrees with the totality of man’s understanding of the world around him.  On the other hand, the post-modern idea of reality stands in total opposition to man’s collective historic experience.  Furthermore, it is impossible to build and maintain a society on these post-modern ideologies.  In fact, history tells us this is objective reality.

You see, post-modernism isn’t all that modern.  These ideas are not new: they were around at the same time of the classical ancient Greek philosophers.  Back then, the people who espoused these ideas were known as the Skeptics and they actually tried to put their philosophy into practice in the real world.  They did not survive long.  They literally told themselves they could not know that gravity would work if they stepped off a cliff, so they tried it.  They claimed no one could know they would die if they did not eat, so they tried it.  Look for them in history, you’ll find records of what they believed and how they lived, but you will not find them or any legacy of them – and for good reason.

So, one must either accept the rules of logic and right reasoning, or reject them.  As the rules of right reasoning are irreducible – they are all required for the system to work – you cannot pick-and-chose which rules you like and do not like.  You either accept them all as they are, or reject the entire system.  This is what our blogger appears want to do as she writes:

And a classic (or perhaps non-classical) example, it seems to me (and I’m more at home here than with quantum physics) is: what is a person?  Am I an object?  Is it sensible to say that I am myself, if, by the time I have said it, I have become something different – an object with different properties – to the self I was when began to utter the sentence?

And if I am an object, what are the properties of that object?  Does it exist in both time and space, or just space at a given time?  Does it make any sense to say that a person exists at all in an instantaneous moment, or is being a person a process?

In other words, it seems to me that “The Rules of Right Reason” simply do not cover all the truths there are to investigate, and cannot cover them.  To assert this is not to reject, as Barry suggests, “the very concept of truth as a meaningful category”.  It is to assert that there are true statements that can be made that nonetheless cannot be made if we rigorously adhere to the rules of right reason, and “objects” that we cannot consider.

Now, I will accept that she has rejected the rules of logic based on the notion that a thing cannot be said to be itself.

Is it sensible to say that I am myself, if, by the time I have said it, I have become something different – an object with different properties – to the self I was when began to utter the sentence?

So, if she believes this, she should stop right there because – by her own assertions – neither you, I nor even she can be sure she knows what she means.  You see, if you cannot define something as itself, then you cannot define the words she is using; and if you cannot define the words, then she cannot define the meaning she intends to convey.  In fact, she can’t even be sure she knows what she means because she cannot define it.  HOWEVER, at the same time, and again, using her own assertions, she should keep talking because she cannot be sure you do not understand her – and for the same reasons.

Now, in her world, she sees nothing wrong with this line of argument.  But, to those who accept the apparent rules of the world around us – real or not – this blogger makes no sense at all because, if we accept her assertions, she should both stop and continue talking at the same time and for the same reasons, and even then she and I and you cannot “know” anything about what she is saying or means to say – including herself.

Now, if you accept the rules of right reasoning, we can point out that this blogger has committed several fallacies, most of them based in an improper understanding of the issues she is trying to explain.  Let me see if I can show you what I mean.  She says:

And if I am an object, what are the properties of that object?  Does it exist in both time and space, or just space at a given time?  Does it make any sense to say that a person exists at all in an instantaneous moment, or is being a person a process?

First, her assertion that we cannot define the properties of an object is false.  Just because we do not know all properties of an object does not mean we cannot define the ones we do know, or that we will not discover and add new properties to it.  In fact, this is the essence of all human understanding.  We can never know everything there is to know about anything, but this does not mean we do not know enough to define something and then communicate ideas about it.  The fact that she is writing and you are reading is sufficient to refute her claims.

Next, our blogger shows a lack of basic understanding of right reasoning by asserting:

In other words, it seems to me that “The Rules of Right Reason” simply do not cover all the truths there are to investigate, and cannot cover them. 

At this point, I need to stop and explain the two basic types of an argument.  You can have a deductive argument where, if the argument is sound (i.e. the premises are all true), and the conclusion is valid, then we can accept the conclusion with certainty.  Our blogger seem to think this is the only form of argumentation in right reasoning, but there is another.  We can have what is known as an inductive argument where the premises can never be known to be true or false with absolute certainty: the best we can do is state our premises according to the best information we have.  This means that, no matter how valid or rational our conclusions, we can never be absolutely certain about how true they are.  The bulk of human understanding was formed using this method of right reasoning.

The statement “as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow” is an inductive assertion.  You do not “know” that it will, but experience tells you it will.  This is a strong inductive argument.  A weaker one might be “The Dolphins are 15-0 so far this season; they are going to win this last game today.”  Again, while you have some good reason to believe your conclusion is true, you cannot know it to be true and, based on experience, it is a weaker inductive argument than the first about the sun rising.  So, if our blogger understood this, she would have understood that inductive reasoning can and does help us define what it means to define a person.

Our blogger then closes with this assertion:

To assert this is not to reject, as Barry suggests, “the very concept of truth as a meaningful category”.  It is to assert that there are true statements that can be made that nonetheless cannot be made if we rigorously adhere to the rules of right reason, and “objects” that we cannot consider.

But we have just shown that right reasoning can easily account for the things to which she is objecting, which then makes her assertion false and defeats her statement.  If this were not the case and we accepted her assertion, we would then be stuck with her earlier claim that we cannot know anything for sure based on its changing nation, so we could not know she was actually correct, which means she would still be asserting an absurdity.  Either way – hers or by right reason — this blogger is making an irrational argument.  This is not my opinion; it is the logical conclusion of both positions: hers and that of right reason.  I’m merely stating the obvious.

Now, I do not fault someone for not understanding these rules.  I don’t even fault them for rejecting attempts to teach them.  But I do object to those who, after having been shown they are incorrect, continue to insist that they are being reasonable and that those who understand and are attempting to conform to the rules of right reasoning are being irrational.  To me, it is the height of hypocrisy to ask that the inmates be allowed to define their own state of sanity while the whole world can see them swinging from the rafters in their “all-togethers” with their hair on fire.

As far as I am concerned, until they stop spouting absurdities and start making sense, this group of people doesn’t deserve to be given the same consideration as those who have actually put forth a real argument.  To do so would be to risk condemning our society to the same fate as the Skeptics and I, for one, am unwilling to risk what little is left of our society to an ideology that has been proven to be unworkable in the real world.