Syllogizing
Benjamin GayedThe word argument carries a connotation of contentiousness. A proper argument is a quest for truth, though we may occasionally lose sight of this fact and begin to think the purpose of argument is to assert dominance – to win for the glory of winning. Why are arguments contentious? Why do we care so much about the truth? These questions demand a considerable amount of writing and discussion. The question I would like to address here is how to go about arguing at all. What I mean is, when keeping in mind that argument is properly a search for truth (regardless of the subject), what factors can we focus on to keep discussion constructive and productive, and to achieve the ultimate goal (as we have a tendency to lose sight of the goal when the natural connection between fighting and disagreement gets hold of us too firmly)?
The starting point for any argument is your own opinion if you really care to get to the bottom of things. Ninety-nine percent of the arguments I hear occur when people stumble across a disputed subject when talking with friends or colleagues, and decide to jump on board with the first sentiment they think they agree with. Once wed to a side, there is a tendency to argue until blue in the face without pausing to analyze the assumptions or the logical conclusions of the positions being defended and no meaningful progress is ever made. In my experience this occurs most frequently with issues such as abortion, gun control, and issues regarding the war (or wars in general). A well-intentioned arguer will take note of such discussions and consider them carefully in the privacy of his or her own thoughts and readings, or in polite discussion. The first and most important step in any argument is to identify why you think what you think, what the underlying assumptions are, and what the logical conclusions of your position are. Only when you are equipped with some idea of where you are coming from are you able to get anywhere.
The next step in constructive and honest argument is to recognize the limits of your preparation in the heat of the discussion. If you do care about truth, you should be comfortable with saying and hearing, “I’ve not considered that before, let me think about it and get back to you.” As a result, any good discussion will have an abundance of questions such as, “Why do you think that,” or, “where did you get that idea,” or perhaps, “have you considered that in light of this other thing.” The discussion will be characterized more by responding to questions than asserting positions. This technique also takes the heat out of the discussion by putting the arguers on a cooperative path with a mutual goal rather than at odds.
Note however that like any fight, a proper argument is considered to have a victor and a loser at its completion. Moving along a cooperative path does not negate the fact that only one position can be correct, though both parties might have grasped the truth in one aspect or another, or not at all, there will still be right and wrong, and consequently there will be winning and losing positions. As a further consequence, there may be an appropriate imbalance of who is questioning and who is answering, though both parties should be continually questioning their own positions. The goal of these discussions then should be to come to a point where the parties involved disagree, and then to dig deeper into why that assumption is a point of contention.
One trick to help us identify the assumptions behind our conclusions is to recognize “conditional statements made without the conditions”. What I mean by this is that there are certain words and phrases which should properly be qualified but we often get by without doing this which confuses the picture significantly. Two prime examples I have of this are:
1. using the words “good, bad, better or worse”
2. use of the word “should”
Proper use of any of these words is in respect to some outcome or quality.
For example:
1. “Universal health plans would be worse than the current system.” This phrase is more useful if the underlying assumptions are identified…”Universal access to health care would be worse than the current system in the respects that the wait times for care would lengthen and the system is already too expensive.” We then know to focus our discussion on wait times for care as well as budgeting and finance if we are to figure out whether we want to institute universal coverage or not.
2. “You should study” is a much more helpful phrase if the underlying assumption is qualified, and the phrase becomes “you should study - if you want to get good grades in school.”
Even on moral grounds (maybe especially on moral grounds) these assumptions can and should be identified so we can properly put attitudes and actions in their places and analyze them honestly. In terms of morality, “You should not steal” properly becomes, “you should not steal if you want to honor the commands and designs of the author of the Ten Commandments, and if you want to avoid to consequences of immoral actions.” The listener is free to challenge your claim that the author of the Ten Commandments is real or has authority over the listener, but the discussion is continuing along more productive paths than if you were to say simply, “you should not steal” and leave it up to the listener to challenge you along the lines of these assumptions or to guide the conversation elsewhere. It is very important to note that the speaker has to recognize his or her own assumptions behind the stated conclusions, which is why reflection is the start of any really productive argument. (An interesting parallel to this which identifies such language as evidence of our belief in the existence of objective truth has been discussed elsewhere on this site, Speaking Gibberish in a More Delicious Society by Paul Goodell).
In my mind at least, discussions which follow these rules would lead to our ability to communicate our own positions and arguments as syllogisms, whether explicitly or by the Socratic method. If you cannot do this, that does not mean you should not debate, but it does mean you are not fully recognizing your own assumptions, and you should be prepared to question your own assumptions as well as the other guy’s. One final consequence of employing these rules is that these arguments should remain entirely calm and civil more often than not. If you are unable to explain your own position as a syllogism, you really shouldn’t express frustration about what other people claim to believe as you have not thoroughly considered what you believe or why. Syllogisms are not contentious if constructed plainly and completely. In this fashion, we could eventually reach universal conclusions on every conceivable issue or would at least be able say, “If I agreed with that assumption you hold, I would reach the same conclusion about the entire discussion, however I do not.” Then we would not be arguing, at least not in the sense of the associated contentiousness; we would be syllogizing.
March 15th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
From Peter Kreeft’s ‘Socratic Logic’: ‘An enthymeme is a syllogism with one of its three propositions implied but not stated. The word ‘enthymeme’ comes from the Greek ‘en-thymos’ which means ‘in mind’ since one of the three premises is ‘kept in mind’ rather than being explicitly stated… The fact that we all use enthymemes in ordinary speech shows that we all have a working knowledge of the principles of syllogistic logic in our unconscious minds. A book like this one merely brings our unconscious knowledge to consciousness, like psychoanalysis.’
Kreeft’s book has tons of exercises, this particular chapter 71 sample exercises with solutions. #71: ‘Whatsoever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea or conception of anything we call infinite’. (Thomas Hobbes).
… Solution:
Major premise: No [tw we imagine] is [twi infinite]
Minor, hidden/enthymemic premise: [Ideas or conceptions] are [tw we imagine]
Conclusion: Therefore No [ideas or conceptions] are [twi infinite]
Kreeft: ‘This is the only way to make the syllogism formally valid. But not only does it require a false assumption (the second, implied premise) but it also mistranslates the author’s expressed conclusion. Hobbes concludes that we have no idea of anything infinite, i.e. no idea of an infinite object. But our translation of the conclusion predicates infinity not of a real object of an idea, but of an idea itself.’
March 15th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Do you mind translating the notations? I have never learned any any kind of formal shorthand.
March 15th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Another interesting enthymemic analysis:
“For those that like ‘-ism’ sorts of names, the aptest name for my approach to understanding how things work is probably ‘hierarchical reductionism’. If you read trendy intellectual magazines, you may have noticed that ‘reductionism’ is one of those things, like sin, that is only mentioned by people who are against it. To call oneself a reductionist will sound, in some circles, a bit like admitting to eating babies. But, just as nobody actually eats babies, so nobody is really a reductionist in any sense worth being against.” -Richard Dawkins in ‘The Blind Watchmaker’
…thus:
premise#1: terms related to morality or sin, are only used by those who oppose something forbidden by the term.
premise#2: (the hidden/enthymemic premise) the truth-values of intellectual terms such as ‘reductionism’, are analogous to moral terms.
conclusion: since Dawkins attests to using the term ‘reductionism’ in various social circles without blushing, neither in his cheeks nor in his mind, the term’s truth-value is beyond all questioning. (therefore, presumably, when a person begins to use terms with dubious truth value… they then immediately stop using the term.) [???]
Dawkins probably hopes that somewhere between examining premise #2 on its own, and passing over it irresponsibly, your mind is able to get, (without blushing) to the stated conclusion, which he states explicitly enough: ‘nobody is really a reductionist in any sense worth being against.’ He is saying in effect, that in the intellectual sphere, any term which is roughly admittable for usage (without one’s face turning red in the company of fellow intellectuals) is bound to be a fair term which other intellectuals ought not be against. (?!!) Of course, premise#1 may also be attacked on its own. He seems to be arguing that, since in the moral sphere, like Blagojevich, no-one ever admits to horrendous immorality, therefore their moral terminology is limited to what is positively moral. Even mild speculation refutes this. On a grander scale, the history of the Jews positively refutes this.
March 15th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
I too only learned this recently. This kind of thing makes me wish I attended a prim and proper boys school in England. As Kreeft explains in his (awesome) logic text, symbolic/mathematical logic has all but replaced traditional, formal logic, which may also be called Aristotelian logic or the logic of the 4 language arts (reading, writing, listening, speaking)… Strictly, the more controversial (I was wrong about this, Benji) or major premise comes first, with the minor or less controversial premise second. The tone or mood of the syllogism is ‘if only you will accept this, and coupled to a much stronger premise i can then force you to my conclusion.’ I think that’s why in high school my teacher always told us to save our strongest point for last. Also, in the conclusion, the major term should always come last.
I never understood why the following syllogism (see below) is considered so ‘classic’ until I read Freud, who found, through decades of psychoanalysis, that the unconsciously operating mind, without exception does not believe in its own death. But we reluctantly convince ourselves with the classic syllogism.
All men are mortal (all men = middle term… mortal = major term)
Socrates is a man (middle term = men… socrates = minor term.)
Socrates is mortal (minor term –> major term. the middle term falls out)