Glossary - Rational Argument: An Impossible Dream?
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First published 17:00 GMT 9th December 2004. This
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1 - Introduction
This
glossary is an alphabetically sorted concept cluster dealing in general terms
with the individual pursuit of aletheia [= discovered truth] in a very
imperfect world; a through-the-looking-glass world of hallucinogenic
inconstancy, where to keep people ignorant is to control them, where deception
is the key to advancement, and where facts long cherished as certainties can
suddenly dissolve before your eyes. The individual entries are cross-indexed in
such a way that if loaded into a semantic network they would produce a
navigable three-dimensional encyclopaedia on the chosen subject. Note, however,
that although the body of material is reasonably self-contained, it often
overlaps in terms of content with companion glossaries in (a) Research Methods (where we deal with the
technicalities of scientific truth), and (b) Psycholinguistics (where we deal with the philosophy
of meaning and the science of its communication). It also overlaps in terms of
general thrust with our e-paper on "Systems Thinking" (where we profile seven root skills
for understanding how the world really turns). Where necessary, hyperlinks will
transfer you to the appropriate companion glossary. Illustrations are drawn
from the issues exercising the nation in Autumn 2004, namely the Iraq War, the
US presidential election, the proposed UK Gambling Bill, the UK pensions system
meltdown, and so on.
2 - The Glossary Entries
Abductive Reasoning: [See firstly reasoning.]
Abductive reasoning, or simply "abduction", is reasoning which
follows the format that given a RESULT and a RULE we can arrive at a CASE. Example:
If (1) my car is not where it is supposed to be, and (2) when someone steals a
car then it will not be where it is supposed to be, then (3) someone has stolen
my car (after Skemp, 2002; care is needed nonetheless,
because the RULE in this instance is less than watertight, so it would be fallacious
argument to rely on the particular conclusion - I might, for
example, have forgotten where I left my car). [Compare deductive reasoning and
inductive reasoning.]
Acceptability Principle: The seventh of Damer's (1995) 12
basic principles of rational argument. The principle that you should
begin a debate by finding an initial position of mutual agreement, before
moving forward into the area of disagreement.
Account: Within psycholinguistics, an account is an
important subcategory of speech act, in which one explains one's
motivation for an action. [See, for example, appeal to higher loyalties.]
Ad Hominem: [Latin = "at the man"]. A type of fallacious
argument in which the proposer of an argument is personally belittled,
rather than the proposal itself (akin to playing the player rather than the
ball on the sports field). The attack may be explicit, as in a direct personal
insult [abusive ad hominem], or implicit, as with belittling phrases
such as "that's what you'd expect him to say" (Curtis, 2004). Often
used when attackers have little else of substance to offer to support their
case. Example: "President Bush is what his father
once called a 'voodoo' economist; his ignorance is equalled only by his
self-confidence" (The Mail on Sunday, 5th December 2004; forms an
impression beyond the two brief statistics then presented). [Compare character
assassination and smear tactics, and note especially the operations
of 527 groups in US electioneering.]
Admissible Evidence: [See firstly evidence.]
Those categories of testimony and physical evidence accepted as evidence under
a nation's legal system. [Contrast inadmissible evidence.]
Aletheia: [Greek = "that which is no
longer hidden or forgotten", hence "truth, frankness,
sincerity".] Martin Heidegger's conceptualisation of truth as
something needing to be systematically "unconcealed" (Inwoord, 1999).
Ambiguity: A type of fallacious argument
in which a word or phrase is deliberately left less than perfectly defined
(Damer, 1995). Example: TO FOLLOW.
American Dream: "The American dream
is the concept widely held in the United States of America, that through
hard work, courage and determination one can achieve prosperity (often
associated with the Protestant work ethic). These were the values of the
original pioneers who crossed the American plains when Europeans first came to
America. What the American dream has become is a question under constant
discussion." (Wikipedia.) [See now myth,
convenient and Wister, Owen.]
Anecdote: [See firstly levels of evidence.]
"The narrative of a detailed incident, or of a single event, told as being
in itself interesting or striking" (OED). Impromptu evidence from a
single case from a single authority. Often impressively vivid, and widely used
in journalism and politics, but not validated by peer review and lacking
the formal structure of a purpose-written case study. Frequently
deployed in fallacious argument. Avoid/distrust, except if the anecdote
in question can reasonably be reclassified as professional opinion. Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Appeal to Authority: A type of fallacious argument
in which undue reliance is placed upon evidence from presumed, and
possibly even divine, experts. An attempt to sway an argument by force of
personality, reputation, or just plain fear, rather than by objective fact.
Human religious belief systems are invariably based upon arguments from
authority, delivered as fact by self-proclaimed "chosen ones" known
as "priests", and accepted by the rest of us as a matter of faith. Example:
" 'And I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt;
to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the
Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey' " (Exodus,
3:17; note the double quotation marks, since Moses is at this point reporting
the promise at second hand). [Compare hearsay evidence.]
Appeal to Fatuous Sentiment: A type of fallacious argument
in which doubting parties are showered with good news in an attempt to create a
"feel-good factor". Example: "Earlier this
year Australian electors were inundated with cheerful statistics showing that
'93 percent of voters in marginal constituencies associate living in Australia
with happiness' " (Private Eye, November 2004; in an article
predicting more of this sort of argument from the Conservative Party in the
impending British elections).
Appeal to Higher Loyalties: A subclass of account,
identified by Cohen (2001) in his discussion of denial. The rejection of
a particular line of argument concerning an alleged misdemeanour, not
on factual grounds, but because in the final analysis "you/they had no
choice but to do it". Examples: (1) "I
love them [= Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty]. They're my friends. Obviously
they have some over-the-top members, but most are absolutely lovely and so
brave. [.....] The good they do outweighs the bad so much that I'll go on
supporting them. [.....] The little hit on [victim's name]'s head was nothing
like the cuts he puts in the heads of primates." (The Times, 13th
November 2004). (2) In much the same vein, we have the "Befehl ist
Befehl" defence [German = "I was only obeying orders"] commonly
used by concentration camp junior personnel to abrogate responsibility for
their part in the Holocaust.
Appeal to Ignorance: A type of fallacious argument
in which an assertion is upheld solely because there is no immediate evidence
against it. Example: TO FOLLOW. [Compare sheer
imbecility.]
Appeal to Solidarity: A type of fallacious argument
in which doubting parties are told to toe the party line upon pain of social
ostracism or other punishment. One of the saddest facets of primate life. Example:
The US appeal for international solidarity against Iraq in the run-up to the
Second Iraq War.
Appeal to Tradition: A type of fallacious argument
in which there is undue reliance on "the way things have always been
done". Example: TO FOLLOW.
Argument (1): In science and everyday educated
debate, the process of offering "a set of reasons or evidence in
support of a conclusion" (Weston, 2000, xi). An attempt
"to support certain views with reasons" (ibid.). "A means
of inquiry" (ibid., xii). A means of working from existing
knowledge to better knowledge by developing known facts, known as "premises"
or "propositions", in new ways. "A claim supported by
other claims" (Damer, 1995, p4). "A group of statements, one or more
of which (the premises) support or provide evidence for another (the
conclusion)" (ibid.). [Compare argument (2), and do your
best to learn the differences between rational argument and fallacious
argument.]
Argument (2): In politics and religion, the use
of persuasive communication and/or special operations in the
struggle to promote or impose one or other desired set of beliefs or way of
behaving.
Argument by Adjective: To select adjectives [Psycholinguistics Glossary] for gratuitous inclusion in a
written or verbal argument in such a way as to create a deliberately
prejudicial impression of the opposing position, and/or its supporters, beyond
that justified by the evidence presented. Examples:
(1) "..... after a botched military operation in April ....."
(The Sunday Times, 14th November 2004; unnecessarily emotive choice of
negative qualifier). (2) "..... there to begin
his infamous betrayal of ....." (Hoffman, 2004; unnecessary
use of clear derogation). (3) "..... and was greeted with howling
scepticism ....." (The Times, 2nd November 2004; unnecessarily
colourful). (4) "Isolated and humiliated, Tessa Jowell saw
her plans for a casino boom torn to shreds ....." (The Daily Mail,
2nd November 2004; unnecessarily colourful). [To find out why adjectives
commonly exist in positive-negative opposed pairs, see semantic differential.]
Argument by Adverb: To select adverbs [Psycholinguistics Glossary] for gratuitous inclusion in a
written or verbal argument in such a way as to create a deliberately
prejudicial impression of the opposing position, and/or its supporters,
beyond that justified by the evidence presented. Examples:
(1) "..... John Kerry shamelessly invoked an obscure Navy directive
....." (Hoffman, 2004; unnecessary use of clear
derogation). [To find out why adverbs commonly exist in
positive-negative opposed pairs, see semantic differential.]
Argument by Analogy: [See firstly argument.] To argue
by analogy is to focus on metaphorical similarities between the issue or
phenomenon at hand, and one already deemed solved. Since this is in effect
deriving general principles from specific observations, argument by analogy is
a type of inductive reasoning. Example: TO FOLLOW.
Argument by Example: [See firstly argument.] To
argue by example is to offer "one or more specific examples in support of
a generalisation" (Weston, 2000, p10). Single examples, of course,
are illustrations only, and are weak because they lack force of numbers
[although large sample studies can be just as weak (and often a lot more
misleading) if in any way confounded or biased]. The examples chosen should above all be
"representative", that is to say, they should sample the subject area fairly and without intent to
conceal, especially if there are a number of conflicting viewpoints. Then, as a
test of their own strength, they should also specifically include, and go
out of their way to dismiss, counterexamples. Example:
"The vast expansion of addictive slot machines [.....] spells an almost
certain rise in young gambling addicts. In Australia, where a similar
deregulation has taken place, the effects have been disastrous." (The
Daily Mail, 25th October 2004; italics added; no counterexamples were
volunteered, however, rendering this an intrinsically unsafe argument.)
Argument by Metaphor: To select metaphors [Psycholinguistics Glossary] for gratuitous inclusion in a
written or verbal argument in such a way as to create a deliberately
prejudicial impression of the opposing position, and/or its supporters,
beyond that justified by the evidence presented. Example:
"The Gambling Bill is rapidly turning into a train wreck" (The
Daily Mail, 25th October 2004).
Argument by Mot Juste: To select one's words of criticism
with such linguistic finesse as to create a deliberately prejudicial impression
of the opposing position, and/or its supporters, beyond that justified by the evidence
presented. To argue by "put down" or clever jibe. Example:
Of the US Defence Department's management of the Abu Ghraib prison: "Abuse
of detainees was not aberrational" (The Daily Mail, 16th
December 2004; memorable, but not in itself evidence).
Argument by Noun: To select nouns or noun phrases [Psycholinguistics Glossary] for gratuitous inclusion in a
written or verbal argument in such a way as to create a deliberately
prejudicial impression of the opposing position, and/or its supporters,
beyond that justified by the evidence presented. Examples:
(1) "An organisation set up with National Lottery money provides fake
documents to help the relatives of henchmen for Zimbabwean president
Robert Mugabe enter Britain" (The Mail on Sunday, 20th June 2004;
calculated derogation - why select the word "henchmen", rather than
"affiliates" or "employees"?). (2) The use of the term
"insurgent" in the entry for Dirty Tricks, Department of. This
word carries the clear implication of foreign involvement in what was in fact
an indigenous resistance guerrilla force, with no more foreign advisors, either
on- or off-stage, than the government they were trying to overthrow. (3) Ditto
with the use of the term "insurgent" in reports from the Second Iraq
War, such as: "Lieutenant-General David Petraeus, the US commander
responsible for training Iraqi security forces, conceded that up to a third of
Iraq's 18 provinces were affected by the insurgency ....." (The Times,
8th December 2004).
Argument by Verb: To select verbs or verb phrases [Psycholinguistics Glossary] for gratuitous inclusion in a
written or verbal argument in such a way as to create a deliberately
prejudicial impression of the opposing position, and/or its supporters,
beyond that justified by the evidence presented. Example:
"Mr. Blair's toadying to America over Iraq has humiliated Britain
and endangered British lives, without advancing any definable national
interest" (The Times, 16th December 2004; calculated insult and
therefore subjective - "unconditional support" is more objective).
Arm's Length: The defining principle of probity
in a commercial or legal agency relationship. The notion that such people as
business agents, executors, proxy holders, trustees, brokers, and solicitors
should act in uberrimae fides in the interests of their clients, and
thus automatically, voluntarily, immediately, and without regret, steer clear
of dealings from which either they themselves, or covertly favoured third
parties, might benefit. Example: TO FOLLOW. Counterexample:
The following is most definitely NOT at arm's length: "It has been
revealed that a property developer donated £5,000 to the [name of city] Labour
Party weeks before winning a contract for a £260 million casino in the
city" (The Daily Mail, 4th November 2004). [See now declaration
of interest.]
Assumption: "An assumption is something
presupposed or taken for granted" (Watson and Glaser, 1991, p4). Properly
managed, assumption is a major critical thinking skill; mismanaged, it
is a source of fallacious argument. It follows that recognition of assumption
skills are a major component of rational argument.
Asymptote: The mathematical notion of a
straight line in two-dimensional Cartesian space, towards which a particular
curvilinear function "tends", but which it will never finally reach
until they both get to infinity. The hyperbola and the Gaussian curve are both
asymptotic in this way. The concept of asymptotes becomes centrally relevant to
the present topic whenever an argument starts to hinge on low-probability
issues (e.g. the chance of a nuclear terrorist strike in the next 24 hours).
This is because those who have not grasped the concept of infinity have
dangerously simplistic minds, and instantly judge low probability situations as
impossible rather than as highly improbable [that is to say, they have no
conception of the difference between a probability of zero and one which
is merely very close to zero, and err accordingly].
Atrocity: "An act of extreme cruelty and
heinousness" (OED), usually involving an armed attack on civilians or
disarmed military, perhaps as a reprisal, perhaps in the indisciplined heat of
the moment, but always providing a focus for the righteous indignation of the
aggrieved side. It is of course difficult to maintain an objective definition
with a topic as sensitive as this, but the critical factor seems to be that
atrocities are deemed over-the-top and unacceptable even within one's own
ranks. This is what distinguishes an atrocity from a massacre, say, where
it tends to be body count alone which is remarkable, rather than the manner in
which that body count was achieved. Thus the Boston Massacre would be an
atrocity, because unarmed civilians were on the receiving end, whilst the
"Marianas Turkey Shoot" would be a massacre but not an atrocity,
because it was basically a fair - albeit somewhat uneven - fight. [The Marianas
"whuppin'" was the logical outcome of some excellent generalship, and
that is what wars are all about.] Examples: Nanking,
Bloody Sunday, Omagh, My Lai, Nine-Eleven, Srebrenica, etc., etc., and as many
again without memento. The irony is that atrocities are usually self-defeating,
because they stiffen the resolve of the surviving enemy not to surrender [as
happened, for example, in the Battle of Bastogne, December 1944, following the
infamous "Massacre at Malmedy"]. [See now false atrocity and atrocity
gap.]
Atrocity Gap: [See firstly atrocity.] In
time of war, declared or otherwise, an "atrocity gap" is any mismatch
between the number of atrocities factually being committed by a nation's own
armed forces and the number factually being committed by one's enemy's. For
maximum public support, that ratio must always be about 1000:1 in your favour,
and, should it ever fall below that, must immediately be adjusted (a) by
covering up your own misdemeanours that much more effectively, and (b) by the
invention of false atrocities on the part of the enemy.
Attitude/Attitude of Mind: In everyday usage, an
"attitude" is a disposition or posture of a person or thing, and
hence also a "settled behaviour or manner of acting, as representative of
feeling or opinion" (OED), and an "attitude of mind" is a
"deliberately adopted, or habitual, mode of regarding the object of
thought" (OED). In philosophy and cognitive psychology, the basic
definition is the same but there is greater emphasis on the approach-avoidance
side of attitudes, that is to say, their "emotional" aspect. Thus
while Katz and Stotland (1959, p428) define attitude as "a tendency or
disposition to evaluate an object or the symbol of that object in a certain
way", Insko (1967, p12) defines attitudes as "implicit responses
oriented toward approaching or avoiding, reacting favourably or unfavourably
toward, an object or symbol". So we need to consider several mental
factors simultaneously, namely (1) the cognitive aspects (or beliefs),
(2) the evaluative aspects (or judgements), (3) the
"affective" aspects (or emotions), (4) the behavioural aspects (the
approach-avoidance attitudes), and (5) the verbalisable aspects (the opinions).
The formal literature on attitudes goes back to Allport (1935), and includes
many papers from the period 1945-1955 summarising public information
operations during the Second World War. [Compare opinions and beliefs,
and then see attitude change.]
Attitude Certainty: [See firstly metacognition.]
A "metacognitive perspective" on one's own attitudes (Tormala and Petty (2004), enabling them to be assessed on
perceived certainty. Example: To be 90% convinced,
perhaps, that it is reasonable to despise liars.
Attitude Change: Changes in the cognitive,
evaluative, and approach-avoidance aspects of an attitude, either (a) spontaneously,
(b) as the result of rational argument, (c) as the result of fallacious
argument and/or propaganda, or (d) as the result of thought
reform or indoctrination. Fortunately [and we use that word very
advisedly, for it would be a weapon of mass mental destruction if it did
exist], there is no final agreed theory of attitude change, merely the
accumulated practical experience of those who make an (extremely rich) living
at it. This is because attitude change is one of the areas where the half dozen
or so classic "perspectives" (or "schools") of
psychological explanation all come up with their own view on what cognition is
and how it interacts with our more emotional inner selves. [See now the five separate
entries following.]
Attitude Change Theory (Behaviourist
Perspective): The
textbook behaviourist approach to understanding attitude change is
Hovland, Janis, and Kelley's (1953) "Reinforcement Theory". These
authors class both opinions and attitudes as "intervening
variables" (p7) [Research Methods Glossary], and see them as being determined
initially by many years of both direct and indirect reward. The art of changing
them, therefore, is a matter of further manipulating that reward system.
Attitude Change Theory (Cognitive
Dissonance Theory):
The cognitivist approach to attitude has evolved markedly over the last
half century. One of the earliest theories was by Festinger (1957), who saw the
need for what we know about one thing to be consistent with what we know about
all other things as well. Where there was inconsistency - or
"dissonance" - between any two knowledges, there is a pressure to
reduce that dissonance, and one way of doing this is to change the attitudinal
content of one of the contenders (typically the weaker of the two). [See now metacognition
as a possible vehicle for the resolution of such dissonance.]
Attitude Change Theory (Group
Theory): As troop
animals, it is not surprising that our attitudes are largely determined
by the processes of socialisation, firstly into our immediate family
circle, and subsequently into our peer and occupational groups. It follows that
counter-attitudinal influences ought to be more effective if they are
group-approved, and less effective if not. Much of the pioneer work here was
carried out by Kurt Lewin at the MIT Research Centre for Group Dynamics
which he helped found in 1944.
Attitude Change Theory
(Psychodynamic Theory): The psychodynamic approach to attitude change looks for its
explanations in the psychosexual unconscious. The whole point of Freud's
psychoanalytical analysis was that attitudinal cognitions are invariably locked
into a certain pattern because they have been attached to deeper emotional
forces within the unconscious. This makes them difficult to change without
first resolving those underlying tensions. The key works here are Sarnoff (1951,
1960, 1962) and Sarnoff and Zimbardo (1961), and the key concepts are (a) ego
defences such as repression, projection, denial, and identification,
and (b) the notion that attitudes can arise from consciously unacceptable
motives such as lust, hatred, and greed.
Attitude Change Theory (Semantic
Differential Theory):
Another early cognitivist theory of attitude change invoked Osgood's notion of
the "semantic differential". This method of analysis was developed by
Charles E. Osgood at the University of Illinois (Osgood, 1952; Osgood, Suci,
and Tannenbaum, 1958), and presumed that a mental stance on any subject
consisted of a number of simultaneous bipolar evaluations. Each dimension of
evaluation set two adjectival opposites against each other, and something
between half a dozen and a dozen simultaneous evaluations could create a
powerful multidimensional profile of the given subject. If we want to change an
attitude which has been put together in this way, then we have to know how to
reset one or more of these dimensions, and Osgood sees this as what happens (or
fails to happen) whenever a counter-attitudinal claim is received. This induces
a momentary state of disequilibrium, which is then reflected upon until it
resolves. Example: Intellectual and moral affiliation to a
political party might result in evaluations as underlined on the following
dimensional profile: GOOD-BAD BEAUTIFUL-UGLY VALUABLE-WORTHLESS
HONOURABLE-DISHONOURABLE KIND-CRUEL, etc. If the
object of that affiliation is then caught cynically lying to you, then the
HONOURABLE evaluation might reasonably flip to DISHONOURABLE,
which is then inconsistent with all the others. This tension can be resolved in
two ways, namely (a) flipping all evaluations to their negatives, or (b) rationalising
the dishonourable behaviour back into an honourable one, perhaps by one of the
forms of psychological denial. [See now metacognition as a
possible vehicle for the resolution of such tensions.]
Aura of Sacredness: [See firstly totalism.] One of
the eight factors identified by Lifton (1961) as making for an effective system
of thought reform. Totalism, according to Lifton, "maintains an
aura of sacredness around its basic dogma, holding it out as an ultimate moral
vision for the ordering of human existence" (p486).
Bacon, Sir Francis: [See firstly scientific method.]
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was the Elizabethan author of "The
Advancement of Learning", one of the earliest expositions of how to use inductive
reasoning in the pursuit of new knowledge.
Barnum Effect: [See firstly flattery.]
Concept from Forer (1949) and term from O'Dell (1972) and Snyder and Shenkel
(1975) to describe the gullibility of people in accepting vague
generalisations such as horoscope predictions and personality profile
descriptions as more uniquely applicable to them than can possibly be the case.
So named after Phineas T. Barnum, whose circus prided itself on having
something for everybody, no matter how discerning they thought themselves. [For
more on this, see Dickson and Kelly (1985).]
Barnum, Phineas T. (1810-1891): American showman.
Begging the Question: [See firstly argument.]
A type of fallacious argument in which the answer is, upon alert
inspection, seen to be avoiding the question by simply restating it. "Any
form of argument in which the conclusion occurs as one of the premises,
or a chain or arguments in which the final conclusion is a premise of
one of the earlier arguments in the chain" (Curtis, 2004 online), or in
which you assume to be true what you are supposed to be proving. An assertion
upheld by what is in reality a "circular argument"; in effect that
"A equals A". [Compare tautology.]
Belief: In
everyday usage, a belief is the "mental acceptance of a proposition,
statement, or fact, as true, on the ground of authority or evidence; assent of
the mind to a statement, or to the truth of a fact beyond observation, on the
testimony of another" (OED). It is that which gives "strength and
solidarity" to a related idea. Within psychology, a
belief "is a representational mental state that takes the form of a
propositional attitude" (Wikipedia), or "the recognition
of existence" (Spencer 1885/1970, p14). Beliefs are thus the cognitive component of an
attitude. Within modern cognitive science, beliefs are dealt with in the
language of propositions [Psycholinguistics Glossary] and propositional memory [Memory Glossary]. They are the conceptual structures which
generate subject-predicate [Psycholinguistics Glossary] statements of the form "I
believe that .....". [See now believe, to.]
Belief System: [See firstly belief and
attitude.] A belief system [more properly, an attitude system] is
a body of coherently interrelated beliefs or attitudes, bound together by a common
relation to an issue of concern within that society. Thus a society which
earned its living from the sea would have at its disposal an accumulation of
knowledge relating to boats, fishing, navigation, etc. As such, this would
constitute an epistemology, or to use a more modern term, a knowledge
base. It would not rank as a belief system, however, because the individual
beliefs would lack the emotional cathexis needed to qualify them as
attitudes. The knowledge base would only be elevated to the status of a formal
belief system when it started to offer solace and specious explanation to death
and other sad circumstances of life. In short, a belief system is a knowledge
base with a few superstitions and myths thrown in.
Believe, To: In everyday usage, to believe is
"to have confidence or faith in (a person), and consequently to
rely upon, trust to" (OED; italics original). Within psychology, it is an
important example of a "mental verb" [Psycholinguistics Glossary], one of a small subset of verbs we
use (a) to describe our own mental states, and (b) to understand the mental
states of those around us. [See now believe in.]
Believe In, To: [See firstly believe.] The
verb "to believe in" is even more psychologically complicated
than the verb "to believe", carrying as it does the connotation of
votive faith. To believe in is to accept "the truth of a statement or
doctrine" (OED). [See now belief system.]
Bias (1): In everyday usage, to bias is
"to influence or incline (one) to do anything" and a bias is "a
preponderating disposition or propensity" (OED). In psychology, "a
bias is a prejudice in a general or specific sense, usually in the sense
for having a predilection to one particular point of view or ideology" (Wikipedia).
Bias (2): For the problems associated with the
technical concept of bias in research, see the corresponding entry in our Research Methods Glossary.
Black Propaganda: [See firstly special operations
and Department of Dirty Tricks.] "Black propaganda is propaganda
that purports to be from a source on one side of a conflict, but is actually
from the opposing side" (Wikipedia). In peacetime, black propaganda is one
of the tools of undeclared war; in wartime, it becomes one of the most powerful
tools of psychological warfare. Examples: Included
in the Wikipedia definition.
Blog: [Abbreviation of the Internet technical term
"web log".] [See firstly pamphleteer and Tom Paine.]
"An online diary, an internet soapbox from which a blogger can pour down a
varied flood of commentary, confession, and contemporaneous reporting [.....] a return of pamphleteering as a political force, and the
revival of the citizen-journalist" (Macintyre, 2004, p30).
Bluster: [Old German blustern = "to flutter
or flap the wings in alarm like a frightened dove, etc." (OED).] Words
a-plenty, but largely devoid of coherence or meaning; in the spotlights, but
with nothing substantive to say. Example: TO FOLLOW. Many
species of bird bluster when under threat from a predator, the net effect of
which is to divert said predator's attention from their nest. Indeed, the topic
of tactical deception of this sort in animal behaviour was reviewed by Byrne
and Whiten (1988) and is now a very popular area of comparative psychology.
[See also "Machiavellian Intelligence".]
Brainwashing: [Chinese hsi nao =
"wash brain"] A specific historical instance of forcible indoctrination,
and a sub-technique of the broader practice of Communist Chinese thought
reform. Term coined in the mid-20th century to describe the forcible
"re-education" both of indigenous intellectuals and UN prisoners of
war by the North Koreans and Chinese during the Korean War. The ultimate
purpose was to have individual prisoners genuinely reverse their political
allegiance, and occasional successes were deployed either openly for propaganda
purposes or covertly for espionage purposes. Nevertheless, it has always been
somewhere between very difficult and impossible to achieve the sort of total mind
control popularised in Richard Condon's 1959 novel "The Manchurian
Candidate" (filmed 1962 and 2004).
Briefing Against: Covert ad hominem
argument within what is nominally the same team. Secretive, rather than
public, character assassination, typically by planting derogatory
rumours with media contacts. Furtive and malicious whispering intended to
undermine a rival's credibility and reputation. Standard practice in UK
politics, and, presumably, world wide. Examples: (1)
Tony Blair's briefings against his colleague Clare Short. (2)
David Blunkett's briefings against the Metropolitan Police's SO13
anti-terrorist squad. "Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John
Stevens demanded an apology from the Home Secretary after Mr. Blunkett blamed
the SO13 squad for leaking details of a planned gas attack on the London
Underground. The two men had a blazing row when Mr. Blunkett admitted that he
knew the allegation was false" (The Mail on Sunday, 12th December
2004).
Browbeat, To: "To bear down, discourage, or
oppose, with stern, arrogant, or insolent looks or words; to snub, to
bully" (OED). A type of fallacious argument in which one
party is bullied into submission by the force of another's personality. Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Bryce Commission: [See firstly false atrocity and
public information operations.] British government propaganda committee created
in late 1914 under Lord Bryce, on the pretext of documenting German war
crimes, but responsible in fact for conjuring atrocity stories more or less out
of thin air, in an effort to maintain the necessary British-German atrocity
gap. Of the 1200 depositions taken, none were made under oath and when
their accuracy was challenged after the war the paperwork "had
mysteriously disappeared" (Knightley, 1982, p68). Perhaps significantly, a
Belgian commission of enquiry in 1922 "failed markedly to corroborate a
single major allegation" (Ibid.). "One of the triumphs of the
war, on the propaganda front" (Lasswell, 1927/1971, p19).
Bryce, Viscount James (1838-1922): Author of the Bryce Commission
Report.
Buchan, Colonel John (1875-1940): British author (notably of
"The 39 Steps", 1914), recruited in 1916 into the British Army's
Intelligence Corps, and promoted in February 1917 to be Director of the newly
established Department of Information, there to continue to exercise his
literary imagination on behalf of British public information operations.
Burden of Proof Principle: The third of Damer's (1995) 12
basic principles of rational argument. The principle that it is the duty of the
person making a controversial claim "to provide an appropriate argument in
support of it" (p176).
Bury, To: In the present context, to
"bury" is to report bad news about topic X in the midst of a major
ongoing news story about topic Y, and - being totally legal - is one of the
neatest dirty tricks available to politicians. There is no attempt at rational
argument, in other words, merely a cynical attempt to avoid one. Example:
Before the dust had cleared from the ruins of the World Trade Centre on 11th
September 2001, those in charge of British public information operations
were seeing it as an opportunity to slip out a few negative pieces of news.
Bystander Denial: The third subcategory of denial
of agency, as proposed by Cohen (2001). Denial by the witnesses,
actual and remote, to an atrocity.
Cabal: [From the initials of the five members of
Charles II's "Cabal Ministry", so named then, and so remembered now,
because serendipitously similar to Kabbalah and the latter's undertones
of secrecy.] "A cabal is a number of persons united in some close design,
usually to promote their private views and interests in church or state by
intrigue; a secret association ....." (Wikipedia).
Camarilla: [Spanish = "little
room".] "A clique that seeks power, usually through intrigue" (Hyperdictionary). "A group of
confidential, often scheming advisers; a cabal" (TheFreeDictionary).
Carbonari: [Italian = "charcoal-burners"]
A Italian secret society, responsible in the early-19th century for
political intrigue initially in the Kingdom of Naples, and later, as the
organisation grew in size and influence, throughout Europe.
Case History: [Alternatively "case
notes".] The notes maintained by healthcare professionals of their
dealings with their patients, thus providing a time-extensive record of each patient's
signs and symptoms, test results, treatments given, progress, and prognosis,
and, in turn, an accepted basis of both scientific and legal evidence.
[See now case study.]
Case Study: [See firstly case history.] Evidence
from a single case history, condensed and formally structured for peer
review and publication. Case studies will usually contain an abbreviated
case history, supplemented by observations and speculations on the background
theory. Example: To see a typical neuropsychological case
study, try Wheatley and McGrath (1997). Case studies are extremely good science
in their own way, but suffer nonetheless from the problems inherent to all "n-of-one" research, not the least of which is that
they tend, by their very nature, to encourage argument by example.
Cathexis: In psychodynamic theory, cathexis
is the process of investing libidinal [= emotionally loaded]
"energies" in cognitive structures such as object concepts [whence
fetishes], person concepts [whence fixations], propositions [whence attitudes],
or schemas [whence belief systems].
Causal Closure:
[See firstly domains and properties.]
Kim's (1993) term for statements of the following form: "Any physical event that has a cause at time t has a physical cause at t" (p280). The essence
of explanations based on
propositions such as this is that the answer lies wholly within the domain in
question; the domain, in other words, is causally
closed. Physicalism is accordingly the prime example of causal closure at
work.
Causal
Diagram: [See firstly multiple causation.] A sketch-map
of the decision points and optional event pathways in a complex causal line
relationship.
Causal
Line: [See firstly macrocausation vs microcausation.]
A causal line is Bertrand Russell's conception of "a temporal series of events so related that, given some of
them, something can be inferred about the others whatever may be happening
elsewhere" (Russell, 1948, p459). Causal lines will not in fact be linear
where (and to the extent that) the relationship in question involves multiple causation.
Causal Oversimplification: A type of fallacy identified
by Damer (1995), and characterised
to a greater or lesser extent by oversimplification of the "causal
antecedents of an event" (p188). This is arguably the single most useful
fallacy if the intention is to sway public opinion on some subject, because
the majority of those addressed have neither the time nor the intelligence to
appreciate more complex material. Example: TO FOLLOW.
Causal
Rule: A specific, coherent, and fallacy-free explanation of one or more event-pairs in a causal line. An
explanation for which there exists a body of empirical support, and for which
no alternative construction has been offered, even after sustained critical
consideration.
Causality:
"The operation or relation
of cause and effect" (OED). For psychologists, the word
"causality" usually refers to the compelling phenomenal judgement
(once certain conditions of contiguity have been satisfied) that one event has resulted in the occurrence of
another. So powerful is this judgement, indeed, that it will persist even when
the experiencer knows that no cause and effect relationship exists, in the same
way that visual illusions persist even once their illusory nature has been
noted. The problem may be illustrated by considering the "stage
punch", where actors feign fisticuffs without actually getting hurt.
Actors throwing a blow, for example, deliberately swing an inch or so short,
while actors being "hit" co-operate in the illusion by jerking the appropriate
part of their body away at just the right time, and by crying out in pain.
Carefully synchronised sound effects can be added as appropriate to intensify
the illusion. Many theatrical special
effects, conjuring tricks, and perceptual illusions work in similar
ways. The effective variables were discussed more than half a century ago by
the Belgian psychologist Albert Michotte (e.g. Michotte, 1946, 1963), and some vivid demonstrations are
nowadays available in online simulation [see, for example, our 2018 conference
presentation entitled "On Cognitive Primitives and Trick
Cinematography" - link at top of homepage]. Because causality is
accordingly a "reserved word" in the psychological lexicon, it should
be carefully distinguished from causation,
the philosophical study of cause and effect. We may not enforce this
distinction overzealously, however, because both words have been used in the
cause and effect domain. Indeed, particular caution is needed when reading
Kant's Kritik
(or derivative works), because where Kant originally wrote Kausalität
it has been brought across into English as "causality" when
"causation" would have been more consistent (e.g. Kant, 1781/1787,
p217).
Causation:
"The action of causing; production of an effect" (O.E.D.). One of the
fundamental principles of science is that there is regularity, reliability, and
order in the natural world. Scientists then use the resulting predictability to
control chemical reactions, calculate the positions of the planets many
hundreds of years in advance, and generally bend the physical world to our
will. Aristotle led the early theorising with his classification of four causes
[tell me more]
only to be conceptually superceded in the opening
decade of the 17th century by Francis Bacon's new scientific method. The philosopher David Hume then provided us with
the first integrated theory of causation in the mid-18th century. This theory
is now commonly referred to as Humean causation, and includes the compulsory warning that
the sense of causation which comes with detecting a cum
hoc correlation between two types of event is often deceptive and
counterproductive. And the reason it all matters, of course, is that
"causation forms an integral part of evaluating explanations"
(Park, 2003). [See now multiple
causation and (for the real complications) supervenience.]
Cause: [See firstly causal line.] "That
which produces an effect" (O.E.D.). The antecedent event in an event-pair
for which a causal rule is being proposed; that which brought about the effect.
Note, however, that with multiple causation there may be several contributory
causes, all antecedent, and all converging (but not necessarily equally)
onto the same effect.
Cause and
Effect: See causation.
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA): US government agency founded in
1947, and responsible for "coordinating the nation's intelligence activities
and correlating, evaluating and disseminating intelligence which affects
national security" (CIA website) [see also the agency's current Vision, Mission, and Values]. These duties included (and still
include) waging a highly assertive peace with carefully planned and targeted special
operations, which, because secrecy can never be totally guaranteed, soon
generated enough rumours to earn the agency a reputation as the class-defining
example of a Department of Dirty Tricks.
Character Assassination: The deliberate, but of the
essence unactionable, defamation of a rival. One of the classic dirty tricks
of commercial or public life. Examples: (1) A good
modern example of character assassination comes from the Texan politician
(later President) Lyndon B. Johnson, who reputedly instructed his aides to
spread the word that a political rival was rather partial to having sex with pigs,
not because this was necessarily true, but because it was going to be extremely
difficult for the victim to deny [fuller story]. (2) "In hindsight,
his [= US Democratic candidate John Kerry's] obvious objective was to emulate
his idol, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, serve as short a time as possible, and
escape Vietnam unscathed but with sufficient credentials and decorations to
portray himself in heroic terms" (Hoffman, 2004 online). [See now 527 group.]
Charity Principle: The fourth of Damer's (1995) 12
basic principles of rational argument. The principle that you should go
out of your way to understand your opponent's argument by reformulating it for
open discussion and presenting it in the best possible light. Charity is
important, Damer points out, because it is actually in your own interests:
"if we are really interested in the truth or the best answer to a problem,
then we will want to evaluate the best version of any argument set forth in
support of one of the options. Hence, if we don't deal with the best version
now, we will eventually have to do so ....." (p178; italics added).
CIA: See Central Intelligence Agency.
Cinematic Illusion: The illusion of smooth
movement which comes when the separate frames making up a cinematic film are
projected faster than a certain threshold speed.
Circular Argument: See begging the question.
Civilian Casualties: The sons, daughters, mothers,
fathers, brothers, sisters, neighbours, etc. of enemy servicemen, who, by not
running far and fast enough, have chosen to put themselves in harm's way and
accordingly only have themselves to blame if they get hurt. Although protected
since 1950 by the "Fourth Geneva Convention" (the Geneva Convention
relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons [full text]), civilians have always been deemed a legitimate
target in times of war. Examples: (1) The estimate
for civilian casualties in the Second World War is over 30 million [breakdown]. (2) The estimate for civilian
casualties in the Korean War is around two million (Knightley, 1982). (3)
The estimate for civilian casualties in the Vietnam War is anything up to four
million. (4) The estimate for civilian casualties in the Second Iraq War
to date is 100,000 [breakdown] (The Independent, 29th
October 2004, citing a report by Dr. Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health).
Clarity Principle: The fifth of Damer's (1995) 12
basic principles of rational argument. The principle that "any
successful discussion of an issue must be carried on in language that is
understood by all the parties involved" (p178). Linguistic clarity is
important, Damer stresses, because "confusion is not the place to stop a
discussion [but rather] the starting place" (p179). In other words,
it is wrong for an argument to be dropped simply because the participants have
become bored with it and have "agreed to differ"; they differ because
they have been unclear and they owe it to the ideal of aletheia to
remedy that lack of clarity and carry on arguing. [But carefully contrast suspension
of judgement principle.]
Cliché: A type of fallacy identified by Damer (1995),
and characterised by the use of well worn, but, upon inspection, far from
proven, assertions. Example: "There's a whiff of
snobbery in some of the opposition to new casinos" (Tessa Jowell,
quoted in The Daily Mail, 25th October 2004).
"Cock-Up" or Conspiracy: Polar opposite habitual stances in
how individuals prefer to explain unexplained historical events to themselves,
usually as a reflection of one's own personality and personal attitudes.
[See separately "cock-up" theory and conspiracy theory.]
"Cock-Up" Theory: An explanation from the
"cock-up" end of the "cock-up" or conspiracy
dimension. The notion that most major events in history either just happened,
or (at worst) happened thanks to the sheer incompetence of the politicians and
civil servants who ought to have been preventing them. Example:
To conclude that the death of Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, was a
straightforward road traffic accident is to side with the "cock-up"
theorists in this instance, and may be contrasted with Example #2 in the entry
for conspiracy theory.
Coincidence: "A notable concurrence of
events or circumstances having no apparent causal connection" (OED). The
real issue is how many coincidences make a causal rule, and that
question has been exercising statisticians for over a century. [The answer,
incidentally, is that it depends how strong a rule you
want, but never less than eight, this being the shortest "run" of
identical results in a "heads-or-tails" situation to return a 5% significance
value in the binomial sign test - see these entries in our Research Methods Glossary.]
Committee on Public Information: US governmental agency created in
1917 under George Creel to oversee public information operations
in America during World War One.
Conclusion: The objective of reasoning.
Confession: [See firstly totalism.] One
of the eight factors identified by Lifton (1961) as making for an effective
system of thought reform. Totalism, according to Lifton, is
"obsessed" with getting its opponents to confess their transgressions
(one of which, needless to say, is being opposed to the regime in question in
the first place).
Conspiracy Theory: An explanation from the conspiracy
end of the "cock-up" or conspiracy dimension. The notion that
most major events in history were plotted in advance either by cabal or secret
service. Examples: (1) See the hyperlinks in
the entry for freemason. (2) To conclude that the death of
Lady Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales, was occasioned by the British secret
service at the instigation of an exasperated father-in-law is to side with the
conspiracy theorists in this instance, and may be contrasted with Example #1 in
the entry for "cock-up" theory. (3) "After the
secrecy surrounding Mr. Arafat's final days, Ramallah is rife with rumours
about his [having been poisoned]" (The Times, 17th November 2004).
Contemporary Denial: The second subcategory of denial
(historical or contemporary), as proposed by Cohen (2001). Denial of an ongoing atrocity, assisted by "a
perceptual filter placed over reality" (p13). Example:
The "compassion fatigure" which comes from seeing yet another news report of starving children.
Contributory
Causation: [See firstly causation
and multiple causation.] The apportionment of
causal influence amongst two or more causes during
multiple causation. [Now compare necessary cause and sufficient
cause.]
Convenient Myth: See myth, convenient.
Conventional Wisdom: [See firstly causation.] The popular interpretation of a phenomenon or event; an
established, but in the final analysis unproven, explanation of some
phenomenon. Uneducated opinion; public consensus;
presumed, rather than proven, cause. Example: That
the British are better at discharging the duties of occupation force in Iraq
than are the Americans, as per the following from one Black Watch squaddie:
"..... we have controlled the situation down here
[the Basra sector] while the Americans seem to have ruined it up there [around
Baghdad]" (The Independent, 29th October 2004). [Compare counterfeit
wisdom.]
Correlation: "Mutual relation of two or
more things (implying intimate or necessary connection)" (OED). Of
variables, to vary as though mutually contingent, increasing and decreasing
either (a) together, or (b) in opposition [see the entries for positive
correlation and negative correlation respectively in our Research Methods Glossary]. The ability to detect
correlations in everyday life from the perceived commonalities of a number of instances, appears to be a basic property of the neural
tissue with which we have been endowed, and is generally a good thing. However,
the mind can just as easily be tricked into the conclusion that two occurrences
are related by a causal rule when in truth they merely share an
as-yet-undetected common cause, and this alluring misjudgement is at the heart
of many a fallacious argument. [See now cum hoc ergo propter hoc,
and the examples therein.]
Counterfeit
Wisdom: A
sub-variety of persuasive communication, in which this or that
convenient over-simplification is dressed up for political or similar purposes. A glib or populist explanation
which is (a) couched as wisdom, (b) "fronted" by a celebrity of some
sort, and (c) pleases the public viscera rather than taxes the public mind. Intellectual pap. Superficiality
incarnate. The wisdom of the "shallow minded" as seen from the
standpoint of those too uncritical to notice the myriad inconsistencies and
contradictions concealed therein (after Habermehl, 1994). Example:
Habermehl is particularly scathing about the late Ronald Reagan's contribution
to the history of informed and critical debate.
Cover Story: A deliberately falsified official
explanation, put about with the intention of concealing an unpleasant or
operationally sensitive truth. Example: See the
story of the Dahran Scud Attack, 1991, in our online database of "Aerospace
Disasters".
Credit Boom (Systems View): A systems approach to the UK
consumer credit boom of the last decade would attempt to provide hard data on
such embarrassing issues as (1) the likely net export of GDP where the creditor
institutions are offshore, (2) the likely impact of personal debt on consumer
spending and employment in general, and on the housing market in particular,
(3) the likely cost to the taxpayer of the resulting increased load on social
services, and (4) the likely cost to the banking system of any consequent rise
in bad debt. Example: "A woman who borrowed £10,800
to install a new kitchen is having to sell her home
after her loan spiralled to more than £220,000. [.....] When [name] failed to
keep up with the £240-a-month repayments the debt rapidly grew. Each time she
missed a payment it was added back to the total with compound interest" (The
Daily Mail, 25th November 2004; attempts to enforce usurous contracts like
this are now being thrown out of British courts of law under unfair trading
legislation).
Creel, George (1876-1953): [selected Internet biography] American journalist selected in
1917 as Director of the Committee on Public Information. Published his
memoirs under the title "How We Advertised America" (Creel, 1920) [review of contents by
www.historytools.org/sources].
Critical Evaluation: The skill of spotting fallacy
in academic argument, and accordingly one of the principal ingredients of
"graduateness".
Critical Thinking: One of the two main constituent
skills of effective reasoning (the other being inference). That
which is measured by the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking
Appraisal - see the
separate entries for deductive reasoning, inference, interpretation,
and recognition of assumptions.
Cultural Denial: The third subcategory of denial
(individual or shared), as proposed by Cohen (2001). Denial which
involves "unwritten agreements" (p11) about what a society ought to
believe, and, accordingly, ought to deny. Example:
"Brutalities against indigenous peoples" (p11).
Cum Hoc ergo Propter Hoc: [Latin = "with this therefore because of
this".] A type of fallacious argument in which a simple coincidence
is confused with causation. A correlation by confounding
variable [Research Methods Glossary]
or coincidence, rather than by a causal rule. Example:
It may be taken as a fact that ice cream sales are strongly correlated with
crime rates, but it is nevertheless wholly fallacious to conclude either (a)
that ice cream causes crime, or (b) that crime creates an appetite for ice
cream. So what is to blame, then? Check it out. [Compare post hoc ergo
propter hoc.]
Damer's Twelve Principles: Damer's (1995) analysis and summary
of the separate mental disciplines which make for "effective rational
discussion" (p172). [See now the separate entries for acceptability
principle, burden of proof principle, charity principle, clarity
principle, fallibility principle, rebuttal principle, reconsideration
principle, relevance principle, resolution principle, sufficient
grounds principle, suspension of judgement principle, truth-seeking
principle.]
Damned by Faint Praise: [See firstly argument by
adjective.] A figure of speech [Psycholinguistics Glossary] in which one's real opinion on a
given issue or of a given person or group becomes clear by a refusal to
allocate a highly positive adjectival qualifier. To make one's reservations
apparent by what one cannot bring oneself to say. Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Damned by High Praise: [See firstly argument by
adjective.] A figure of speech [Psycholinguistics Glossary] in which one's real opinion on a
given issue or of a given person or group is concealed by gratuitous and
condescending flattery. Example: "President
Bush, asked if he shared some critics' view of Mr. Blair as his 'poodle', said:
'He is a strong capable man and I admire him ... When he says something he
means it. He is deep thinking and has clear vision'". (The Times,
13th November 2004.) [See now patting the poodle.]
Deception (1): "That which deceives; a piece
of trickery; a cheat, sham" (OED). Of animals and humans alike, to conceal
as to physical presence, identity, or intention. To dissemble. The use of
deception techniques in the animal world became a major study area within
comparative psychology after a keynote paper by Byrne and Whiten (1988). Its
development in children has been studied by Vasek (1986). Example:
See under bluster above. [The potential of animal tactical deception
methods as models for improving human military effectiveness has recently been
publicly summarised by the Rand Corporation (2004 online). See also Machiavellian intelligence.]
Deception (2): See the entries for ethics
and deception in our Research Methods Glossary.
Decision Making: One of the standard stages of
problem solving. The selection of a particular course of action from a choice
of several courses of action, each already thoroughly evaluated and costed
against evidence presented. [See Step #5 of the "problem solving
wheel" in our e-tutorial on "System
Defects".]
[Compare medical decision making.]
Declaration of Interest: [See firstly arm's length.]
The formal recording of a personal interest, actual or potential, by such
people as business agents, executors, proxy holders, trustees, brokers, and
solicitors. "Coming clean" in advance. Being "up
front".
Deductive Reasoning: [See firstly reasoning.]
Deductive reasoning, or simply "deduction", is what you might call
"Sherlock Holmes reasoning", and involves deriving a specific conclusion
from the available observations, given the prevailing understanding of the
world. Thus if X has taken place and you know that X will causally induce Y,
then you can deduce that Y is about to take place also. Alternatively, given a
RULE (the first premise) and a CASE (the second premise), we reach a
CONCLUSION (after Skemp, 2002/2004 online). The issue hinges, however, on
whether the conclusion necessarily follows the given facts, and,
since the ability to make such fine judgements is not distributed uniformly
throughout the population, deductive reasoning powers are accordingly commonly
seen in psychometric tests portfolios. Example: Test
#3 of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking
Appraisal is a test
of deductive reasoning, and is structured as follows [correct answers shown in
square brackets]. You are presented with the following scenario: "Some
holidays are rainy. All rainy days are boring. Therefore .....": (1) No
clear days are boring [NO]. (2) Some holidays are boring [YES]. (3) Some
holidays are not boring [NO]. Weston (2000) points out that deductive arguments
can sometimes field many true premises, but derive a false conclusion
nonetheless. An important subclass of two-premise deductions is called syllogisms.
[Compare abductive reasoning and inductive reasoning.]
Democracy: [Greek = "rule by the
people"] "That form of government in which the sovereign power
resides in the people as a whole, and is exercised either directly by them [or]
by officers elected by them" (OED). The Greek ideal is cited as the
inspiration for today's party-dominated, elected-representative, parliamentary
democracies, but there is ample room for criticism. The elected representative
aspect of the system is particularly important in the present context, because
not only does it set the people and their chosen government in a state of
eternal confrontation, but it also blurs the allocation of responsibility. For
example, it gives an elected government the mandate to slaughter in their
nation's name rather than in their own [whence the illocutionary power of the
"NOT IN MY NAME" tee-shorts popular with opponents of the Iraq War],
and - perhaps more worryingly - it also gives your enemy the perceived right to
inflict civilian casualties upon you in return (because you voted the
real perpetrators in).
Denial: An important psychodynamic defence mechanism,
in which your attitudinal structures are protected from descending into
emotional turmoil by voluntarily distorting unpleasant incoming facts. Rejection
of the truth by denying the underlying propositions in some way.
Believing what your viscera want to believe, rather than the evidence
of your eyes and ears. Cohen (2001) identifies five "elementary
forms" of denial, some with a number of subcategories. These five forms
are denial of content, denial (individual or shared), denial
(historical or contemporary), denial of agency, and denial by
remoteness in space and time.
Denial by Remoteness in Space and
Time: The fifth of
Cohen's (2001) five "elementary forms" of denial. Denial
justified by remoteness in space and time.
Denial (Historical or Contemporary): The third of Cohen's (2001) five
"elementary forms" of denial. Denial placed on a continuum of
historical time. Further subdivided into two subcategories, namely historical
denial and contemporary denial - see separate entries.
Denial (Individual or Shared): The second of Cohen's (2001) five
"elementary forms" of denial. Denial placed on a continuum of
personal involvement, from private to collective. Further subdivided into three
subcategories, namely personal denial, official denial, and cultural
denial - see separate entries.
Denial of Agency: The fourth of Cohen's (2001) five
"elementary forms" of denial. Denial placed within the
"atrocity triangle" (p14) of victim, perpetrator, and bystander, that
is to say, denial of victim, denial of perpetrator, and bystander
denial - see separate entries.
Denial of Content: The first of Cohen's (2001) five
"elementary forms" of denial. Denial of what. Further
subdivided into three subcategories, namely literal denial, interpretive
denial, and implicatory denial - see separate entries.
Denial of Perpetrator: The second subcategory of denial
of agency, as proposed by Cohen (2001). Denial by the active
participants in an atrocity. Examples: (1)
"You can't call this torture" (p77). (2) The use of euphemisms
such as Endlösung [= "final solution"]. <<AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Cohen points out that the Reichbahn - the Nazi German railway system -
was managed by some half a million civil servants and had some 900,000 people
on the payroll. We have ourselves walked the final kilometre of their branch
line from Auschwitz to Birkenau [pictures], and have to agree
that the majority of these people had to have known what was going on.>>
Denial of Victim: The first subcategory of denial
of agency, as proposed by Cohen (2001). Denial from the receiving
end of an ongoing atrocity. Example: "Even
when the warning signs were clear, Jewish communities in Germany and the rest
of Europe refused to believe what was about to happen to them" (p14).
Department of Dirty Tricks: See Dirty Tricks, Department of
and Central Intelligence Agency.
Department of Information: British governmental agency created
in 1917 under Colonel John Buchan to oversee public information
operations in the UK during World War One.
Diagnosis: "Identification of a disease
by careful investigation of its symptoms and history; also, the opinion
(formally stated) [= professional opinion] resulting from such
investigation" (OED).
Dirty Tricks: Foul play in general, and the
stock-in-trade of a Department of Dirty Tricks in particular. Of the
population at large, anything underhand.
Dirty Tricks, Department of: Of governments and large
corporations, departments whose true purpose is to pursue undeclared war, using
the full armoury of peacetime special operations, that is to say, black
propaganda, selective assassination, psychological warfare, and economic
warfare. As far as we have been able to establish, the term was first
publicly coined by Bohannon (1961/2004 online) when discussing (CIA-coordinated)
Philippines government operations against "insurgents" in the late
1940s, but only became popular as a synonym for the CIA in the later 1960s.
Dispensed Existence: [See firstly totalism.] One
of the eight factors identified by Lifton (1961) as making for an effective
system of thought reform. Totalism, according to Lifton, "draws a
sharp line between those whose right to existence can be recognised, and those
who possess no such right", between "the 'people'" and the
"'lackeys of imperialism'" who oppress them (p492). The point is that
being "outside the people" automatically makes you
"nonpeople" devoid of normal human rights and protections
[this powerful idea resurfaced in human ethology two decades later in the
notion of "in-group" and "out-group" - see Section 3.3 of
our e-handout on "Communication and
the Naked Ape",
and has been at the heart of public information operations in time of
war ever since the words "us and them" were first invented].
Doctrine over Person: [See firstly totalism.] One
of the eight factors identified by Lifton (1961) as making for an effective
system of thought reform. Totalism, according to Lifton,
"subordinates" human experience to "the claims of doctrine"
(p490). As part of this process, "past historical events are
retrospectively altered, wholly rewritten, or ignored" (p490).
Dogma: [Greek = "that which seems to one;
opinion; tenet".] "That which is held as an opinion; a belief,
principle, tenet; esp. a tenet or doctrine authoritatively laid down by a
particular church, sect, or school of thought" (OED).
Domains and
Properties: [See firstly supervenience and causation.] A domain is the
set of entities currently under consideration in the framing of an explanation.
A property is anything which can be claimed descriptively true of an event,
for example, that Brutus' stabbing of Caesar occurred in Rome (Kim, 1993).
Dualism: See
dualisms and monisms.
Dualisms and Monisms: [See firstly mind-brain debate.] A
dualism is a "two-truth" theoretical position in the mind-brain
debate, that is to say, one which claims that the laws of the mind and the laws
of the brain are fundamentally irreconcilable. Monisms,
on the other hand, are "one-truth" positions, claiming either (a) that
the laws of the mind are the only real truth (in which case your monism is an idealism), or (b) that the laws of your
brain are the only real truth (in which case your monism is a physicalism), or (c) that we are really
not too sure (in which case you are probably going to be a monist one day, but
are either an epiphenomenalist,
identity theorist, or emergentist, for
the time being). William James brought the dualism debate centre stage by
referring very disparagingly to "mind stuff" theory, which he characterised
as theories that mental states "are composite in structure, made up of
smaller states conjoined" (James, 1890, pI.145). More recently, Velmans (2005) has referred to all the two-stuff
theories as "substance dualism" because they are constantly pitting
"material stuff" against "soul or spirit" stuff.
Economic Warfare: Attacks directed against the
economic stability of an enemy. Examples: (1) The
blockading of enemy ports or the interception of their shipping [common British
practice in the American Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars]. (2) Trade boycotts
and the like [as when French wine was poured down drains across the USA when
France voted "the wrong way" on the Iraq issue - click here to join the anti-French boycott]. (3) Currency forgery. (4)
Cyberwarfare directed against a nation's e-banking and e-commerce systems.
Effect: [See firstly causal line.]
"Something accomplished, caused, or produced; a result, consequence"
(O.E.D.). The "invariable consequent" (Mill, 1886,
p213) event in an event-pair for which a causal rule is
being proposed. That which has been caused. An event which is strongly supervenient
upon an antecedent event (or events).
Elementism: Wilhelm Wundt's reductionist theory of perception, so called because it
viewed perception as a synthesis of a number of individually less sophisticated
sensory systems. Also, loosely, all Associationist
theories of cognition, to the extent that they fragment knowledge into an
agglomeration of sememes [glossary],
propositions [glossary],
images, and other primitive elements.
Emergentism: [See firstly mind-brain debate.]
One of the three main not-quite-sure-yet philosophical positions on the
mind-brain debate (the others being epiphenomenalism
and identity theory). Like the Gestaltists before them, Emergentists
rely on the concept of "emergent properties" to allow a whole which
is greater than the sum of its parts.
Epiphenomenon: [See firstly mind-brain debate.] "Something
that appears in addition" (O.E.D.). A by-product
or accidental spin-off, but one which may nevertheless turn out to have a value
in its own right. "A secondary phenomenon that
results from and accompanies another" (The Free Dictionary). [See
now epiphenomenalism.]
Epiphenomenalism: [See firstly mind-brain
debate and epiphenomenon.]
One of the three main not-quite-sure-yet philosophical positions on the
mind-brain debate (the others being emergentism and identity
theory). Epiphenomenalists subscribe to the
notion that "mental events are caused by physical events but have no
causal effects themselves" (Gray, 1987, p462).
Alternatively, "the classical form of epiphenomenalism [denies] that mental-to-physical
causal action ever takes place .....] Mental phenomena are totally
causally inert" (Kim, 1993, p104; emphasis added). In fact,
Kim doubts that epiphenomenalism is a valid position in the first place, seeing
it as fatally flawed logically. He follows Lachs
(1963) in arguing that the very fact we are able to discuss events implies that
they have caused that at least! Nevertheless, the term epiphenomenon is
regularly encountered in the mind-brain debate, because it allows the mind to
be treated as an emergent property of this or that underlying neural activity.
On balance, however, many authors regard identity theory as superior in
that it does not rule out mental-to-physical causation quite so high-handedly.
One of Kim's (1993) observations puts the central issue very succinctly, thus:
"Given that any physical event has a physical cause, how is a mental cause
also possible?" (p281; italics original).
He calls this the problem of "causal-explanatory exclusion".
Epistemology: "The branch of philosophy that
studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its
extent and validity" [TheFreeDictionary
]. Also the product of that study, that is to say, an organised and
internally coherent body of knowledge and explanation which may be
distinguished from competing bodies of knowledge and explanation by differences
in one or more of their fundamental propositions. A particular "take"
on life in general, or on scientific or philosophical issues in particular, but
which lacks the emotional cathexis needed to elevate it to a belief
system.
Equivocation: A
type of fallacious argument in which imprecise and shifting
definitions are used to convey an illusion of continuous argument or
explanation. Deception by loose definition. Example: TO FOLLOW.
Event: In everyday usage, "anything that happens or is contemplated as
happening; an incident, occurrence [.....]; that which proceeds from the
operation of a cause; a consequence, result" (O.E.D.). In philosophy and
science the same, but (1) as part of a more general search for the fundamental
laws of causation in nature, (2) inspired by the
belief that this search will proceed more profitably if guided by the scientific method (rather than, say, by meditation or oracular
consultation), and (3) with a constant battle against "events" turning
out upon closer inspection to consist of lesser events. Kim (1993, p4) reduces
the philosophical issue to the following question: "In what relation must
a pair of events stand to a law [i.e. of causation] if the law is to 'subsume'
the events?". Kim also points to an interesting
hole in the scientific method, namely that it is deceptively easy to overfocus on events to the exclusion of the matrix of states - the uneventful times - within
which the events take place. [See now macrocausation vs microcausation.]
Event-Pair: [See firstly event.] The causes and effects in a simple instance of linear causation (or, in an
instance of multiple causation, each one
of the causes converging on the same effect).
Evidence:
"An appearance from which inferences may be drawn [] Grounds for belief;
testimony or facts tending to prove or disprove any conclusion" (OED).
[See now evidence-based practice.]
Evidence-Based Practice (EBP):
[See firstly evidence.] Evidence-based practice is properly informed medical
decision
making in healthcare or, by extension, the professions as a
whole. It is "the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current
best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients"
(Sackett et al, 1996). "It is a systematic approach to
integrating current scientific evidence" (source).
EBP is, however, only as good as the available evidence, and that is usually
less than conclusive. In practice, therefore, the EBP philosophy requires that
practitioners be sensitive to the relative merits of the different levels of evidence
and keep themselves fully up-to-date with the latest research in their chosen
specialism.
Expert Witness:
[See firstly levels of evidence.] Scientists are frequently called
upon to present expert opinion as evidence in the courts. "The main
difference between an expert witness and an ordinary witness (i.e. a witness to
fact), is that the former is able to give an opinion, whereas ordinary
witnesses can only give factual evidence. The expert witness has a duty to
provide the court with the necessary scientific criteria for the judge and jury
to be able to evaluate the basis of the expert's opinion and conclusions."
(British Psychological Society, "Psychologists as
Expert Witnesses", 1999.)
Explanation:
"That which explains, makes clear, accounts for
[..... especially] with a view to adjust a misunderstanding
and reconcile differences" (O.E.D.). "An argument to the
effect that the phenomenon to be explained [.....] was
to be expected by virtue of certain explanatory facts" (Hempel, 1965,
p336). But more besides, because you owe it to your audience
(and yourself) to set the core explanation in as broad a context as possible.
So, alternatively, a collection of proposed causal rules which, taken together,
state the "particular 'go'" of a natural phenomenon, or a statement
not just of how something works, but of why it makes broad sense for it to work that way given what else
we know about the world. This latter quality is akin to what
Kant (1781/1787) called the "systematic unity" of the best scientific
understanding: our cognitions, he warns, "must not amount to a rhapsody;
rather, they must amount to a system" (Op.
cit., p755). Example:
To experience for oneself what is involved in producing a thorough explanation,
try this long-running poser: How much does smoke weigh, and why (after Kant,
1781/1787, p255).
Explanatory Gap: [See firstly explanation
and reductionism.] The explanatory gap is the
conceptually grey area between the microdata of neurophysiology and the macrodata of philosophy and psychology. It became a popular
topic of scientific discussion in the mind-brain debate
following Levine's (1983) focus paper on the subject, and the central problem
seems to be that our minds cannot grasp how something as intangible as a mind
might be reduced to individually straightforward electrochemical events. Our
minds do not feel reducible, so we convince ourselves that that cannot be how
they work. For our own part, we suggested in Smith (1998) that the explanatory gap could profitably be regarded as a
"compiler gap". Our point was that computer engineers in the 1950s
had unwittingly solved some major neurophilosophical
problems. They had built logic circuitry capable of executing
microinstructions, only to discover that this low-level language was so
tortuous to work with that they needed a language of macroinstructions to
convert it into usable chunks (it was, for example, far more efficient to work
with the single high-level instruction <ADD> than with the hundreds of
low-level machine instructions it translated into). Compilers were the systems
software products which carried out the necessary translation, and by the early
1960s were allowing applications programmers the luxury of doing their
technical problem solving in near-natural language. Cognitive scientists have
yet to exhaust the compiler metaphor as a means of correlating the "source
code" stream of ideation with the "object code" stream of the
underlying cellular and subcellular biochemistry. This could well turn out to
be an unfortunate oversight because source code supervenes precisely
onto object code, and object code supervenes precisely onto activity in the underlying circuitry!
"Eye of God" Technique:
The personalised targeting of morale operations, originally and
usually by referring to enemy servicemen by name and/or unit in either
confrontational or broadcast propaganda. Extremely off-putting to
those on the receiving end, (a) because it re-personalises an issue which your
military training will have gone out of its way to depersonalise, and (b)
because it shakes your faith in the superiority of your own side's intelligence
services over your enemy's. Examples: (1) See
Elliston (2004). (2) Any "We know where you
live" pressure group activity.
Fabrication of Evidence:
The planting of false evidence as part of a dirty trick.
"Framing", or "fitting up".
Fair Play, Sense of:
See sense
of fair play.
Faith: [See firstly believe in, to.]
In everyday usage, "faith" is generally "belief,
trust, confidence" (OED). However, the word also has specific uses for
"belief in the truths of religion" (OED). Within
psychology, this makes faiths an important subclass of belief, and hence a
major component of belief systems. With formalised belief
systems such as religions and political parties, expressions of faith are
typically called for as demonstrations of continued affiliation to the
particular dogma on offer, in which respect it may serve the same
function as in any other ideologically totalist
system. The techniques of aura of sacredness and mystical
manipulation are particularly noteworthy in this respect. Robert
J. Lifton,
in his analysis of the processes of thought reform, described it as
follows: "..... he [= the affiliate] may adopt a complex pattern of inner
division, and dutifully produce the expected clichés in public
performances" (Lifton, 1961, pp489-490).
Fake Precision:
A type of fallacious argument in which apparently precise
numerical claims are made to impress the gullible. Cheap, but surprisingly
effective. Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Fallacious Argument:
[See firstly argument and fallacy.] An argument which sets out
from unreliable premises and fails to detect that
unreliability, or which draws unjustified conclusions. Fallacious arguments can only be exposed by skilled
critical
evaluation, and Weston (2000) argues that to understand
fallacies "you need to understand what rules they break" (p71). We
recommend the Gary N. Curtis "Fallacy Files" website for its detailed
treatment of the subject. See the separate entries as follows .....
Fallacy:
"Deception, guile, trickery; a deception, trick; a false statement, a lie
[.....] a deceptive or misleading argument, a sophism. In Logic esp. a
flaw, material or formal, which vitiates a syllogism ....." (OED; italics
original).
Fallibility Principle:
The first of Damer's (1995) 12 basic principles of rational argument.
The principle that "when alternative positions on any disputed issue are
under review, each participant in the discussion should acknowledge that
possibly none of the positions presented is deserving of acceptance and that,
at best, only one of them is true or the most defensible position. Therefore,
it is possible that thorough examination of the issue will reveal that one's
own initial position is a false or indefensible one." (p173.) [But see false fallibility.]
False Atrocity: [See
firstly atrocity.] An attempt to motivate one's armed forces and
stiffen public opinion using deliberately placed falsified
or exaggerated reports of bestiality by enemy forces, typically involving the
raping of nuns, the bayoneting of women and babies, and the murderous execution
of unarmed prisoners of war; and made all the more believable - sad to relate -
by the (rapidly denied) suspicion that one's own armed
forces have been doing precisely the same things. Example: Knightly (1999) profiles the
insidious power of this commonly used technique - note the story of the Bryce Commission.
False Dilemma:
A type of fallacious argument in which too few optional ways
forward are presented for consideration, in an attempt to put across a
"black or white" choice where such a choice is not strictly speaking
justified. To ignore options, either through lack of due forethought or Machiavellian
intention. Both forms are in widespread use, and both are surprisingly
effective [depressingly so, indeed, for it says a lot about the critical
faculties of the public at large]. Example:
TO FOLLOW.
False Fallibility:
[See firstly fallibility principle.] A less-than-heartfelt declaration
of fallibility. Apparent humility. Humbug. Playing to the gallery. Example: TO FOLLOW.
Falsification: See principle of
falsification.
Faulty Analogy:
[See firstly argument by analogy.] A type of fallacious
argument in which it is assumed "that because two things
are alike in one or more respects, they necessarily are alike in some other
respect" (Damer, 1995, p189). Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Fidentia:
[Latin = "confidence"] One of the two principles of behaviour within
the Lloyds of London insurance market [the other being uberrimae fides].
The notion that the customer need not fear fraud or abandonment.
527 Group:
[After Section 527 of the US Taxation Code, which allowed their formation;
usually heard as "five two seven group" or "five twenty-seven
group".] The pinnacle of ad hominem argument in
political debate. A tax-exempt political pressure group in US electioneering,
intended to be funded covertly by those likely to benefit from their
intervention, but, being a private organisation, not subject to the rules of
electioneering which constrain the main political parties. Example: The most talked about example
of a 527 group in the 2004 US presidential elections was Roy Hoffman's Swift
Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth. The argument as the Swift Vets'
own website tells it is that Democratic candidate John Kerry's campaign team
had created a less than totally factual story about his war service record in
Vietnam, and had published a lot of old comrades photographs to support that
story. Unfortunately for the Democrats, not all of those depicted in these
photographs were Kerry supporters, and they duly (and not unreasonably) took
exception to the pictorial implication that they were. By thus motivating the
Swift Vets to set the record straight from the Republican point of view, Kerry
succeeded in polarising the influential veterans community.
Flattery:
A type of fallacious argument in which mere praise doubles as evidence.
Unsophisticated, but surprisingly effective, aided on many occasions by the "Barnum
effect". Example:
TO FOLLOW. [Compare damned by high praise.]
Freemason:
"A member of the fraternity called more fully, Free and Accepted Masons"
(OED; italics original). Perhaps the most famous secret society
of all. There is considerable public debate on the Internet as to the role of
masonic lodges in many of the major decisions of history.
Fundamentalism: Religious
or political belief systems characterised by a deliberately
reactionary dogma and strictly enforced rules of membership, and
enforced by the methods of thought reform.
Gambler's Fallacy:
A type of fallacious argument in which different positions are
regarded as being "hot" or "cold" in terms of probability
of occurrence, because they have or have not been "running to luck"
in the recent past. So named after the notion that a particular number, colour,
or card is "due to come up" in casino gambling.
Gambling Bill, 2004:
Proposed UK legislation, enabling and encouraging the establishment of
"Las Vegas style" casinos in Britain ("already the world's third
biggest gambling nation after America and Japan" - The Times, 27th
October 2004). [See now Jowell, Tessa, Hain, Peter,
level
playing field, and spin.]
Gambling Bill (Systems View):
A systems approach to the Labour Party's 2004 Gambling Bill would attempt (a)
to identify and (b) to quantify flow changes within the UK economy following
the introduction of the US casino style culture proposed in said Bill. This
would provide hard data on such embarrassing issues as (1) the likely net
export of GDP in terms of house take, (2) the likely impact of
personal debt on consumer spending and employment in general, and the housing
market in particular, (3) the likely cost to the taxpayer of the resulting
increased load on social services, and (4) the likely cost to the banking
system of any consequent rise in bad debt.
Generalisation:
In scientific explanation, the act of deriving a causal rule
from a sample of cases [see induction] and then applying it to a
wider population. Done properly, this has the intellectual purity of a law of nature;
done carelessly or with malicious intent it makes for false analogy
or hasty
generalisation. Generalisations are not always bad things in
research, providing they are adequately defended (Weston, 2000).
Global Supervenience:
See supervenience,
weak, strong, and global.
Gullible:
"Capable of being gulled or duped; easily cheated, befooled" (OED).
Incapable of rational argument due to generally unhoned critical thinking
skills. Immediately accepting of all cover stories,
public
information announcements, and spin doctorings,
and generally incapable of spotting fallacious arguments.
Hain, Peter:
UK Labour Party politician and Leader of the House of Commons, occasionally
earnest in support of the Gambling Bill, and quoted in the entry for spin.
Hasty Generalisation:
A type of fallacious argument in which a general conclusion is
unsafely drawn from what upon fuller analysis would turn out to be one-sided
data. This makes for incomplete reasoning, and creates a grossly oversimplified
picture of the world. It is lazy thinking, and appeals to those who like their
truths to be conveniently bite-sized, or, worse, to match their deeper prejudices.
Hence racial and political prejudices are frequently justified by
generalisations of this sort. Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Hearsay:
"Founded or depending upon what one has heard said, but not within one's
direct knowledge" (OED). [See now hearsay evidence.]
Hearsay Evidence:
[See firstly hearsay and evidence.] "Evidence consisting
in what the witness has heard others say, or what is commonly said, as to facts
of which he has himself no original or personal knowledge" (OED). Example: See appeal to
authority.
Heuristic: In
science, logic, or mathematics, a procedure or rule which aids the discovery of
a hidden truth or scientific unknown. In computing, a program or procedure
which uses "common-sense rules drawn from experience" (Webopedia).
Hidden Agenda:
Motivations not declared when entering an argument.
The cards not on the table. Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Historical Denial:
The first subcategory of denial (historical or contemporary),
as proposed by Cohen (2001). Denial of past suffering - "social
amnesia" (p12) - supported by appropriately censored histories. Example of Things Which Never Happened:
French collaboration with the Nazis, dissenters against the Bolsheviks,
atrocities by British troops, etc.
House Take:
The casino's free bet [a.k.a. "gross profit", "cut",
"rake off", or "piece of the action"]. Cup zero on a
roulette wheel, for example, which comes up one time in 37, on average (on an
undoctored wheel, at least), whereupon every bet is forfeit.
Humean Causation: This is the name given to the theory of causation advanced by the philosopher David Hume in Book I of
his Treatise, which proposed the entirely commonsense
scheme of "contiguity, succession, and necessary connection" (Hume
1739a, p77) (in other words, causes
have to precede their effects, and be
close enough to them in time and space for a possible causal line to be detected and agreed). Hume himself pointed to
a number of critical weaknesses in the commonsense
scheme, such as the near certainty of transitive causation and multiple causation, and the risk of falling for a cum hoc correlation fallacy.
For these and other reasons, commonsense explanations
of causation often do more harm than good to the progress of science, and
Hume's position was duly developed over the ensuing decades by the likes of
Immanuel Kant's Kritik and John Stuart Mill's System
of Logic. Kant saw cause and effect as part of the broader acquiring of
understanding, whilst Mill saw it as that all-important grasp of
"reasonable anticipation of future facts" (Mill, 1886, p212)
characteristic of the good scientist. More recently, Hempel (1965) has
incorporated probability theory into the equation by allowing for laws to be
based on the probable contribution of individual causes rather than absolute
determination.
Idealism:
One of the two possible monist positions in the mind-brain debate
(the other being physicalism). Specifically, the notion
that the laws of the mind will, once they have been finally and fully
established, be able to explain not just the workings
of the mind, but those of the brain as well.
Identification:
An important psychodynamic defence mechanism, in which your attitudinal
structures shift within themselves so as to engage differently with your theory
of mind structures. To model your own self subconsciously on an external self.
Freud himself described identification this way: "The assimilation of one
ego to another one, as a result of which the first ego behaves like the second
in certain respects, imitates it, and in a sense takes it up into itself"
(Freud, 1933/1991. p94.) Sarnoff (1951) writes forcefully on this subject under
the self-explanatory title "Identification with the Aggressor: Some
Personality Correlates of Anti-Semitism among Jews". Having noted
"the fact that some [concentration camp prisoners] do absorb the
behaviours of their oppressors while others resist this absorption"
(p200), he sought an explanation in personality differences between the two
groups. His conclusion was that high levels of anti-Semitism tended to be associated
with negative attitudes towards parents, lower self-esteem, and lower
likelihood to retaliate actively against aggressors.
Identity Theory:
[More precisely, mind-brain identity
theory or psychophysical identity theory.] [See firstly mind-brain debate.]
One of the three main not-quite-sure-yet philosophical positions on the
mind-brain debate (the others being emergentism
and identity
theory). Identity theorists subscribe to the notion that
"mental states are identical to brain states and that "a given mental
state will be fully accounted for if and when one has accounted for the
corresponding brain state" (Gray, 1987, p461).
Much of the modern interest in the subject can be traced to a paper by Place
(1956) which asked how we could know whether two sets of observations were of
the same event. Was a cloud, Place asked, the same thing as the mass of tiny
particles making it up? Clearly it all depended on how you happened to be
looking at it at the time. His point was fundamentally "that an acceptance
of inner processes does not entail dualism" (p43). In a "second
look" at the issue, Gray (1987) advises that we
do not yet know enough about "the conditions for consciousness"
(p480) to test any of the alternative explanations. It may well be, he argues,
that the machinery out of which a cognitive skill is delivered is genuinely
"unimportant", and that what is critical instead is "the nature
of the skill itself" (p482).
Identity Theory, Kim's Position On:
[See firstly identity theory.] Kim generally takes a
"modified reductionist" view of the mind-brain debate, and usually
casts his vote with the identity theorists. Here is one of his arguments in
full: "Consider saying that there are in this glass two distinct
substances, H2O and water; that is, consider saying that water and H2O
co-occur everywhere as a matter of law but that they are distinct substances
nonetheless. This would invite a host of unwanted and unnecessary puzzles:
given that what is in the glass weighs a total of ten ounces, how much of the
weight is to be attributed to the water and how much to the H2O? By
dropping a lighted match in the glass, I extinguish it. What caused it? Was it
the water or the H2O? Were they each only a partial cause, or was
the extinguishing of the match overdetermined? The
identification of the water with the H2O puts all these questions to
rest" (p281). To see Kim's substantive position, simply re-read
this quotation, substituting "skull" for "glass",
"brain" for "H2O", "mind" for
"water", "problem" for "match", and
"solve" for "extinguish".
Illicit Contrast:
A type of fallacious argument in which one of the parties places
"improper or unusual emphasis" (Damer, 1995, p190) on selected
fragments of the other's argument, deliberately to divert its overall thrust. Example: TO FOLLOW.
Illusion:
"A deceptive or illusive appearance, statement, belief,
etc." (OED).
Imbecile: "A
person of moderate to severe mental retardation having a mental age of from
three to seven years and generally being capable of some degree of
communication and performance of simple tasks under supervision. The term
belongs to a classification system no longer in use and is now considered
offensive" (Dictionary.Com). Relevant to the present context only as a
convenient insult for spectacularly mindless examples of fallacious
argument. [See now sheer imbecility.]
Implicatory Denial:
[See firstly interpretive denial.] The third subcategory of denial of content,
as proposed by Cohen (2001). Acceptance of the essential facts and the
conventional interpretation, but denial of "the psychological, political,
or moral implications that conventionally follow" (p8).
Impression (1):
In everyday usage, "an effect, especially a strong effect, produced on the
intellect, conscience, or feelings" (OED). Impressions are relevant to the
current context because they are created in the first instance by the
psychological process known as impression formation. [Compare impression (2).]
Impression (2):
[See firstly impression (1).] Apart from its everyday usage, the
term impression has a specific meaning within healthcare as a statement of best
clinical judgement, given the available data. An attempt at medical diagnosis,
but one which allows for an element of necessary residual uncertainty. How a
patient "looks" (or, more formally, "presents"), rather
than "what they have got".
Impression Formation:
See firstly impression (1).] A long-standing and important
study area within social psychology, dealing with the mental life history of
impressions in social perception and opinion formation. The process by which we
come to like/dislike, trust/distrust, etc., people, and therefore the ideas and
opinions emanating from them.
Inadmissible Evidence: [See
firstly evidence.] Those categories of testimony and physical
evidence not
accepted as evidence under a nation's legal system. [Contrast admissible
evidence.]
Inanity:
"Mental vacuity; lack of ideas or sense; frivolity, senselessness,
silliness" (OED). In the present context, any fallacious
argument of exceptional weakness, but still a shade short of sheer imbecility.
Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Indoctrination: The
process of converting a target population to a particular belief system,
typically religious or political by explicit technique rather than gradual
evolution. Examples:
(1)
The Jesuits on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church. (2)
The commissar system on behalf of Stalinist Russia. (3)
The cadre system on behalf of Maoist China. (4) Dr. Goebbels'
Propaganda Ministry on behalf of Nazi Germany. (5)
George Orwell's (fictional) "thought police". (6)
The Committee
on Public Information on behalf of World War One America. (7)
The Department
of Information on behalf of World War One Britain. (8)
The Ministry
of Information on behalf of World War Two Britain.
Inductive Reasoning:
[See firstly reasoning.] Inductive reasoning, or simply
"induction", means deriving general principles from specific observations.
We see this sort of reasoning in many guises, from argument by
analogy to the sort of reasoning seen in rule-guessing
experiments where subjects have to study a series of stimuli and work out what
the underlying rule or pattern is. Alternatively, "inductive reasoning
works with a CASE and a RESULT, to determine a RULE" (Skemp,
2002). Since structured observation is at the heart of the correlational
philosophy [Research Methods Glossary]
of research, it follows that induction is an important part of the cycle of
reasoning and observation by which the scientific method makes it advances.
[Compare abductive reasoning, deductive reasoning,
and law
of nature.]
Inference:
One of the two main constituent skills of effective reasoning
(the other being critical thinking). "An
inference is a conclusion that a person can draw from certain observed or
supposed facts" (Watson and Glaser, 1991, p6). The process by which this
takes place is known as reasoning. Example:
It would normally be safe to suppose that attendance at a conference implies
interest in the advertised subject matter [see now inference
(psychometric tests of) and the fuller entry in our Psycholinguistics
Glossary].
Inference
(Psychometric Tests of): The Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking
Appraisal treats inference as a major aspect of critical thinking.
It presents subjects with a number of brief scenarios and requires that they
pick one of five optional answers, ranked as True, Probably True, Insufficient
Data, Probably False, and False: Example: You
are given the following scenario (from Watson and Glaser, 1991, p2): "Two
hundred school pupils in their early teens voluntarily attended a recent
weekend student conference in Leeds. At this conference, the topics of race
relations and means of achieving lasting world peace were discussed, since
these were the problems that the pupils selected as being most vital in today's
world." The optional answers are then [in True to False order]: (1)
"Some teenage pupils felt it worthwhile to discuss problems of race
relations and ways of achieving world peace" (2) "[the pupils] showed
a keener interest in broad social problems than do most other people in their
early teens", (3) "the pupils came from all over the country",
(4) "The majority of the pupils had not previously discussed the
conference topics in the schools", and (5) "the pupils discussed
mainly industrial relations problems".
Inoculation:
In everyday usage, inoculation is "the act or practice of communicating a
disease to a person in health by inserting contagious matter in his skin or
flesh, usually for the purpose of inducing immunity to the disease" (Webster's
Dictionary). In the present context, it a method of increasing a population's
capacity to resist metaphorically "infective" propaganda.
In its simplest form, inoculation involves the dissemination of mildly negative
ideas about a belief held dear, in order to cultivate some level of
"resistance" to attack by a full-blown "infective" idea.
Attention was first drawn to this phenomenon by McGuire (1962, 1964), who
identified three variables controlling how effective a given anticipatory
defence (the inoculation) would be against a given future counter-attitudinal
attack (the propaganda). These were (1) the amount of threat in the
inoculation, (2) the extent to which the person in question has actively to
participate in the defence, and (3) the time delay between the inoculation and
the infection. Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Insider Dealing:
The covert use for personal financial gain of information-in-trade by such
people as business agents, executors, proxy holders, trustees, brokers, and
solicitors. Globally improper, and more often than not illegal.
Interpretation:
The mental act of decoding a complex proposition,
in which a proposed conclusion is judged as following beyond reasonable doubt from the given
facts. Example:
Test #4 of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal is a test of
interpretation, and is structured as follows [correct answers shown in square
brackets]. You are presented with the following scenario: "A study of
vocabulary growth in children from eight months to six year old shows that the
size of spoken vocabulary increases from 0 words at age eight months to 2,562
words at age six years" and then asked to choose which of two
"proposed conclusions" follow beyond reasonable doubt. These are
"(1) None of the children in this study had learned to talk by the age of
six months" [YES], and "(2) Vocabulary growth is slowest during the
period when children are learning to talk" [NO].
Interpretive
Denial: [See firstly literal denial.] The second
subcategory of denial of content, as proposed by Cohen (2001).
Acceptance of the essential facts, but denial of their interpretation. Example: Yes we had penetrative sex,
but it was not really rape.
Intimidation:
A type of fallacious argument in which one party is told what to
think, upon pain of physical, financial, emotional, or other penalty, or by
simple browbeating and force of personality.
Investigative
Journalism: [Russian
самоубийство.]
The honourable, but often fatal, pursuit of the darker truths of life, either
against organised crime, secret service, or cabal.
Jingoism:
In-your-face patriotism.
Jowell, Tessa:
UK Labour Party politician and Culture Secretary, responsible for introducing
the 2004 Gambling Bill to Parliament, and mentioned in the entries for argument by
adjective, cliché, and waffle.
Ms Jowell is also noted by both fellow-politicians and commentators for her
skilled use of the confrontational eye stare during debate [for some of the
hard science here, see Section 3.2 of our e-handout on
"Communication and the Naked Ape",
noting especially the possible pathological effect of such staring in the
aetiology of autism and stuttering.]
Judgement:
"Any formal or authoritative decision, as of an umpire or arbiter"
(OED). The end result of the process of decision making,
itself the end result of a critical evaluation of evidence
presented.
Lansdale, General Edward G.
(1909-1987): [See firstly psychological warfare.]
Maestro of morale operations on behalf of the Central
Intelligence Agency in their role as advisors to the
Philippines government in the latter's struggle against the "Huk"
communist insurgents, 1950-1953. [See Elliston (1996) for some of General
Lansdale's highly entertaining exploits (we especially liked the story of the asuang).]
Last Refuge of a Scoundrel:
Patriotism, according to Samuel Johnson's dictionary. The use as evidence
of emotive appeals such as "My country, right or wrong", especially
when perpetuating a particular dogma or bolstering a particular
political belief system. Xenophobia. Baboon troop politics. Jingoism.
Crude, but as a substitute for rational argument it works every
time. Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Law of Nature:
[See firstly science.] "A physical law or a law of nature is a
scientific generalisation based on empirical observations. Laws of nature are
conclusions drawn from, or hypotheses confirmed by, scientific experiments. The
production of a summary description of nature in the form of such laws is the
fundamental aim of science. Laws of nature are distinct from legal code and
religious law ....." (Wikipedia.)
Examples:
The Law of Gravity, Boyle's Law, the Laws of Thermodynamics, the Law of
Requisite Variety [details],
Parkinson's Law [details],
etc.
Level of Evidence:
[See firstly evidence-based practice.] A scheme for summarising the
extent to which a particular theoretical proposition has been empirically
supported, and therefore of the extent to which it can safely be relied upon in
professional practice. Here, in paragraphs I to V,
are the officially endorsed levels of evidence for the British medical
profession as summarised by a Bandolier editorial in 1994 (2003 online),
followed in paragraph VI by what the rest of us have to put
up with .....
I - Multiple
Randomised Controlled Trials, Well Designed and Systematically Reviewed:
This is recognised as the strongest form of evidence of all, in that it obeys
all the rules of good research design and scientific inference, and all key
findings have been widely replicated. The assertion in question has been
scientifically proven, so to speak, and may be taken as truth.
[There is actually no such thing as "proven fact" in the medical or
social sciences. Instead, blocks of objective data are assessed against a
formally expressed hypothesis for their "statistical significance"
[Research Methods Glossary], that is to say, the mathematically
objective odds against that hypothesis being wrong.]
II - At Least One
Multiple Randomised Controlled Trial, Well Designed and Under Review:
This is identified as the second strongest form of evidence. The assertion in
question has evidence in favour of it, but not yet enough to prove it beyond
reasonable scientific doubt.
III - Lesser
Studies, Loosely Coordinated: This is identified as the third
strongest form of evidence. It lacks the formal strength of the RCT studies,
but there is some coordination of effort. Moreover, due to the time it takes to
conduct research to Level I or II standard, this may be the only level of
evidence available.
IV - Lesser
Studies, Uncoordinated but Well Designed: This is
identified as the second weakest form of evidence. It attempts empirical
support for a hypothesis, product, or treatment, but not enough studies have
yet been done, and those which have been done lack coordination.
V - Professional
Opinion, Consensus, and Anecdote: These are the weakest forms
of evidence of all, in that they lack formally reviewed and published empirical
support. Nevertheless, they are (a) not totally without heuristic
value, and (b) frequently all you have available. Note that professional
opinion, professional consensus, and professional anecdote are
genuinely empirical, since they arose originally from clinical observation.
They also qualify you to serve as an expert witness
in your field, and need to be carefully distinguished from their political,
journalistic, and everyday equivalents [see next]. And beware:
lack of evidence does not in itself make a theoretical possibility wrong, it
merely leaves it as-yet-unproven.
VI - Public and
Personal Opinion, Consensus, and Anecdote: These are not
evidence at all in the scientific sense, and reflect only the everyday
experience of the non-professional, that is to say, of the population at large.
They are nevertheless the content matter of most everyday arguments,
and may be elevated to the status of evidence if given as testimony in a court
of law.
Level Playing
Field: An everyday metaphor for an equal and fair contest.
Allowing anything less than a level playing field in political or scientific
debate is to encourage unfairness, and achieves its victory at the expense of
enlightenment. Example:
In the Autumn 2004 "casinos debate", it was at least a poorly managed
decision making process which gave the gaming industry a (reputedly £100
million) political lobbying opportunity and yet shunned the views of the
Salvation Army, who have been sweeping up after this and related industries for
more than a century.
Lewin, Kurt
(1890-1947): German psychologist who emigrated
to the US in 1933 and there helped import selected Gestaltist traditions into American
psychology. His work is relevant in the current context as the derivation
of attitude
change theory (group theory).
Lifton, Robert J.
(1926-): Academic theorist on the
topic of thought reform and its methods.
Literal Denial:
The first subcategory of denial of content, as proposed by
Cohen (2001). Denial of "the fact or knowledge of the fact" (p7). Example: My husband would never have
done that to our daughter, so the social worker must be making it up.
Loaded Language
(1): A type of fallacious argument in which a
proposition or question is phrased in such a way that it "presupposes that
a definite answer has already been given to some other unasked question"
(Damer, 1995, p190). Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Loaded Language
(2): [See firstly totalism.] One of the eight factors
identified by Lifton (1961) as making for an effective system of thought reform.
Totalism, according to Lifton, is "characterised by the though-terminating
cliché",
the sort of "brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases"
which are easy to convey to a suitably prepared audience (p488).
Machiavellian:
In the style of Niccolo Machiavelli. "..... preferring
expediency to morality; practising duplicity in statecraft or in general
conduct; astute, cunning, intriguing" (OED). Machiavellianism in the business
world was first explicitly analysed by Jay (1967), who saw modern corporations
as so similar to mediaeval nation states that managers needed as many of the
skills of "princehood" as they could get their hands on. Machiavellian
intelligence in the animal kingdom was first explicitly analysed
by Byrne and Whiten (1988).
Machiavellian
Intelligence: In the present context, the title of a collection of
papers on intraspecific tactical deception in primates published by Byrne and
Whiten (1988). "Social
intelligence" as opposed to "object intelligence". The willingness to use one's fellows as "social tools",
and the capacity for "mind reading" which this demands.
Macrocausation vs Microcausation:
[See firstly causal line, event, and explanation.] The problem with offering scientific explanations is that they are
inevitably phrased by particular authorities for particular audiences. One's
interpretation of an observed phenomenon therefore tends to be coloured by an
equally particular presumption of the relevant event sequence. It is therefore
important to remember that Russell's notion of the causal line is only a
convenient approximation, because the "events" in question invariably
turn out upon closer inspection to consist of lesser events, and they of even
lesser ones, and so on. Macroevents,
in other words, consist of microevents, and macrocausation cannot finally be established without
establishing a chain of microcausation.
Kim (1993) explains why we need to worry: the difference between the two
approaches, he points out, lies in the fact that macrocausal
relationships are supervenient upon microcausal ones. He
gives the example of a sudden pain in the thumb followed by a sharp withdrawal
reflex. The microstimuli on this occasion follow
"the usual physiological causal path" (p103), but the experience of
the accompanying pain needs to be considered separately. In the withdrawal
reflex, therefore, pain is an effect,
not a cause, despite subjective evidence to the contrary.
Materialism:
Same as physicalism. "An absurdity" (Eccles,
1987, p293).
Medical Decision Making:
A tightly co-engineered cluster of concepts and supporting mathematical
procedures developed over the centuries by healthcare professionals for making
life-or-death decisions in conditions of imperfect evidence.
[See, for starters, sensitivity, specificity,
and predictive
value in our Research Methods Glossary.]
Meme: This is Dawkins' (1976) term for a unit of cultural
ideation or folklore, transmittable as such from person to person more more or
less effortless exposure, thus .....
"Most of what
is unusual about man can be summed up in one word: 'culture'. I use the word
not in its snobbish sense, but as a scientist uses it. Cultural transmission is
analogous to genetic transmission in that, although basically conservative, it
can give rise to a form of evolution" (Dawkins, 1976, p189).
Thus a meme is
what suddenly arrives in your mind when you look at a recipe, or a patio
arrangement, or some such, and say "Now that's a good idea". Dawkins,
a geneticist, coined the term to give a psychological parallel to the gene.
Mental Verbs:
See this entry in our Psycholinguistics
Glossary.
Mereological Supervenience:
[See firstly domains and properties and supervenience.] "The doctrine that the
character of a whole is supervenient upon the
properties and relationships holding for its parts" (Kim, 1993, p113).
Kim goes on to point out (a) that this sort of supervenience
will always have to cross two domains by definition, "one domain
consisting of wholes, and another consisting of their parts" (Ibid.), and (b) that we still have a lot
of work to do in deciphering how this sort of supervenience
works in practice [although the possibility of biological semaphores and
busy pins offers some grounds for early
optimism here.]
Metacognition:
In its broadest sense, "metacognition" is the act of turning one's
mental faculties onto the mental faculties themselves. It is thus
"thinking about thinking", or "knowing about knowing". The
term was popularised by Flavell (1979), and is relevant to the current context
because many theories of attitude change require reflective adjustment
of attitudes
in the light of ongoing counter-attitudinal experience [see, for example, attitude change
theory (semantic differential theory), attitude certainty,
and resistance
to persuasion]. [For more on the cognitive science of
metacognition, see the parallel entry in our Psycholinguistics
Glossary.]
Milieu Control: [See
firstly totalism.] One of the eight factors identified by Lifton
(1961) as making for an effective system of thought reform.
Totalism, according to Lifton, "seeks to establish domain over not only
the individual's communication with the outside [.....] but also - in its
penetration of his inner life - over what we may speak of as his communication
with himself" (p478). [Psychology reserves the phrase "inner
speech" to describe the process(es) of holding private conversations with
oneself. Surprisingly, however, given that inner speech is automatically
central to communication, reasoning, and consciousness studies, there is not a
lot of theory and even less hard fact about it. For a quick introduction to the
subject, see Section 4.4 of our e-paper on
"Dyslexia".]
Mind-Brain Debate: This is the formal name for humankind's age-old
quest to understand how that which we experience at first hand as the workings
of our mind (i.e. our perceptions, emotions, memories, insights, etc.) might
conceivably be supported by the "two fistfuls of porridge" (Taylor,
1991) which is our brain. The fundamental problems are (a) that we do not have
experiential access to most of what goes on in our mind (to borrow one useful
current phrase, most of that lower activity is "transparent" to our
introspections), (b) that even when introspection is successful it is by
definition impossible for it to be independently validated, and (c) that we are
not yet good enough engineers to fathom out the brain's operating principles
[that which James Clerk Maxwell in the 19th century and Kenneth Craik in the
20th liked to call "the 'go' of it" (Sherwood, 1966)]. Or to put it
another way, there is a lot of mind which never experiences anything, but just
goes happily about its work. As a result, there have always been fundamentally
different competing views on the mind-brain relationship, as introduced by the
separate entry for dualisms and monisms.
[See now supervenience.]
Mind Control:
[See firstly brainwashing.]
An extreme form of indoctrination in which subjects allow their
behaviour to be bent to the will of others, and may even surrender volition
entirely, as in the (we hope) fictional accounts of "programmed
assassins" such as seen in Richard Condon's 1959 novel "The
Manchurian Candidate" (filmed 1962 and 2004).
Mindness:
This is Llinás' (1987) notion of a "high-level
awareness, including self-awareness" (p356) which allows "complex
goal-directed interactions between a living organism and its environment"
(p339). [See now how Llinás uses mindness
in defending his own brand of physicalism.]
Ministry of Information:
British governmental agency created in January 1940 under John Reith, to
oversee public information operations in the UK during World War
Two.
Monism: See dualisms and monisms.
Morale Operations:
A type of special operations, designed to sap an enemy's will to
fight, increase desertions from and lower the panic threshold in their armed
forces, and the like. By extension, the same in corporate and
interpersonal confrontation. Precise methods vary, and include propaganda
at both tactical and strategic level. Example:
"It is recorded that handbills were circulated among the British troops on
Bunker Hill, offering them seven dollars a month, fresh provisions in plenty,
health, freedom, ease, affluence, and a good farm, should they desert and join
the American Army" (Lasswell, 1927/1972, p167).
Multiple
Causation: [See firstly cause, effect, and event.]
A non-linear configuration of related events, such that any
of several causes is capable of making an effect more (or indeed less) likely
to occur. A "composition of causes" (Mill,
1886, p212). Whenever multiple causation is suspected,
it brings with it the need to classify each of the several causes as either a necessary cause or a sufficient
cause. Proposed causal configurations can often be made more
apparent if their key points are expressed graphically in causal diagrams.
Multiple Domains: See mereological supervenience.
Mystical Manipulation: [See
firstly totalism.] One of the eight factors identified by Lifton
(1961) as making for an effective system of thought reform.
Totalism, according to Lifton, insists on "personal manipulation"
(p480). "Initiated from above, it seeks to provoke specific patterns of
behaviour and emotion in such a way that these will appear to have arisen
spontaneously from within the environment. This element of planned spontaneity,
directed as it is by an ostensibly omniscient group, must assume for the
manipulated, a near-mystical quality [and] any thought or action which
questions the higher purpose is considered to be stimulated by a lower purpose,
to be backward, selfish, and petty in the face of the great overriding
mission." (p480.)
Myth: [See firstly belief system.]
"A purely fictitious narrative usually involving
supernatural persons, actions, or events, and embodying some popular idea
concerning natural or historical phenomena" (OED). [Compare myth, convenient
and urban
myth.]
Myth, Convenient:
[See firstly myth.] A sanitised version of the way things are or were.
History for five-year-olds of any age. The way we like
to see things, rather than the objective truth, especially if
this involves a doppelgänger self-delusional world of good guys and bad
guys, a black-and-white morality, and no little syrupy sentimentality.
Psychologically speaking, convenient myths are evidence of the
"schematic" nature of human memory. Specifically, a memory "schema"
[Memory Glossary]
is formed from initially factual material boiled down into what can readily be
remembered, but shaped also by what you would like to be the case. Example: One could argue that the American dream
was itself a convenient myth, given the fact that the US is currently living
beyond its means to the tune of £2 billion a day (The Times, 22nd November
2004), borrowed ultimately from other countries in the world economy less well off
than they are. [We should explain for the benefit of any non-Christian readers
that "living beyond one's means" would have been little short of
anathema to the highly ascetic Pilgrim Fathers, who sowed the seeds of the
American dream in the early 17th century.] We can even trace the "noble
cowboy" part of the myth to Owen Wister's
1902 novel "The Virginian" (Macintyre, 2004).
Necessary Cause:
An instance of multiple causation in which one of the causes
does not just contribute towards the occurrence of the effect,
but is a sine qua non of its
occurrence. Or to put it another way "causes are often distinguished into two types: necessary
and sufficient. If x is a necessary cause of y, then y
will only occur if preceded by x. In this case the presence of x
does not ensure that y will occur, but the presence of y ensures
that x must have occurred. On the other hand, sufficient causes
guarantee the effect. So if x is a sufficient cause of y, the
presence of x guarantees y. However, other events may also cause y,
and thus y's presence does not ensure the presence of x"
(Wikipedia). [Compare sufficient
cause.]
"Nobble",
To: [Racetrack slang] Originally, to
overfeed or sedate a racehorse in order to decrease its chances in a
forthcoming race. Nobbling one's own horses is easier than nobbling someone
else's since one has better access, but the exercise can be highly profitable
either way (and is, needless to say, highly illegal). By
extension, to cause rival entries in any form of race or competition to
underperform.
Non-Sequitur: [Latin = "does not follow".] A class of fallacious
argument in which the evidence presented to
support a particular proposition does not, upon close inspection, relate
directly enough to the debate to carry true weight. Example: TO FOLLOW.
Observation:
The flame front of the scientific method, and the ultimate
source of all data and evidence. Ray (1967) explains the pivotal
role of observation in this way: "Observation exists at the beginning and
again at the end of the process: at the beginning, to determine more definitely
and precisely the nature of the difficulty to be dealt with; at the end, to
test the value of [the action taken]. Between those two termini of observation,
we find the more distinctively mental aspects of the entire thought
cycle: (i) inference, the suggestion of an explanation or
solution; and (ii) reasoning, the development [of] the suggestion. Reasoning
requires some experimental observation to confirm it, while experiment can be
economically and fruitfully conducted only on the basis of an idea that has
been tentatively developed by reasoning. [.....] The disciplined, or logically
trained, mind - the aim of the educative process - is the mind able to judge
how far each of these steps needs to be carried out in any particular
situation. No cast iron rules can be laid down. Each case has to be dealt with
as it arises [.....]. The trained mind is the one that best grasps the degree
of observation, forming of ideas, reasoning, and experimental testing required
in any special case, and that profits the most, in future thinking, by mistakes
made in the past. What is important is that the mind should be sensitive to
problems and skilled in methods of attack and solution." (p157; italics
original; bold highlighting added.)
Official Denial:
The second subcategory of denial (individual or shared),
as proposed by Cohen (2001). Denials "that are initiated,
structured, and sustained by the massive resources of the modern state"
p10). Example:
See the news any day, because "the entire rhetoric of government responses
to allegations about atrocities consists of denial"
(p10).
Omission of Key
Evidence: A type of fallacious argument
in which whole blocks of evidence are deliberately overlooked in order
to weaken, or indeed alter, a conclusion. Example: Lord
Levy, the Labour Party's unofficial lead fundraiser and Tony Blair's personal
envy to the Middle East, was recently challenged whether a meeting he had had
with Lloyd Nathan, a representative of the US casino industry, had been part of
a drive to purchase UK government favours with Labour Party donations. His
reply, delivered through a spokesman, stated only that "that at no stage
in the meeting with Mr. Nathan did either man mention a financial contribution
to Labour" (The Daily Mail, 25th October 2004). This was a
seriously useless statement for the spokesman concerned [or the newspaper,
indeed, if they have simply edited down a longer statement] to have put across,
because it neither convicts nor discharges. It is, in short, almost totally
irrelevant, and in direct contravention of the rebuttal principle
of rational
argument. This is because it does not address the substantive
accusation, namely that the message had somehow got across to the casino
industry (a) that "sweeteners" were in order, and (b) that the
appropriate channel for these sweeteners would be through Labour Party funds.
Far better to have phrased a fuller and more specific denial along the following
lines [suggested insertions thus]: "At no
stage in the meeting [or other meetings]
with Mr. Nathan [or anyone else on his behalf]
did either man [or woman] mention [or silently exchange papers relating to] a financial
contribution [or actually deliver said contribution]
to Labour [or any funds handling nominee on their behalf],
etc., etc." [This may sound petty and seriously
Pythonesque, but the art of courtroom defence is actually to tell as little of
"the whole truth" as possible and leave it to the prosecution to
wheedle it out of you; and vagueness, in this war of syntax and semantics, is
your most powerful weapon. Ironically, Lord Levy went on to complain (6th March
2007) about the "partial, confused, and inaccurate" treatment he was
getting from the press during the "cash for honours" scandal. If you
are not already convinced of the need for total precision in your use of
language, then check out the entries for indexicals
in our Psycholinguistics
Glossary.]
Opinion: [See firstly level of
evidence.] In everyday usage, an opinion is "what one
thinks about a particular thing, subject, or point; a judgement formed or a
conclusion reached; a belief, view, notion" (OED). In psychology,
"opinions are considered to be verbalisable, while attitudes
are sometimes 'unconscious'" (Hovland, Janis, and Kelley, 1953, p7).
Relevant here because the opinion of non-professionals (or of professionals
speaking outside their area of expertise) should be treated as questionable
authority rather than as professional opinion.
Orders of
Representation: [See firstly Theory of Mind.]
Dennett's (1978) notion (a) that each of us maintains within their mind a
mental model of the real world, complete with representations of all the
objects and people within it, including yourself, (b) that part of this
representational structure has to do with what we/they are all thinking, and
(c) that this representation of mental state has degrees of complexity - "orders"
- to it. Thus if one of my "first-order beliefs" was that <Snow is
white>, then one of my "second-order beliefs" might be that
<Tom believes that snow is white>, and one of my "third order
beliefs" might be that <Tom believes that Jim believes that snow is
white>, and so on until the complexity of the proposition
exceeds our momentary mental capacity.
Oversimplification:
See causal oversimplification.
Paine, Tom
(1737-1809): [See firstly pamphleteer.]
English artisan whose repulsion for the monarchy of George III led him to
emigrate to the American colonies, there to become a pamphleteer
in support of American independence. His 1791 "The Rights of Man" is
nevertheless one of the classics of sociopolitical theory.
Pamphleteer:
Small-scale author/publisher of political propaganda
on behalf of a pressure group. Example: Tom Paine.
[See also blog.]
Patting the
Poodle: A reward for sycophancy.
Peer Review:
To submit one's research and/or arguments to the critical
evaluation of others in one's field of work. One of the
fundamental aspects of the scientific method.
Pensions Crisis
(Systems View): A systems approach to the pensions problem facing
Britain over the coming decades would attempt (a) to identify and (b) to
quantify flow changes within the UK economy following the chronic
underprovisioning now known to exist in both state and private pension sectors.
This would provide hard data on such embarrassing issues as (1) just how little
of our savings was ever put safely away in the first place, (2) just how little
is left, (3) where did the rest of it actually go, and (4) to what age are we
now going to have to work before retiring? In the case of the state pension,
first introduced by the Old Age Pensions Act, 1908, none of it is left, because
there never was an underlying investment pool. The pensions of the old have
always been paid out the taxes paid by the young. In other words, state pension
contributions have never been anything "more than disguised income tax.
The payments, like tax revenues, go into general government funds to pay for
all manner of services. They bear little relationship to future state
pensions." (The Daily Mail, 8th September 2004.) In the case of
private pensions, the man in the street was foolish enough to trust in the fidentia
of the private savings industry. In this case, there is an underlying
investment fund, but no requirement to provision it adequately. In addition,
all investments are milked by the taxation system and subjected to regular
management fees and commissions, and many are milked by the very trustees who
ought to be guarding them! The Pensions Protection Fund (or "pensions
lifeboat") - due to begin operations in April 2005 - will cost healthy
businesses some £300-£600 million per year covering the pensions liability of
failed companies (The Times, 2nd December 2004). Example: "[Name] worked for the
same company for 26 years, safe in the knowledge that his company pension
promised him a comfortable retirement. A year ago, he was made redundant and
told that the company pension was effectively worthless. [.....] The workers'
pensions were lost because the law does not require schemes to hold 100 per
cent of the assets that are needed to secure the promised pensions. As long as
the employer is a going concern, this does not matter. But if an employer
behind a scheme goes bankrupt, and the pension is wound up, there may not be
sufficient assets to pay out all the pensions. The problem has been worsened by
the three-year bear market, which hit the equity investments of many schemes,
leaving them in the red." (The Times, 27th November 2004).
Personal Denial:
The first subcategory of denial (individual or shared),
as proposed by Cohen (2001). Denial at a "wholly individual"
(p10) level. Example:
Suppressed suspicion of a partner's marital infidelity.
Persuasion:
In everyday usage, persuasion is "the presenting of inducements or winning
arguments" (OED). In scientific psychology, it is a topic area dealing
with the variables which determine whether and to what extent a given persuasive
communication is likely to succeed in altering a recipient's beliefs,
attitudes,
opinions,
and intentions. It is the science of the art of propaganda.
Persuasive
Communication: [See firstly persuasion.]
Propaganda
great or small, good or bad. [We have to allow for good persuasive communication,
since this is the nature of health promotion literature, and the like.]
Philosophies of
Science: (1) Title of book (Harré, 1972). (2) Ways of looking
at the world in general, and at the development of human scientific knowledge
in particular. Epistemologies.
[See now scientific method.]
Physicalism: One of the two possible monist positions
in the mind-brain debate (the other being idealism). Specifically, the notion that the laws of the
brain will, once they have been finally and fully established, be able to explain not just the workings of the brain, but
those of the mind as well. The position is interpreted by Llinás
(1987) using his notion of "mindness", as follows: "I for one,
as a monist, consider 'mindness'
to be but one of several global physiological computational states that the
brain can generate. An example of another global physiological state, in which
'mindness' is not apparent, is that known as 'being
asleep' and yet another is known as dreaming" (p339).
Ports, Pins, and
Drivers: It is in the nature of modern
electronic devices that their substantive logic circuitry is chip-mounted
onto printed circuit boards, the circuit boards slotted into a larger chassis,
and the chassis equipped with the necessary communications sockets (or "ports"). A system of
internal wiring (the "loom",
or "bus")
then connects separate mounting boards to each other and/or to the
communications sockets as appropriate. The connections between the electronics
components and the circuit board, and between the circuit board and the wiring
loom, are called "pins"
and "pinouts",
respectively. Software modules written specifically to initiate output to, or
interpret input from, pinouts, are known generically as "device drivers"
(or just "drivers" for short). [See now semaphores and busy pins.]
Post Hoc ergo
Propter Hoc: [Latin =
"after this therefore because of this".] A type of fallacious
argument in which a simple sequence of events
is confused with causation. Examples: (1) Consider the following news report: "Two Britons
were killed by suspect Al Qaeda gunmen in Saudi Arabia yesterday - just hours
after Middle East broadcasters aired reports that British troops had been
photographed torturing an Iraqi prisoner" (The Mail on Sunday, 2nd May 2004). To say that the one event caused the
other is to be arguing post-propter, and is unjustified and unproven. The
attack may well have been a
reprisal, but could just as easily have been coincidence. (2) Similarly, the fact that Yasser Arafat's death was
followed a few days later by a plague of locusts across Israel (The
Times, 22nd November 2004) should not be
over-interpreted. [Compare cum hoc ergo propter hoc, and see the entry for "confounding" in our Research Methods Glossary.]
Prejudice:
"To prepossess with an opinion; to give a bias
or bent to, influence the mind or judgement of beforehand (often
unfairly)" (OED). In the present context, prejudice implies a status
quo ante disinclination to be persuaded by persuasive communication
from, or evidence presented by, the disapproved source. Examples: Racial hatreds, social class
hatreds, religious intolerances, and the like. A summative position came in
Gordon Allport's monograph on "The Nature of Prejudice" (Allport,
1954/1979) .....
"Perhaps the
briefest of all definitions of prejudice is: thinking ill of others without sufficient warrant. This crisp
phrasing contains the two essential ingredients of all definitions - reference
to unfounded judgment and to a feeling-tone. [.....] While it is important to
bear in mind that biases may be pro
as well as con, it is none the less
true that ethnic prejudice is mostly
negative" (Allport, 1954/1979, p6).
Premise:
[Sometimes "premiss".] A statement of accepted propositional
truth. A fact. "The starting point of reasoning"
(Harré, 1972, p35).
Pressure Group:
An association of like-minded lobbyists, pamphleteers,
and fundraisers, on behalf of a certain cause, and not infrequently a front for
direct action teams working close to or beyond the limits of legality. Examples: Gay rights groups, animal
rights groups, the pro- and anti- foxhunting groups (UK), MigrationWatch UK,
the National Rifle Association (US), etc. Many of the fundraising
groups are clearly charitable organisations rather than lobbyists, for example,
the British Friends of Israel War Disabled Trust, whereas the Palestine
Solidarity Campaign and NORAID are more uniquely political.
Principle of
Falsification: Popper's (1934/1959) slightly counterintuitive
assertion that the scientific method is ultimately
based on our ability to prove that an assertion is false by finding a
counterexample to it. Popper looks down with disdain on evidence
which supports a given position, preferring to regard it as "the failure
of an attempt to falsify the hypothesis under test" (Harré, 1972, p48).
Probability:
"The amount of antecedent likelihood of a particular event as measured by
the relative frequency of occurrence of events of the same kind in the whole
course of experience" (OED). For present purposes, probability becomes
most interesting when there is not a lot of it about, because small
probabilities present serious problems in the heads of those who wish to paint
simplistic truths. Example:
Included in the entry for asymptote. [For more on the technicalities of
probability in research, see the cluster of entries in our Research Methods Glossary.]
Professional
Opinion: [See firstly levels of evidence.]
"The formal statement by a member of an advisory body, an expert, or
professional man, or the like, of what he thinks, judges, or advises upon a
question or matter submitted to and considered by him" (OED). Accepted in
law from a recognised expert witness. The beauty of this
arrangement lies in the rights it gives you to "ask for a second
opinion".
Projection:
An important psychodynamic defence mechanism in which your attitudinal
structures adjust themselves in the direction of blaming other people -
typically one's own leaders or convenient out-groups - for your perceived
troubles. Small surprise, therefore, that projection has been regularly
identified as one of the "lethal triad" of "basic social forces
common to radical groups" (Gilmartin, 1996).
Propaganda:
Originally "any association, systematic scheme, or concerted movement for
the propagation of a particular doctrine or practice" (OED), but now also
the persuasive material itself. Lasswell (1927/1971) identifies the following
general objectives: to maintain an illusion of victory, to preserve
friendships, and to demoralise the enemy. For a thorough introductory history
of this subject, see Jowett and O'Donnell (1992).
Proposition:
See the entries for proposition and propositional
network in our Psycholinguistics
Glossary.
Propositional
Truth: [See firstly proposition and truth.]
A declaration of a truth, expressed as a proposition in subject-predicate form
[Psycholinguistics
Glossary] (i.e. in the format "my cat is
black"), critically evaluated by due process, but, in the end,
accepted by all parties and thus fulfilling the acceptability principle
of rational
argument.
Psychological
Warfare: [Alternatively "PsyWar",
"PsyOps", or "Psywar Ops".] The battle for the "hearts
and minds" of an enemy, either in its own right or as an aid to the taking
of territory or the elimination of military assets. Warfare which targets an
enemy's will to resist. Morale operations or propaganda. Example: See Elliston (1996) for some specific
techniques.
Public Information
Operations: State persuasion. The control of public opinion
by the control of information flow in terms of timing, content, accuracy, and
implication. Example:
See the entry for Bryce Commission.
Public Opinion:
[See firstly opinion and persuasion.] The balance of opinion of
the population as a whole on a particular issue, as determined by such
instruments as public opinion polls. As a topic for academic study, the story
begins with Lippmann (1922). The point about public opinion is that it (a)
evolves over time, and (b) only loosely predicts actual behaviour. Here, for
example, are the monthly percentages for UK opposition to the Iraqi War: April
2003 24%, June 2003 34%, November 2003 49%, June 2004 53%, and November 2004
57% (The Times, 9th November 2004).
Questionable
Authority: [See firstly appeal to authority.]
A type of fallacious argument in which an opinion
is presented as evidence but turns out upon inspection to be
either (a) not that of a recognised expert at all [hence not a professional
opinion], or (b) that of a prejudiced
expert [hence not objective]. Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Rational Argument:
The "Holy Grail" of intelligent debate. An argument
which cannot upon sustained inspection and analysis be faulted for any form of fallacious
argument (and which might not be possible upon this planet at
all). [Caution:
Unfortunately, the adjective "rational" implies only "good"
or "pure", and in itself makes no claims of success. Many perfectly
rational arguments are bulldozed out of the way by this or that fallacious, but
more heavily supported, alternative.]
Rationalisation:
In its general everyday usage, "to rationalise" has drifted from its
original sense "to render conformable to reason; to explain on a rational
basis" (OED), and now carries the additional negative connotation of explaining
away things you cannot otherwise explain at all. Indeed, the human capacity
for rationalisation - be it before, during, or after the event itself is at
least partly responsible for every single one of the perhaps 160 million war
deaths in the 20th century, and totally responsible for the atrocities
element thereof. Example:
To claim that victims "had it coming to them" [regardless of what
"it" actually is on a particular occasion] is to rationalise the
original act. [See now denial and its subtypes.]
Reasoning:
According to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid, reasoning is the process by
which we pass from one judgement to another (Reid, 1863, cited in
Thomson, 1892). Alternatively, it the process by which humans "draw
explicit conclusions from evidence" (Wason and Johnson-Laird, 1972,
p1). Most authorities identify two fundamentally different ways to do this,
namely inductive and deductive, but some recent ones have added a
third way, namely abductive. [See now abductive reasoning, deductive
reasoning, and inductive reasoning.] Reasoning calls
for a number of basic cognitive skills, including inference,
and sustained effort at detecting fallacious argument.
Rebuttal
Principle: The ninth of Damer's (1995) 12 basic principles of rational argument.
The principle that "one who presents an argument for or attacks a position
should attempt to provide effective responses to all serious challenges or
rebuttals to the argument or position at issue" (p182). Damer sees this as
"perhaps the most difficult" aspect of rational argument, and
suggests that "the rebuttal should be the primary driving force behind the
formulation of every argument [so that] one will have a constant reminder that
an argument is not finished until one has finished off the
counterarguments" (p182).
Recognition of
Assumptions: [See firstly reasoning.]
The ability to use assumptions wisely is one of the
component skills of critical thinking. Example: Test #2 of the Watson-Glaser
Critical Thinking Appraisal is a test of assumption spotting, and is structured
as follows. You are given the following statement (from Watson and Glaser,
1991, p4): "We need to save time in getting there so we'd better go by
plane". There are then a number of proposed assumptions which need to be
judged as necessarily made
in the given statement. The optional answers are (1) that going by plane will
take less time than other means of transport [YES], (2) that there is a plane
service available [YES], and (3) that travel by plane is more convenient than
travel by train [NO].
Reconsideration
Principle: The twelfth of Damer's (1995) 12 basic principles of
rational
argument. The principle that if a closed
argument is subsequently found to have been flawed in some way "one is
obliged to reopen the issue for further consideration and resolution"
(p185).
Reductionism:
[See firstly explanatory gap.] A philosophical doctrine
predicated upon the assertion that complex sociocultural and psychological
phenomena can ultimately be explained in terms of underlying chemical or
physiological processes [but far from universally supported].
Reflective
Practice: Of healthcare and similar professions, a state of
perpetual critical self-appraisal which attempts to enhance a practitioner's
clinical autonomy. Reflective practitioners are seen as preventers who
constantly question their means of prevention, as assessors who constantly
question their methods of assessment, as interveners who constantly question
their proposed point of intervention, and so on.
Resistance to
Persuasion: [See firstly the various entries for attitude change.]
Of both individuals and groups, the ability to maintain the coherence and
integrity of one's initial attitudinal structures - the schemas,
the convenient
myths, the traditions, the belief systems,
etc. - in the face of counter-attitudinal attack. Tormala
and Petty (2004) have analysed some of the issues
here, and emphasise the importance of metacognitive
factors in determining how resistant a given person is going to be. [See now inoculation.]
Resolution
Principle: The tenth of Damer's (1995) 12 basic principles of rational argument.
The principle that we ought to be able to resolve arguments "much more
frequently than we do" (p184). There are a number of perfectly innocent
reasons for failure, as when the suspension of judgement principle
is invoked, but normally you would suspect over-involvement emotionally, lack
of knowledge or basic argumentation skill, or the existence of a hidden agenda.
Sacred Science:
[See firstly thought reform and aura of sacredness.]
The tendency on the part of totalist regimes to frame their
fundamental beliefs with "absolute 'scientific' precision" (Lifton,
1961, p487).
Schema:
See this entry in our Memory Glossary.
Science:
"A branch of study which is concerned either with a connected body of
demonstrated truths or with observed facts systematically classified and
[.....] brought under general laws" (OED). "A leap frog process of
fact accumulation and theoretical advance" (Harré, 1972,
p43). [See now law of nature.]
Scientific Method:
[See firstly causation and philosophies of science.] The use
of inductive
reasoning in the pursuit of new knowledge. The roots of the
scientific method go back to Sir Francis Bacon, and are based
upon the repeated, published, and peer-reviewed empirical testing of
hypotheses. [For more on what this involves in practice, just start at hypothetico-deductive
method in our Research Methods Glossary,
and work outwards from there.]
Secret Service: The
clandestine military intelligence and special operations
arms of government, which - sometimes in conjunction with, and sometimes
despite, assistance from non-governmental
secret
societies - steer our respective vessels of state through the
mists of history.
Secret Society:
[See firstly secret service.] The term "secret
society" encompasses such things as the lodges, cabals,
and pressure
groups, which - sometimes in conjunction with, and sometimes
despite, assistance from governmental
secret
services - steer our respective vessels of state in particular directions
through the mists of history.
Self-Sanctification:
[See firstly totalism.] One of the eight factors
identified by Lifton (1961) as making for an effective system of thought reform.
A demand for "absolute purity" (p482) of affiliation by a system
which induces feelings of guilt and then uses them as instruments of control.
Semantic
Differential: A "semantic differential" is an
hypothetical continuum between an adjective and its semantic opposite [e.g.
GOOD-BAD]. Semantic differentials are believed by followers of Osgood, Suci,
and Tannenbaum (1957) to be important building blocks for attitudes.
Here, for example, is a tabular array of an eight-adjective rating of "the
ideal automobile" .....
Osgood et al's
particular development of the differential array [which may, of course, be
several thousands of items deep if the researchers so wish] was to allocate
each specific dimension to one of three superordinate categories, as follows
.....
E- The Evaluative
Factor: This subsumes all adjectives implying some sense of
goodness-badness [e.g., stylish, expensive, secure, safe].
P- The Potency
Factor: This subsumes all adjectives implying some sense of
strength-weakness [e.g., big].
E- The Activity Factor:
This subsumes all adjectives implying some sense of activity-inertia [e.g.,
fast].
[See now attitude change theory (semantic
differential theory).]
Semaphores and
Busy Pins: [See firstly ports, pins, and drivers.]
A semaphore is a one-bit short-term memory store, addressable from the inward
direction by the local processor, and directly connected in the outward
direction to a communications pin of some sort. The value of this contrivance
of electronic engineering is that it allows the local Control Unit to monitor
the processing state of a remote module with which it is for the time being
associated. Semaphores are typically used to synchronise the execution of
logically related software in distributed processing systems. This means getting the
semaphore (in essence, only a single binary flip-flop) and the pin (a physical
connector in a larger modular circuit) to work together, and the classic
solution for half a century has been for the processor in question (a) to
monitor the processing state of an associated module by wiring the latter to a
pin it can itself directly access, (b) to monitor said pin, and (c) to schedule
its own processing according to what that monitoring reveals. The signal pins
are known generically within electronics as "busy pins", and the timing instructions are of
the nature <WAIT ON BUSY PIN HIGH/LOW>. The
semaphores - one per unit being monitored - then simply echo that pin status
into the software, where it can be tested (in other words, this clever
piece of engineering makes the physical mental, and vice versa - see endnote).
To maximise processing speed it is usual to maintain the semaphores at bit
level rather than at byte level, and to provide them as a class of
purpose-built CPU registers called "status
registers". Heidenstrom (1998) shows
several nice tables relating bit values within the status registers to the
numbered pins on the communication ports, if interested.
Note:
Semaphores and busy pins have a major but as yet unrecognised metaphorical
relevance to the mind-brain debate.
This is because they have been having mereological supervenience designed into them since they
were first invented in the 1940s, and must now be
rated as tried and tested mechanisms for interfacing process with underlying
processor. For whatever reason, however, there has been little
explicit search for the biological equivalent of semaphores and busy pins, to
the detriment of the central debate. [See now supervenience in modular
processing hierarchies.]
Sense of Fair
Play: One of the principles of natural justice. The notion that one of the duties of a society is to implement a rule
of law for the settling of disputes.
Sheer Imbecility:
[See firstly imbecile.] Breathtaking simple-mindedness
or lack of forethought.
Slippery Slope:
A type of fallacious argument in which - with or without intention
to deceive - there is loose use of a series of "if-then" arguments,
one or more of which does NOT upon proper inspection follow the one before, but
is actually quite difficult to detect.
Smear Tactics: Ad
hominem argument supported by briefing against,
character
assassination, or the like, in political campaigning.
Socialisation:
"The process by which children and others adopt the behaviour patterns of
the culture that surrounds them" (Wikipedia). [See now political
socialisation.]
Sophistry:
"Specious but fallacious reasoning; employment of arguments which are
intentionally deceptive" (OED). "A deliberately
invalid argument displaying ingenuity in reasoning in the hope of
deceiving someone" (Hyperdictionary). So named after the "Sophists" of 5th Century BC Greece,
who accumulated encyclopaedic knowledge and then structured it to support the
arguments of those who paid.
Special Effects
(SFX): Conjuring tricks and sleights of hand in the context of
theatre and cinema.
Special
Operations: Of the military and secret services,
operations of especial tactical or strategic value, usually undertaken by a
small force of highly trained and specially equipped personnel, and typically
coordinated by a Department of Dirty Tricks. In time of war,
this includes activities such as sabotage, assassination, kidnappings,
diversionary attacks, the organisation of resistance groups, and the general
pursuit of psychological warfare. In time of peace it includes - er -
much the same.
Speech Act:
See this entry in our Psycholinguistics
Glossary.
Spin: [See
firstly spin doctor.] Propaganda directed by a government
against its own people as though they were the enemy. State or corporate sophistry.
The deliberate manipulation of public opinion by the calculated
misrepresentation of an underlying truth. Example: The received view on casino
gambling in the UK is that such establishments exist to make profits for their
owners at the expense of the majority of their customers and to the downright
ruin of a not inconsiderable minority thereof. This more or less propositional
truth then gets corrupted by the mouths of politicians as
follows: "Casinos provide a modern opportunity for people and their families
to go and either have some entertainment or be able to indulge in leisure
gambling in an adult fashion." (Leader of the House, Peter Hain,
The Daily Mail, 27th October 2004; considered as a locutionary act
[Psycholinguistics
Glossary], this statement is not untrue as
such, but as an attempt to advance a serious ongoing debate it is execrable.)
Spin Doctor:
(1) Originally, one who interfered with the free and random operation of any wheel of fortune
device, in order to increase the house take. A fraudster, therefore, in
the general category of insider dealers and racetrack "nobblers".
Hence (2) one who interferes with any commercial mechanism or
procedure in order to separate the working man from his money. Hence (3) one who interferes with the natural presentation of
truth in order to influence public opinion.
State: [See firstly event.] "Static things" (Kim,
1993, p33). The quiet times between events, and a
potential problem to theories of causation. Kim, however, plays down the
differences between events and states. He sees the former as "a losing or
acquiring" some important property and the latter as simply
"having" it at a particular moment in time.
Stating the
Bleeding Obvious: To be guilty of uttering so blatant a truism
as to exasperate one's audience.
Stone, Isidor
Feinstein (1907-1989): US investigative journalist
and self-proclaimed awkward SOB. Famous for his exposé of the workings of the
US Departments
of Dirty Tricks during the run-up to, and early years of, the Korean
War (Stone, 1952) (and thereafter for more of the same).
Stonewalling:
Giving nothing away. Standing solid and true despite constant
attack. Obstructing or hindering. So named after General
Thomas J. ("Stonewall") Jackson (1824-1863), Confederate Army, whose
troops at the First Battle of Bull Run "stood like a stone wall".
A positive descriptor if your side is the one doing the stonewalling, but a
negative one if you are on the receiving end of it.
Straw Man: A
type of fallacious argument in which the attention of one party
is deliberately diverted from the issue at point onto a contrived but
ultimately irrelevant non-issue. Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Strong
Sufficiency: See sufficient cause. [Do not confuse strong sufficiency with strong supervenience.]
Strong Supervenience: See supervenience, weak, strong, and global.
Sufficient Cause: [See firstly multiple causation.] The notion that event A is capable of triggering
effect Z in isolation, but that it would find it easier to do so if at least
one other contributory cause was
simultaneously active. Where the need for contribution is in
fact relatively small, then event A may be described as "strongly"
sufficient. [Compare necessary cause.]
Sufficient Grounds
Principle: The 8th of Damer's (1995) 12 basic principles of rational argument.
The principle that "one who presents an argument for or attacks a position
should attempt to provide reasons that are sufficient in number, kind, and
weight to support the acceptance of the conclusion" (p181).
Superstition:
"An irrational religious belief or practice"
(OED).
Supervene, To: [Latin supervenire =
"to come/occur above".] "..... to
follow closely upon some other occurrence or condition" (O.E.D.). This
word is rarely (if ever) used in everyday English, but its formal meaning is
worth noting carefully because it is the source of the much trickier
philosophical term "supervenience". [See
now supervenience and causation.]
Supervenience and Causation: [See firstly causation and supervene, to.] Philosophically speaking, supervenience
involves a supervening of elements of two sets of properties from a single
domain in accordance with a causal rule. Note that this usage of supervenience
immediately goes further than the standard English
usage: specifically, for one event to
"supervene" upon another in a philosophical sense, it has to do more
than just follow that earlier event, rather it has to occur because of it. For a thorough history of the derivation of the
philosophical usage, leading into a detailed discussion of the dozen or so
different facets of supervenience across various
branches of philosophy, see the (18-page!) entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [click
here to be transferred] or work through the essays in Kim (1993).The
common denominator, however, is that supervenience
indicates consequence rather than
mere sequence, and its usage in this sense
dates from the 1940s (Hare, 1984). Defined formally, philosophical supervenience involves the cross-relating of properties
between "two sets of properties over a single domain of
individuals" (Kim, 1993, xi;
italics original) and signifies "a metaphysical and/or conceptual determination-relation"
(Horgan, 1993, p555). [See now supervenience, weak, strong, or
global.]
Supervenience for Multiple
Domains: See mereological supervenience.
Supervenience in Mental
Philosophy: [See firstly supervenience, weak, strong, or
global.] Nowhere is there a greater
need to master the language of supervenience than in
modern mental philosophy, where the challenge is to identify which of the two
properties (i.e. mind events and brain events) actually supervenes in the causal line of biological cognition. Davidson (1970) opened this phase of the debate
with the following general declaration: "Mental characteristics are in
some sense dependent, or supervenient, on physical
characteristics [although] dependence or supervenience
of this kind does not entail reducibility through law or definition"
(p88). Supervenience soon became a major analytical
tool in all subsequent discussions of reductionism and the explanatory gap, and inspired works by the University of Sydney's John Bacon (e.g.
1986), Brown University's Jaegwon Kim (e.g. Kim,
1993), the University of Arizona's Terence Horgan (e.g. Horgan, 1993), and
Princeton's David Lewis (e.g. Lewis, 1991). Kim's (1993) studied dismissal of epiphenomenalism [see that
entry] offers a good example of how the concept can inform the mind-brain
debate when it has to, unfortunately there is still too much uncertainty about
whether brain events follow mental ones, or vice versa, to make the
long-awaited major breakthrough. [See now supervenience in cognitive processing
hierarchies.]
Supervenience in Modular
Processing Hierarchies: [See
firstly supervenience in mental philosophy.] And so to the real point of this glossary, which
is that it is impossible to apply the notion of supervenience
to the mind-brain debate without
immediately coming up against the intricacies of modular processing
hierarchies. The critical point is that neither the "mind" nor the
"brain" is grainless - they both have
internal structure (that of the brain, indeed, having been documented in exquisite
detail over the last two centuries or so). They therefore suffer the problems
of macrocausation vs microcausation not just once, but repeatedly, once for each
identifiable module. In other words, when Rumelhart
and McClelland (1985) popularised the notion of parallel distributed processing
they were - in effect, if not intent - introducing new microlines
of causal determination for each distributed processor, and then insisting on a superordinate macroline for the system as a whole! Again, any search for supervenience between the two sets of properties will run
into difficulty when trying to unravel the all-important event sequences,
because there will be simultaneously advancing, but different, event sequences
in each module for each set of properties. Computers overcome these
difficulties by resorting to semaphores and busy pins, plus an awful lot of very expensive "netware" to manage them.
Supervenience, Weak, Strong, or
Global: [See firstly supervenience.] One of the most valuable subthemes
in Kim's (1993) review of the subtypes of supervenience
was its distinction between weak, strong, and global versions thereof. Supervenience, he argues, is not a black-or-white quality
because natural phenomena are not black-or-white. Granted a few causal lines
are relatively well mapped out, but most are horribly confounded by the
problems of macrocausation vs microcausation.
If we are to make any progress at all, therefore, we need to settle for less
than perfect explanations, and allowing weak
supervenience (i.e. supervenience
where set A properties co-vary in terms of "discernibility" within a single world [see longer definition]) is one way to
achieve this. Strong supervenience is then simply
weak supervenience with a higher proportion of inter-world dependencies.
"Global" supervenience, by contrast, is
simply the non-specific requirement that "worlds that are alike in a
certain way must also be alike in another way" (Bennett, 2004, p501). [See now supervenience in
mental philosophy. For an example of one hundred percent strong supervenience, see our point about source code and object
code in explanatory gap.]
Suspension of Judgement
Principle: The 11th of Damer's (1995) 12 basic principles of rational argument.
The principle that "if no position comes close to being successfully
defended, or if two or more positions seem to be defended with equal strength,
on should, in most cases, suspend judgement about the issue" (p185). [But
carefully contrast clarity principle.]
Swift Vets:
[In full, Swift Boat Veterans and POWs for Truth.] See the entry for 527 groups.
Sycophant:
"A mean, servile, cringing, or abject flatterer;
a parasite, toady, lickspittle" (OED).
Sycophancy: The
natural behaviours of a sycophant. A subtype of flattery, in
which the flattered party is usually one's own immediate superior.
Syllogism:
[See firstly deductive reasoning.] A form of
deduction in which there are two premises, one primary and one
secondary, and a conclusion. Example:
Here, from Cohen and Manion (1989, p3) is an unflawed syllogism [note the flow
from general rule to particular example]: First Premise: All planets orbit the sun. Second Premise:
The Earth is a planet. Conclusion:
Therefore the Earth orbits the sun.
Systems View:
A dispassionate analysis of an otherwise politically sensitive and partisan
area. A search for natural truth and justice, involving the identification of
underlying flow patterns (of money, people, or other commodities). Examples: See the separate entries for
the credit
boom, Gambling Bill, and pensions crisis. [For
a detailed analysis of the cognitive science at work here, see our e-paper on "Systems
Thinking".]
Tautology: "The
repetition [of] the same idea or statement in other words; usually as a fault
of style" (OED). Example:
TO FOLLOW.
Teleology:
[Greek telos = "far" or "distant", as in
"television", seeing at a distance] "The doctrine or study of
ends or final causes" (OED). Teleologies are usually assertions of
voluntary prior purpose, as in "I'm studying for my exams".
Teleological explanations are severely frowned upon by science, because prior
purpose is never objectively observable. The philosophical point at issue is
that the agent of this possible volition - known popularly as "the
will" - is a poorly defined concept, and in practice it is all too easy to
impute will where none actually exists. Example: The
observation that a fruit fly flew from A to B and drank ought not to be
described as "That fruit fly flew from A to B to get a drink".
The fly in question was at A, it took off, it flew to B, it landed, it drank -
a chain of simple reflexes could achieve the same (and does). Similarly,
animals do not mate in
order to continue their blood line, they just exist and
respond when programmed to respond.
Theory:
"A scheme or system of ideas or statements held as an explanation or
account of a group of facts or phenomena; a hypothesis that has been confirmed
or established by observation or experiment, and is propounded or accepted as
accounting for the known facts" (OED).
Theory of Mind:
One of the most promising research areas in modern cognitive science. The term
itself comes originally from Premack and Woodruff (1978), who used it to
describe an individual's ability to "impute mental states to himself and
others" (p515). The idea was then developed by Dennett (1978), who
popularised the notion of "orders of representation",
again by Wimmer and Perner (1983), who described the phenomenon in entirely metacognitive
terms as having "beliefs about beliefs", and again by
Baron-Cohen (1989), who devised a particularly powerful
"false-belief" experimental paradigm for testing the theory of mind
capabilities of children with special educational needs such as autism.
Thought Reform:
[Chinese hsiang kai-tsao = "ideological remoulding"] The
Chinese Communist system of indoctrination during the 1940s and 1950s, which
gave rise to more focused techniques such as brainwashing
when high value subjects presented themselves. The techniques of
thought reform were thoroughly analysed by Lifton (1961). [See now totalism.]
Totalism:
[Short for "ideological totalism".] [See firstly thought reform.]
Lifton's (1961) term for "the coming together of immoderate ideology with
equally immoderate individual character traits - an extremist meeting ground
between people and ideas" (p477). "Human zealotry" (Ibid.).
The psychological power house for "those ideologies which are most
sweeping in their content and most ambitious - or messianic - in their claims,
whether religious, political, or scientific" (Ibid.). In Lifton's
analysis, eight separate factors - "psychological themes" (Ibid.)
- need to be addressed, dealt with separately as milieu control,
mystical
manipulation, confession, self-sanctification,
aura
of sacredness, loaded language, doctrine over
person, and dispensed existence. [Carefully
contrast totalitarianism.]
Totalitarianism:
"a system of rule, driven by an ideology, that seeks direction of all
aspects of public activity, political, economic and social, and uses to that
end, at least to a degree, propaganda and terror" (Pleuger, 2004). [Carefully contrast totalism.]
Tradition:
The way things have always been done. The essence of a particular culture, both
as overt behaviours and belief systems. Emotionally anchored habit. [See now appeal to
tradition.]
Transitive
Causation: [See firstly causal line.] This term derives originally
from the works of Benedict de Spinoza in the 17th century, and denotes a causal
line in which various intermediate stages are not necessarily noted by an
observer. Park (2003) puts it this way: "Intuitively, we expect causation
to be transitive. If x causes y and y causes z we expect x to cause z"
(p3). [See now the discussion of microevents
in macrocausation vs microcausation.]
Truism: "A
self-evident truth" (OED). [Compare stating the bleeding obvious.]
Truth: In
everyday usage, truth means "conformity with fact; agreement with reality;
accuracy, correctness, verity (of statement or thought)" (OED). In
philosophy, it is the broader issue of the nature and limits of human thinking,
and is thus as old as reflective thought itself [see now truth, essence of
and truth,
scientific]. In a court of law, it is the construction - the schema
- put upon the evidence and expert opinion produced. In public information
operations, it is the belief system
being promoted by the agency picking up the tab. And in times of war, it is
invariably "the first casualty" (Senator Hiram Johnson, 1917).
Truth, Essence of:
[See firstly aletheia and truth.] Title of a classic paper ["Vom
Wesen der Wahrheit" (Heidegger, 1930)] by the philosopher Martin Heidegger.
Truth, Scientific:
[See firstly truth.] A propositional truth established using
the scientific method.
Truth-Seeking
Principle: The second of Damer's twelve principles
of effective rational discussion. The notion that "each participant [in a
rational discussion] should be committed to the task of earnestly searching for
the truth or at least the most defensible position on the issue at stake"
(Damer, 1995, p175).
Uberrimae Fides:
[Latin = "utmost good faith".] One of the two principles of behaviour
within the Lloyds of London insurance market [the other being fidentia].
The notion that "one's word is one's bond".
Urban Myth:
[See firstly myth.] A vivid and typically ungrounded rumour, so
frequently mentioned as to be taken as true.
Value: In
everyday usage, a "value" is an "estimate or opinion of,
liking for, a person or thing" (OED; italics original). The word
retains much the same sense when used as a technical term in social psychology,
where it refers to the behaviour traits we hold dear, either personally, or in
those we look up to. Values are thus beliefs about how
one ought to behave.
Visiting Martians:
Devil's advocates. In the present context, a hypothetical
band of truth-curious aliens who - thanks to their larger brains
and lack of any side but their own - habitually see through the lies,
confabulations [Memory Glossary],
rationalisations, and cover stories
put forward by Earthlings. This leads them to ask penetrating and at times
extremely uncomfortable questions which we ourselves had either overlooked or
suppressed. The gold standard for the critical evaluation
of one's own arguments is therefore to do a thought experiment in which you
take the role of a visiting Martian and see how uncomfortable you can make
yourself. Example of Usage: "Visiting
Martians would not be alone in wondering why parliament has spent so much of
the last five years debating hunting. Plenty of Earthlings are mystified
too." (The Guardian, 4th December 2002.) Examples of Uncomfortable Questions:
(1)
Why do you Earthlings call it peace when there is so much fighting going on? (2)
Why are not all UN resolutions enforced by coalition action? (3)
Why are some popular militias referred to as "partisans" or
"resistance fighters" and praised for the mayhem they cause, whilst
others are called "terrorists" or "insurgents"? (4)
Give it to us again about how producing such a lot of heroin in those mountains
over there fits in with this "democracy" thing you're always on about.
(5)
We've just been watching this video called "The Magnificent Seven",
and there's this bunch of bandidos crashing about on some sort of
four-legged humvees, generally kicking butt. This is clearly some earlier form
of coalition. So how come they get to lose? (6)
One other thing while we're on - we like the way you deploy these "combat
chaplains" real close to the action, so as to keep the guys on message.
Waffle, To:
[Mild English slang.] To expatiate upon a topic of discussion without actually
addressing any of the substantive issues. Example:
This from Tessa Jowell, defending her position on the Gambling Bill
before Parliament: "'I, er, didn't refer to people as snobs', she said. 'I
referred to a whiff of snobbery, which is quite different'." (The Daily
Mail, 2nd November 2004; the defence is factually true, but factual truth
is irrelevant here because the waffle-factor comes in making fine points of
semantics in defence of the inherently indefensible.)
Weak Supervenience: See supervenience, weak, strong, and global.
Wheel of Fortune:
A generic name for a class of fairground and casino attractions in which money
is staked on the various sectors of a rotating circular platten or pointer, the
winning selection being determined by the position of the moving part when
coming to rest. Fairground attractions of this type include "Crown and
Anchor" and the "Big Wheel", whilst the principal casino example
is the roulette wheel. The wheel of fortune concept becomes relevant to the
present discussion thanks to the understandable (but nonetheless reprehensible)
temptation to "doctor" [= interfere with] the spin thereof using a
hidden braking device - hence spin doctor, hence spin.
Wister, Owen
(1860-1938): American novelist, whose 1902 best-seller "The
Virginian" became the principal sourcework for the modern myth
of the Hollywood cowboy.
