Misuse of concepts

[LoBagola]

I'm trying to mentally integrate something to do with communication of concepts... I'm not too sure where I should be looking though.

 

When someone uses language like "well if rich people don't share some of the wealth then society will suffer and they in turn will have to live with unhappy neighbors who'll just destroy them anyway, therefore they need to share some of their wealth"

 

What is this type of statement called? it's like an "in the air" type argument with all kinds of confusing arbitrary assertions and I don't understand where they come from or how one should begin discussing them properly.

 

 

Others:

"I didn't chose to be alive"

 

choice presupposes being alive. Is there a name for a statement like this? The stolen concept refers to using a concept while denying the validity of it's root/antecedent concepts. But here life isn't being denied.

 

 

Along the same lines "Is there life after death?"

"Isn't it unfair that life has to end?" (fairness is a measure of justice, justice depends on choice, choice depends on life but there is no outright denial of validity of concepts it's just like the sentence is misconstructed).

 

I'm trying to look for a good explanation of this issue so that I can spot it even more frequently, relate it to my pre-existing knowledge and explain it articulately to friends.

Edited September 30, 2013 by LoBagola

[Grames]

I'm trying to mentally integrate something to do with communication of concepts... I'm not too sure where I should be looking though.

 

When someone uses language like "well if rich people don't share some of the wealth then society will suffer and they in turn will have to live with unhappy neighbors who'll just destroy them anyway, therefore they need to share some of their wealth"

 

What is this type of statement called?

It is a threat.

"I didn't chose to be alive"

 

choice presupposes being alive. Is there a name for a statement like this?

A truism. Really, you can't argue against this one. The discussion could veer into the issue of the metaphysical versus the man-made.

"Is there life after death?"

"Isn't it unfair that life has to end?"

No, there can't be life after death by definition.

Death, like life, is a metaphysical given in the sense of metaphysical versus the man-made. How one dies is a man-made fact but the possibility and eventual inevitability of death is metaphysical fact.

[Plasmatic]

"LoBagola, on 30 Sept 2013 - 08:46 AM, said:

"I didn't chose to be alive"

choice presupposes being alive. Is there a name for a statement like this?"

Technically this is context dropping. You have rightly discerned the difference of stealing a concept while denying its logically prior

roots vs using a concept without knowledge of the context that gave rise to the meaning of the concept and therefore misapplying the concept in a context where meaning wont transfer. You cannot separate hierarchy from context nor context from meaning.

Edited September 30, 2013 by Plasmatic

[Reidy]

I think the Objectivist jargon for the first, at least, would be "floating abstraction" - a term used without regard for its real-world referents.  The Ayn Rand Lexicon gives several examples but not an explicit definition.

[A is A]

I'm trying to mentally integrate something to do with communication of concepts... I'm not too sure where I should be looking though.

 

When someone uses language like "well if rich people don't share some of the wealth then society will suffer and they in turn will have to live with unhappy neighbors who'll just destroy them anyway, therefore they need to share some of their wealth"

 

What is this type of statement called? it's like an "in the air" type argument with all kinds of confusing arbitrary assertions and I don't understand where they come from or how one should begin discussing them properly.

Depending upon the context, there are some elements of argument from intimidation and some elements of appeal to authority ("the neighbors"); certainly elements of the appeal to physical force (argumentum ad baculum), appeal to emotions ("unhappy") as if that is a reason to act. It is certainly a false alternative: not all neighbors will be unhappy unless they receive the unearned.

Others:

"I didn't chose to be alive"

 

choice presupposes being alive. Is there a name for a statement like this? The stolen concept refers to using a concept while denying the validity of it's root/antecedent concepts. But here life isn't being denied.

Context dropping, as indicated above.

 

Along the same lines "Is there life after death?"

"Isn't it unfair that life has to end?" (fairness is a measure of justice, justice depends on choice, choice depends on life but there is no outright denial of validity of concepts it's just like the sentence is misconstructed).

 

I'm trying to look for a good explanation of this issue so that I can spot it even more frequently, relate it to my pre-existing knowledge and explain it articulately to friends.

This is also context dropping. This is also the fallacy of composition: Something is true about parts is taken as true about the whole or group. It is true that any individual life comes to an end but there is no way to infer from that fact that life itself will come to an end. It is also a non-sequitor: the conclusion that it is unfair if life comes to an end.

I'd suggest taking Peikoff's course on Introduction to Logic. It really helps to think logically.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

"well if rich people don't share some of the wealth then society will suffer and they in turn will have to live with unhappy neighbors who'll just destroy them anyway, therefore they need to share some of their wealth"

It starts off with an arbitrary assertion- DOES someone suffer unless you share your stuff?  It arbitrarily assumes that selfishness hurts everyone else- which won't be so much as analyzed by a single non Objectivist- and also happens to be completely false.

Then, as already pointed out, there's another arbitrary assertion.  Do suffering people necessarily turn to violence?  Again it isn't disputed anywhere else (which gives people the confidence to continue parroting it) and again it's flatly wrong.

Finally it assumes that the rich will roll over and appease this mob- which is possible, but absolutely not necessary.

---

This is basically one long chain of disconnected and unproven assumptions, held together by the same pack conformity which it attempts to intimidate you and I with.

"We're bigger than you and we say so" would be more honest.  Again, as pointed out, ad baculum.

 

"I didn't chose to be alive"

Eating, breathing and avoiding oncoming traffic are all choices to live.  Anyone capable of making such a statement has, in fact, done so.

 

"Isn't it unfair that life has to end?"

This is an application of "justice" to the universe at large, which has no mind which could properly exhibit such a property.

A rock is not good or evil, just or unjust, witty or stupid.  It's simply a rock.

 

The same applies to a galaxy or even the entire universe.  And incidentally, human mortality is a scientific problem.

 

Would human beings still be mortal, if our ancestors had learned earlier to face reality and deal with the fact of death?  How far have we been set back by peoples' compulsive antagonism towards such?