Fallacy of Logical Omniscience

Metaphysics and Epistemology
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20 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Do I extend the “benefit of the doubt” to every individual? I do. Without specific and particular reason to do otherwise, I approach every man at the very highest level that my own “rationality” will allow.

I know.  :thumbsup:  And I don’t believe that you think of people in general as “mostly-brainless”, either; that would defeat the point of entering into any intellectual discourse.

I do think it’s implied in not expecting much respect for reason from people and it’s an implication I’ve been struggling with, personally. I primarily wanted to see how my intermediate results stand up to OO’s scrutiny (I figured it wasn’t a big enough point to derail the thread).

 

21 hours ago, StrictlyLogical said:

Rand address this through her characters in AS, in the form of the imperative:

“Check your premises”

 

Yes… And while that would technically cover every error in the world (if properly understood) it seems like a somewhat blunt instrument. I mean, I’m fond of the guideline that “a good theory is one a child of six could understand” and if a six-year-old asked me:

17 hours ago, Eiuol said:

We both may know A, but it doesn’t mean we both know A leads to B. A second point to talk about is, as you said, when a speaker is rationally required to concede the implications.

I wouldn’t respond “check your premises” and leave them to sort the rest out.

 

Once again, I’m not trying to derail the thread and I will take a stab at the OP (hopefully in a way that a six-year-old could grasp) in a few more days.

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William, I think those tiers are a good general outline. Those in the top tier really can be expected to know the implications at least within their field. But the problem still remains that I find people higher on the tier are more likely to accuse others of evasion for not noticing implications. People lower on the tier are more likely to accuse others of evasion for mischaracterizing arguments. I find that those accusations are based most often on logical omniscience, as opposed to any actual evasion.

SL, I suppose this is more of an example of a cognitive bias as opposed to a fallacy per se. I still say it’s an example of poor logic. Logic can involve mental states if you’re asking something like “if you believe A, what can be said about your belief in Z?” For example, if you were looking for your lost keys, but I had them in my hands all along, I would not expect you to check my hands first. The rules of logic don’t depend on mental states, but applying them to mental states is different. The fallacy I’m talking about would be equivalent to saying you would check my hands first, which is ignoring the other person’s context. Reasoning about mental states is as important as reasoning about facts unrelated to mental states.

Of course, the more advanced an audience or the person you’re talking to, the more you can already expect them to grasp certain implications. That is, it is possible to poorly communicate your message, which isn’t the fallacy of logical omniscience. However, being aware of possibly running into a fallacy helps with being a better communicator.

 

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Sounds reasonable.

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On 2/29/2016 at 9:54 AM, DonAthos said:

What a person presumes to be the implications of another person’s argument (or frankly, his own) cannot be assumed, or rest upon simple assertion. Like any other contentious matter, such implications must be established through reasoned argument.

 

The primary thing seems to be that implications are contextual.

 

Take “Socrates is a man”. If you didn’t know anything about men (let’s say you were a visitor from Alpha Centauri) then that wouldn’t tell you anything at all. However, if you knew that men were mortal (and you knew what mortality was) then the statement that “Socrates is a man” suddenly has real implications.

 

All knowledge is interconnected. When you get right down to it, there are no ideas held in vacuums; every concept is tangled up in every other concept in whatever brain holds them.

For one idea to “imply” another seems to mean that, in whatever mind perceives this implication, they’re tangled up in an unstated (somewhat messy) kind of syllogism.

 

So the process of arguing for or against the implication of any two ideas appears to be a matter of progressing downwards between them, by increasingly-fine levels of scrutiny; isolating the relevant context and bringing those connections out where they can be examined.

 

I have a few other things but they all stem from that.

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19 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Take “Socrates is a man”. If you didn’t know anything about men (let’s say you were a visitor from Alpha Centauri) then that wouldn’t tell you anything at all. However, if you knew that men were mortal (and you knew what mortality was) then the statement that “Socrates is a man” suddenly has real implications.

All knowledge is interconnected. When you get right down to it, there are no ideas held in vacuums; every concept is tangled up in every other concept in whatever brain holds them.

For one idea to “imply” another seems to mean that, in whatever mind perceives this implication, they’re tangled up in an unstated (somewhat messy) kind of syllogism.

Good stuff. I agree. I believe that the (central) question of the thread is:

Suppose that a man knows that 1) “Socrates is a man.” And suppose he knows that 2) “All men are mortal.” Does it follow that he knows that 3) “Socrates is mortal”?

I believe that the stance contained in Eiuol’s “fallacy” is that it does not necessarily follow that, because he knows 1 & 2 the man knows 3.

Arriving at 3 is a specific action of deductive logic, and thus of thought/focus. While it may be questioned what it means to “know” that “all men are mortal,” if one could be said to be in a state where he knows that Socrates is a man yet has not reached the conclusion that Socrates is mortal, still I think that this is descriptive of the process we must all undertake to “integrate” our knowledge (and I take the central point of the thread to be that it’s worth keeping in mind that this is not automatic: it takes time and there may be missteps along the way).

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On 4/4/2016 at 8:01 AM, DonAthos said:

Suppose that a man knows that 1) “Socrates is a man.” And suppose he knows that 2) “All men are mortal.” Does it follow that he knows that 3) “Socrates is mortal”?

I believe that the stance contained in Eiuol’s “fallacy” is that it does not necessarily follow that, because he knows 1 & 2 the man knows 3.

If the man does not know #3, is this immoral, or amoral?

Or perhaps even moral based on his hierarchy of values making this piece of knowledge valueless?

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Suppose someone knows

  1. Socrates is Athenian.

  2. All Athenians are Greeks.

  3. All Greeks are Europeans.

  4. All Europeans are human.

  5. Socrates is male.

  6. Socrates is an adult.

  7. All adult male humans are men.

  8. All men are primates.

  9. All primates are eutherians.

  10. All eutherians are mammals.

  11. All mammals are amniotes.

  12. All amniotes are tetrapods

  13. All tetrapods are vertebrates.

  14. All vertebrates are chordates.

  15. All chordates are bilaterians.

  16. All bilaterians are animals.

  17. All animals are opisthokonts.

  18. All opisthokonts are eukaryotes.

  19. All eukaryotes are organisms.

  20. All organisms are mortal.

It might take a little time and effort to make the connections and realize Socrates is mortal.  How high a priority this is might depend on various things.  Is our person very hungry, under attack, etc.?  Does our person consider it a higher priority to evaluate Socrates’ ideas? 

 

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On 3/4/2016 at 4:38 PM, dream_weaver said:

Man is a conceptual being. Everything he holds to be true, he holds in conceptual form.

Very eye-opening. The fact that “truth” is (solely) in the form of concepts. I thought that “hot”, “loud” and “red” were perceptual.

9 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

It might take a little time and effort to make the connections and realize Socrates is mortal.  How high a priority this is might depend on various things.  Is our person very hungry, under attack, etc.?  Does our person consider it a higher priority to evaluate Socrates’ ideas? 

From what I can see, it’s not an intentional evasion. The demonstration of evasion seems to be “you should know it” but you don’t, or “one should know it but does not”. If so, it can only be known in hindsight, after one “knows”.

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34 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

Very eye-opening. The fact that “truth” is (solely) in the form of concepts. I thought that “hot”, “loud” and “red” were perceptual.

If you picked up a log from a fire that was glowing with red embers for its entire length and circumference with your bare hands, I would expect the yell that followed to be loud. In order for concepts to be objective, two things must be present. The object of consciousness and the consciousness of the object.

By moving closer to the fire, I can become aware of the heat radiating from it. The conceptual identification that it is hot converts a fact into a perceptual ‘device’ that can communicate to you, and be held conceptually by me, even after leaving the vicinity of the fire. The sensations only last for their respective durations.

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4 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

From what I can see, it’s not an intentional evasion.

Based on the OP that I wrote, I’m saying that failing to make a logical connection does not always mean the cause is evasion. 

Evasion is a deliberate action, by the way, I don’t mean that overlooking some facts counts. I mean the denial of facts after having already come to the conclusion that “Socrates is mortal”. There is no such thing as accidental evasion.

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38 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

I mean the denial of facts after having already come to the conclusion that “Socrates is mortal”.

I thought, by evasion,  you had meant a “not knowing (as in missed knowledge) that you should know”.

So you mean a reversing of a conclusion with the intention to do so.

I make the distinction because “being in denial” is usually associated with a semi-conscious (hidden) denial.

Rand’s description can also mean: a “refusal to identify” before the "knowing, rather than an identification that is refused after the knowing/concluding. Mainly because of the phrase “blank out”. “Blank-out”, can mean a blindness toward an area of knowledge too. The idea of it meaning an awareness that is turned into unawareness is interesting and new.

I was thinking of an example where A and B are having a discussion and B brings up a fact that could prove A completely wrong. A decides to refuse the truth of what B said evading the humiliation. In this case, A knows the truth. Although evading B, he knows the truth. (He has NOT evaded the knowledge although he evades declaring to another).

Although the next day, he forgets it somehow. Then it would be seen as willful evasion.

What about when someone sees your point but says something like “I will have to tell you my objection tomorrow, I am not too clear on it today”. The awareness (I suppose context) that they have today they agree with you, or does their doubt mean that they didn’t, in fact, agree with you?

As I thought about it more, I believe that evasion, as in revising the fact, is a subspecies of dishonesty.

 

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52 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

So you mean a reversing of a conclusion with the intention to do so.

Should know, in the sense that they deny knowing despite knowing, or refuse to integrate their knowledge despite the knowledge that they could. I don’t mean should, as in "you should know how to do calculus, it’s too bad no one taught you ". What you should take the time to learn is a separate issue.

54 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

Rand’s description can also mean: a “refusal to identify” before the "knowing, rather than an identification that is refused after the knowing/concluding.

Fair enough. I fixed up my explanation to reflect my agreement.

53 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

I make the distinction because “being in denial” is usually associated with a semi-conscious (hidden) denial.

I think that happens because a lot of people still think in Freudian terms. There is no reason to think that there is a type of hidden denial, hiding away from our awareness. You could have muddled thinking, or don’t take the time to focus, but neither is hidden.

55 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

The awareness (I suppose context) that they have today they agree with you, or does their doubt mean that they didn’t, in fact, agree with you?

Or it means they have doubts because they don’t know how you integrated that into a new idea. There’s a reason that professors teach classes even in PhD programs. It’s one thing to learn a whole lot of facts from a lot of books on your own, but you need to go to school to learn the standards necessary to be an expert. If someone has doubts, it’s safe to say that they really do. You might just need to elaborate, or ask them what they’re confused about.

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1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

Should know, in the sense that they deny knowing despite knowing, or refuse to integrate their knowledge despite the knowledge that they could.

 

I suppose I would need more examples. Perhaps there is one in her novels?

I tend to think that “to know that it can be integrated” is to try to integrate, see that it can be done. And then reverse the effect. But it is too late to refuse to integrate it, it already got integrated. You can only revise/replace it with “unknown” which I don’t know how that happens. 

The only time that I know of evasion, I have seen it, I have done etc. is due to major emotional duress. When one encounters a very difficult truth. A mother does not want to identify a dead child, or when one can’t admit the truth or their whole view of life falls apart (the idea of starting all over can be intolerable). It can happen with admitting a deep disappointment, loss, or paralyzing terror.

I would go as far as saying that some kinds of evasion have survival value. A wounded person in war who represses the pain of being shot has a better chance of survival than one who feels the pain and goes into shock and dies. Also, paralyzing terror can cause an inability to take action, and a temporary illusion of safety can be the best way forward.

I suspect this (the OP’s) is a type of evasion with a different characteristic. It must be a type of dishonesty to oneself. What is hard to believe is that it can happen without an emotional impetus (a strong fear of the truth). What other motives can there be?

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10 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

You can only revise/replace it with “unknown” which I don’t know how that happens. 

It can be anything, even the old belief.

11 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

A wounded person in war who represses the pain of being shot has a better chance of survival than one who feels the pain and goes into shock and dies.

That’s not evasion. To be exact, it’s probably not repression, but acknowledging the fact they were shot but then focusing on more important things at the moment.

11 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

I suspect this (the OP’s) is a type of evasion with a different characteristic.

The fallacy of logical omniscience is not a type of evasion. It’s accusing someone of evasion or bad reasoning, but wrongly. Just because we both know that Socrates is a man, doesn’t mean we both know that Socrates is mortal. The fallacy would be that I say you’re evading because you claim you don’t know that Socrates is mortal, despite knowing Socrates is a man. It might make more sense actually to call it a cognitive bias.

Logical omniscience is the idea that if you know A, it also implies that you know everything that follows from A.

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Evasion is knowing that 2+2=4 and then refusing to accept one’s own conclusion. 

I see a man who I admire take something from a store, actively concealing it from the store clerk.  Because I admire the person, I refuse to see that he is a thief. 

I see a politician advocate for something completely antithetical to his stated principles. Because he is of my party, I invent wildly implausible excuses for his behavior, instead of accepting that he is hypocritical or worse.

I see all the instances where socialism has failed and, because I believe wholly in socialism, repeat loudly to myself that those things were not “real” socialism, so socialism has never actually been tried, much less failed.

See the pattern?

A fact enters my consciousness.  I don’t want the fact to be true.  So I do something to deny the fact. This something might actually prevent me from having full conscious awareness of the fact or it might be some form of rationalization.  But either way I take active measure, to deny what some part of me knows is true or, having reason to think something might be true, to refuse to investigate what I know so as to avoid the possibility of knowing the truth.