Dianne Allen 2004, 2009 1 Faulty thinking Toulmin:(Toulmin, Rieke et al. 1984) Part IV- Fallacies: how arguments go wrong p.129-197 14. Introduction 15. Missing grounds 16. Fallacies resulting from irrelevant grounds 17. Fallacies resulting from defective grounds 18. Fallacies of unwarranted assumption 19. Fallacies resulting from ambiguities 15. Missing grounds

Begging the question 16. Fallacies resulting from irrelevant grounds

Evading the issue Appeals to authority The argument against the person The argument form ignorance The appeal to the people The appeal to compassion The appeal to force

17. Fallacies resulting from defective grounds Hasty generalization Accident

18. Fallacies of unwarranted assumption Complex question False cause

Temporal succession and causation Mistaken cause

False analogy Poisoning the wells

A note on common sense 19. Fallacies resulting from ambiguities

Equivocation Amphiboly Accent Composition and division Figure of speech Avoiding fallacies of ambiguity

Argyris: Ladder of Inference/ Faulty Attributions Dewey:(Dewey 1933), p.17-34 II. Why reflective thinking must be an

educational aim The values of thinking

It Makes Possible Action with a Conscious Aim It makes Possible Systematic Preparations and

Inventions It Enriches Things with Meanings Control and Enriched Value Two Reasons for Training Thought

Tendencies needing constant regulation Physical and Social Sanctions of Correct Thinking

Men exhausted all wrong forms of belief before they hit upon the right conception p.24 (right conception = form of belief that has not yet been demonstrated to be inaccurate representation of the external world)

Superstition is as Natural as Science

The General Causes of Bad Thinking: Bacon’s “Idols” Tribe = human nature Marketplace = intercourse & language Cave/den = specific of the individual Theatre = fashion current to the period

Locke on Typical Forms of Wrong Belief Acceptance of others unquestioned Passion rules Narrow Interests

Importance of Attitudes The Union of Attitude and Skilled Method

Openmindedness Wholeheartedness Responsibility

The Bearing of these Personal Attitudes upon Readiness to Think

Mezirow:(Mezirow 1991), p. 5. Distorted Assumptions: Uncovering Errors in Learning

Distorted Assumptions About the Reasoning Process • Informal fallacies • Errors in inferential rules or assumptions • Premise distortion Epistemic Premise Distortions • The Development of Reflective Judgment

(King & Kitchener) • Common Epistemic Distortions Sociolinguistic Premise Distortions • Language-Based Distortions • Distortion Through Selective Perception • Sociolinguistic Distortion and Levels of

Consciousness • Constrainted and Unconstrained Visions Psychological Premise Distortions Summary

Bandler & Grinder:(Bandler and Grinder 1975) Function of perception filters in model making • Deletion (to handle overload of information,

detail) • Distortion - Nominalization • Generalization Bandler, R. and J. Grinder (1975). The Structure of Magic I : a Book

about Language and Therapy. Palo Alto, Calif., Science & Behavior Books.

Dewey, J. (1933). How We Think: a Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process. Boston, DC Heath.

Gould, R. L. (1978). Transformations: change and growth in adult life. New York, Simon & Schuster.

King, P. and K. Kitchener (1994). Developing Reflective Judgment: understanding and promoting intellectual growth and critical thinking in adolescents and adults. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Mezirow, J. (1991). Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.

Toulmin, S., R. Rieke, et al. (1984). An Introduction to Reasoning. New York, Macmillan.

Augmentations:

Dianne Allen 2004, 2009 2 Ross Gittins (2007, citing David Myers Intuition, )

• representative bias

• availability bias

• hindsight bias

• confirmation bias

• self-serving bias Dave Snowden, Cognitive Edge (2009, noting also Thiele 2006 The Heart of Judgement) (http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/2009/04/we_are_not_good_at_being_objec.php)

• contrast effect

• sunk-cost effect

• out-group homogeneity

• Actor-observer contrasts

• self-confirmation

• confirmity

• overconfident

Dianne Allen 2004, 2009 3 Mezirow Distorted Assumptions, p.118-144 p.134 “.. in several subcultures, such as the academic, scientific, legal, diplomatic, ecclesiastic, and journalistic worlds, people make a sustained and deliberate attempt to bar [the use of persuasive or distracting linguistic tactics]” Category: Type: Subtype: S-A

Material fallacies Facts or content of an argument

Fallacy of evidence where an argument does not provide the required factual support for its conclusion Fallacy of relevance where an argument’s supporting statements are irrelevant to its conclusion

Linguistic fallacies Arguments have been corrupted by ambiguous use of language such as shifts in meaning, imprecision or vagueness, or incorrect use of words

Informal (Angeles, 1981)

Strategic fallacies Arguments are presented in ways that appeal to prejudices, biases, loyalties, fears, guilt and the like

Representativeness heuristic (heuristic = rule of thumb) A heuristic that makes it possible to reduce many inferential tasks to simple judgements about similarities

Assigning an object or an event to a conceptual category in which its principal features most nearly fit

Availability heuristic Judging the frequency, probability and causality of objects or events to the extent that they are readily remembered

Weighting the relevance of one’s data Salience

(MD: prominent or conspicuous)

Vividness (MD: strikingly bright )

Causal inference • Letting prior theories of causality make the learner oblivious to implications

about covariation presented in the evidence • Relying on distorting and arbitrary predilections for attributing causality • Applying causal schemas or analytic strategies inaccurately • Ignoring variations among populations • Ignoring relative frequencies of outcome possibilities

Premise distortion • Inadequate problem definition • Inadequate system of categorization

Errors in inferential rules or assumptions (Nisbet and Ross, 1980) meaning perspectives made up of beliefs, theories, and schemas that inaccurately represent the external world – labelling objects or events inaccurately or processing them through inappropriate meaning perspectives

Fundamental attribution error • Sees behaviour as caused primarily by enduring and consistent dispositions

toward action rather than by the particular characteristics of situations to which the actor responds

• Tendency to explain others’ behaviors as dispositional, they usually explain their own behaviour in situational terms

• Underutilising the opinions and experience of others • More likely to take credit for good outcomes than blame for bad ones • Take more credit for joint outcomes than is our due

Once these inappropriate knowledge structures are used, subsequent considerations fail to exert significant impact in modifying them

[the impact of ‘closure’; the Newton’s first law of motion applied to thinking]

Reasoning Process In instrumental learning errors are likely to be logical or methodological; errors are made in applying rules of inference or reasoning

“When ‘testing’ theories, the layperson seems to remember primarily confirmatory evidence .. When confronted forcibly by disconfirmatory evidence, people appear to behave as if they believed that ‘the exception proves the rule’” (Nisbett & Ross, p.10, 1980) p.123 Mezirow .. people .. get by in everyday life because of the collective nature of many inferential tasks. In collective problem solving, our most significant errors are likely to be challenged by others.

Dianne Allen 2004, 2009 4 Category: Type: Subtype: S-A

Stage 1: reality and knowledge about it are the same – can learn absolute truth from an authority

(Dogmatism)

Stage 2: knowledge is absolutely certain but may not be immediately available Stage 3: knowledge is absolutely certain or only temporarily uncertain; when it is temporarily uncertain we can know it only through our intuition or biases (Skepticism)

Stage 4: knowledge is seen as idiosyncratic, situational variables such as incorrect reporting of data or data lost over time conspire to keep us from knowing with certainty

(Skepticism)

Stage 5: knowledge is contextual and subjective Beliefs may be justified within a particular context only by the rules of inquiry that pertain to that context. Because justifications are assumed to be context specific, choosing between competing interpretations is often difficult and therefore is resisted.

Stage 6: knowledge as personally constructed, based on evaluations of evidence and arguments across contexts so that we may know our own and others’ personal constructions of issues. Beliefs may be justified by weighing the evidence and arguments on different sides of the issue or across contexts and constructing a solution that is evaluated by personal criteria such as our individual values or the pragmatic need for action

Development of reflective judgement King & Kitchener, 1983 (King and Kitchener 1994)

Stage 7: reflective judgment mode – four presuppositions 1. there is a reality against which ideas and assumptions must ultimately be tested;

however 2. the process of enquiry is itself fallible 3. knowledge claims rest on the process of rational inquiry, and 4. justification is, therefore, based on a rational evaluation of evidence and

interpretation (Rationality)

Propositions as meaningful only if that can be verified empirically A phenomenon produced by social interaction is immutable and beyond human control

Common (Geuss, 1981)

Using concepts that are descriptive as prescriptive (prescriptive=lays down a rule or direction)

Tolerance of perceptions that differ from conventional experience Consideration of various possibilities before making a decision Susceptibility to distraction Intensity of attention and span of awareness Blurring and merging of similar objects and events in memory Construal of the world in a multidimensional and discriminating way Categorization that uses many different concepts (thematic, functional, descriptive, class membership)

Perception of items as discrete from their backgrounds and contexts Preference for a category range that is broad and inclusive rather than narrow and exclusive

Distortions in Cognitive Style (Knox, 1977 for these ‘dimensions’)

Risk taking versus cautiousness (Long,1983) Focusing on either the analytical or the global when the other is appropriate Focusing or not focusing when appropriate Defining categories too broadly or too narrowly Being reflective or impulsive when the other is appropriate

Geuss, 1981

Dealing with the concrete or abstract when the other is necessary for understanding Daloz, 1988 Failure to think abstractly and in a critically reflective way

(so concrete, not separating form from content)

Epistemic Premise Distortions Derived from perspectives held over from earlier developmental stages; cognitive, learning, and intelligence styles

Langer 1989 Notions of entropy and linear time can serve as limiting mind-sets • Entropy the gradual breaking down of an entity or pattern of organisation within a

closed system leads to a belief in fixed limits, whereas the view that reality is socially constructed suggests that it is relatively amenable to human control

• Linear time – that one must accept that time ‘runs out’ which leads to the notion that cognitive skills and psychological and physical health are predictably related to age

Bateson 1979 Errors in logical typing

Dianne Allen 2004, 2009 5 Category: Type: Subtype: S-A

Implicit ideologies

When ideology tends to legitimate existing society, institutions, and ways of life as natural, good, and just, it becomes what Gramsci (1971) calls hegemonic. As such it contains the dominant, most widely shared beliefs and attitudes expressed in social practices and institutions. Ideologies can vary from sophisticated theory to blind prejudices or biases..

Language-Based distortions Language games

We must name a thing in order to bring it into active consciousness, and when we name an experience, we change it. Example: argument is war – the metaphorical language used Example: labor as a resource Culture may be understood as a collective store of associative images and chains that suggest the nature of coherence, probability, and ‘sense’ within a given world. The true nature of social ‘realities’ often is buried in persuasive or distracting linguistic tactics ..such as intimidation, threat, appeal to authority, insult, belittling, challenge to authority, evasion of the issue, bargaining, and flattery

Cultural codes Role expectations derived from secondary socialization prototypes Anticipated scenarios of interaction

Social norms, roles and practices

Philosophies and theories that serve to frame experience selectively Undeveloped levels of consciousness

Goleman (1985b,p.201) “Any frame at all defines the narrow focus where the relevant schemas direct attention, and a broad ignored area of irrelevance.”

Distortion through selective Perception Tact, “the well-mannered deployment of attention”, also conspires to limit perception

and cognition. How natural it is to simply block out someone we meet at a dinner party who insists on airing a social philosophy or political point of view diametrically opposed to our own. We all avoid discourse and confrontation when they are clearly fruitless.

Sociolinguistic Distortion and levels of Consciousness

Freire has defined conscientization as the process by which learners ‘achieve a deepening awareness of both the sociocultural reality which shapes their lives and of their capacity to transform that reality by action upon it’ (1970b,p.27). Freire has identified four culturally conditioned levels of consciousness • Intransitive consciousness – preoccupied with basic survival • Semi-in transitive consciousness – dictatorships with a culture of silence,

oppression internalised and dependency • Naïve or semi-transitive consciousness – can question lives and understand

sociocultural reality is determined by human beings, questioning is naïve – impressed by populist, vulnerable to manipulation

• Transitive consciousness – able to participate in dialogic educational process that focuses on validity testing of assumptions concerning social norms, cultural codes, and ideologies that foster dependency and oppression

Constrained – sees human beings as being hopelessly flawed

Sociolinguistic Premise Distortions

Constrained and Unconstrained Visions (Sowell, 1986)

Unconstrained – rejects the notion of inherent limits on humanity and holds that it is within our power to perfect ourselves and to eradicate social evils through will and reason

Produce ways of feeling and acting that cause us pain because they are inconsistent with our self-concept or sense of how we want to be as adults

I may regret taking this action because it might not be the right action

I may regret taking this action because it might disturb an important relationship in my life

I may regret taking action because I may fail and feel worse about myself

I may regret taking action because I may succeed and it will change my life in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable

Prohibition blocks (Gould, 1989, p.119) anxiety generated by parental prohibitions learned under traumatic circumstances in childhood -> ‘lost’ adult functions (mature ways of feeling and acting) blocked by inhibitions, psychological defense mechanisms, and neurotic needs

If I take action, it might disturb some inner balance and I might find out something about myself that I don’t want to know

Psychological Premise Distortions

The strong feelings that impede action also must be dealt with before transformation can occur; simply understanding the situation is insufficient to effect transformative learning. Transformative learning may involve progressively greater risk taking in deciding action steps

Dianne Allen 2004, 2009 6 Category: Type: Subtype: S-A

Leaving our parents’ world: Major False Assumption: ‘I’ll always belong to my parents and believe in their world’ Component Assumptions: • If I get any more independent, it will be a disaster (they won’t love me anymore?) • I can see the world only through my parents’ assumptions • Only my parents can guarantee my safety • My parents must be my only family • I don’t own my own body

I’m Nobody’s Baby Now Major False assumption: ‘Doing things my parents’ way, with willpower and perseverance, will bring results. But if I become too frustrated, confused or tired or am simply unable to cope, they will step in and show me the right way.’ Component Assumptions: • Rewards will come automatically if we do what we’re supposed to do • There is only one right way to do things • My loved ones can do for me what I haven’t been able to do for myself • Rationality, commitment and effort will always prevail over other forces [LOC] [Reason’s weakness is the belief that it has the capacity to convince unreason – Jean Rostand]

Opening Up to What’s Inside Major False Assumption: ‘Life is simple and controllable*. There are no significant coexisting contradictory forces within me.’ [*the common view of the mechanistic sciento-engineering model] Component Assumptions: • What I know intellectually I know emotionally • I am not like my parents in ways I don’t want to be • I can see the reality of those close to me quite clearly • Threats to my security aren’t real

Mid-Life Decade Major False Assumption: ‘There is no evil or death in the world. The sinister has been destroyed’ Component Assumptions: • The illusion of safety can last forever • Death can’t happen to me or my loved ones • It is impossible to live without a protector (women) • There is no life beyond this family • I am innocent

Normal Psychological Difficulties of Life’s Transitions arising from Distortions/ False Assumptions

Transformation from Child to Adult; normal psychological transitions needing to be negotiated (Gould 1978)

The End of an Era: Beyond Mid-Life The life of inner-directedness finally prevails: I own myself