[Peace-discuss] AOTA Comment #3: A Taste of Sophisms

[C. G. Estabrook]

   [This is one of a series of comments prepared for "AWARE on the Air,"
   a production of the Anti-War Anti-Racism-Effort of Champaign-Urbana,
   on Urbana Public Television (cable channel 6) Tuesdays at 10:00pm.]

The sophists were itinerant pundits or "popular philosophers" & fee-taking 
teachers of "how to be a success" in ancient Greece.  They were criticized by 
Plato because they took money & taught young men how to use specious arguments 
to advance their cause.  They were held to be skillful and persuasive in "making 
the worse appear to be the better cause" & in showing how to make the weaker 
argument defeat the stronger in the minds of an audience.

*  A sophism is an expressed thought that :

(1) is offered as a consideration for or against some thesis, claim, person, 
idea, doctrine, ideological position ("-ism"),   etc., but,

(2)  when examined very coolly, analytically, and critically, appears specious, 
deceptive, distorted, oversimplified, overcomplexified, or otherwise lacking in 
cogency.

*  Sophisms vs. fallacies

  A sophism is typically more subtle and seductive than an outright fallacy of 
reasoning in that it panders to someone's aspiration to moral and/or 
intellectual superiority.  A fallacious argument does not justify the conclusion 
drawn, but the conclusion may itself be right.  Sophisms are rhetorical devices 
that may in some cases have some legitimacy, merit and probative force when used 
as arguments.  A conclusion reached by the use of sophisms may nonetheless be 
true.  A sophism may or may not also be a fallacy of reasoning.

The most frequent habitats of sophisms are political speeches, the columns of 
newspaper and magazine commentators or "pundits,"  and the polemical writings of 
political and religious controversialists.

Note that the suggestion  (accusation) that someone has produced a sophism may 
itself be a sophism.

------
Basic:  sneer-and-smear, or  negative "spin" &  innuendo to the effect that 
something someone has said or done proves him/her to be a contemptible scumbag, 
a scoundrel  and/or a deluded fool.  (Ignorant, stupid, retarded, crazy, 
confused, corrupt, vicious, narcissistic, insincere, "disingenuous," etc.)

Let  P, Q  =  any propositions (quasi-factual statements or declarative sentences).

"The same people"
The same people who once said P are now saying Q, which is conflicting 
(contradictory, "ironic," etc.).  Challenge:  Name one of those people.

The who-can-say argument (popular among adolescents):
   --  Are YOU so perfect?  Do you know EVERYTHING?
   --  The "know everything/know nothing" dialectic:  If you don't know 
EVERYTHING, then you really know nothing.  And who can claim to know everything? 
  (Are you an obnoxious  know-it-all?)

Someone else has done this (or something sort of like it) before & got away with 
it.  I don't remember you complaining (criticizing, accusing, demonstrating) 
about it then!

I believe that P very deeply, sincerely, fervently & passionately;  therefore 
you should believe it too (& with equal passion).
 > Note the substitution of sincerity for truth.  [Harry Frankfurt, _On 
Bullshit_ (2005)]

Someone has said this (or something sort of like it) before.  There you go again!
   --  This is old news. We have heard this one before.   The issue is settled. 
  Nobody is interested in it any more.  There you go again!   (E.g., 
Presidential election of 2000)
   --  Let's look forward & not dwell on the past.  Get OVER it!   (E.g., 
Presidential election of 2000)
   --  The REAL ISSUE is what we do now, going forward!  Possible mistakes of 
the past are irrelevant.  (Mistakes were made, but not by ME.)

This is a new, untested claim.  It must be rejected until everyone is in 
agreement on it & there is universal consensus.  (Global warming caused by human 
activities?)
 >  Create some doubt, then claim that someone -- such a purveyors of cigarettes 
-- must be given "the benefit of the doubt."   [David Michaels, _Doubt is Their 
Product_ (2008)].

What you are criticizing X for is well established & completely routine.  Why 
are you trying to make this an  issue NOW?  (E.g., Surveillance practices)

[Excerpted from a draft of Dec. 2007, embellished in June 2008.]

	--RON SZOKE
	  24 June 2008