Fake News

Fake news, and for that matter, real news, in the current environment has become what Chaim Perelman and Luci Olbrechts-Tyteca call “pseudo-logic.” Don’t be fooled by that term. Pseudo-logic doesn’t mean illogical. It means an argument that draws its persuasive strength from having a structure that resembles logic. How does that work with fake news? 

It works because fake news does not seek to persuade, but to “increase the adherence” (another Perlamand and Olbrechts-Tyteca term) to beliefs already held. In the case of fake news, the news item its comfortably within a world view already held so strongly that the audience believes that world view is realty, not simply an interpretation of reality. Thus, a syllogism (of sorts) is formed.

P1: My world view is reality

P2: This news confirms with reality

C: Therefore, this news is fact

Notice that in this construction, no evidence, data, proof is required. In fact, any data contrary to the major premise can be ignored because it violates the syllogism. 

Anyone who has taken Logic 101 can point out the fallacy in this syllogism. Structurally, it is a tautology. More importantly, P1 (in Spinoza the “axioms”; P2 are his propositions) needs to be internally provable. In this neo-syllogism, P1 one is actually a proposition because it requires external proof, in other words, it has the same problem natural religion has in Hume’s “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.”