Critical Thinking in a Chevy Cavalier

I recently helped my daughter, Carol, move from Dallas to Bellingham, a small town about an hour north of Seattle. The drive in her fully loaded 2000 Chevy Cavalier took us four days. One leg of the journey was from Ft Collins, just north of Denver, to Laramie, a two-lane road not taken; it skirts around Cheyenne, and takes the driver through a rugged, western landscape. We caught occasional glimpses of the Rocky Mountains in the distant clouds, small herds of pronghorn antelope, and sandstone outcroppings, as we drove. 

At one point, Carol said to me . . . but first, since this post is about critical thinking, let me give a little background to clarify the significance of the brief comment she made. That background comes from TV, Disney, the internet, anything that in the 21^st Century both fascinates us and draws us into its little world, and at the same time repels us by competing with what we see as the “real world.”

Occasionally, and this seems to come up often enough that it has become a trope, someone will tell the story of going somewhere with a child or teenager, somewhere spectacular, perhaps the Grand Canyon or the Eifel Tower, and hear the child say, “Oh, it looks just like TV,” or, “Oh, just like Disney World.” 

This example frustrates us because we think our children are replacing the reality with the digital--or at least not being dazzled by the reality because they can no longer seen anything but the digital. On a deeper level, it frustrates us because it’s an example of linear thinking that fails to take in context or significance, which in turn disappoints us because we feel like some of the wonder of the world might be lost.

Now, back to that Chevy Cavalier. At one point, as we passed a particularly spectacular rock outcropping, Carol said, “You know, I always thought those fiberglass rocks at Disney World were so fake. Now I realize that they were really trying to make them look like the real thing.”

This reaction is subtly and significantly different, from the “Oh, just like . . .” reaction, and gives us an example of how critical thinking moves beyond linear thinking, even though they might start from the same place. Notice, first, that linear thinking simply notes similarity. Critical thinking, on the other hand, notes the similarity, then examines that similarity for possible reasons. In this case, cause and effect might be a reason. However, if no reason is found, critical thinking doesn’t manufacture reasons. In this case, in order for cause and effect to be a sufficient reason, there must be yet another reason beneath it, that in turn, can explain cause and effect, yet itself might remain unspoken. And, there is: artists working for Disney are attempting to recreate natural phenomenon in order to make visitors feel like they are in another place. From this unstated reason, Carol recognized immediately that there is cause and effect, not simply similarity. 

Something else is taking place here, something necessary to critical thinking, so necessary that I would argue without this, it isn’t critical thinking: This something else is the revision of (or the possibility of revision of) previously held beliefs. This necessary aspect of critical thinking can be found in Carol’s, “I used to think . . ..” What she used to think she would have been glad to state as a fact before that moment: “Oh, those rocks in the Canada Pavilion may be impressive, but like all things Disney, they’re just cartoon versions of the real. They’re anime made from fiberglass. They really shouldn’t overdo it like that. I’d rather see something more realistic.”

This aspect, the willingness to change our minds, forces us to recognize an important roadblock to critical thinking: if we don’t want to change our minds, we don’t need critical thinking; in fact, critical thinking is positively dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. No matter what we call it, any kind of thinking that requires us to hold onto what we’ve always believed, no matter how strong the evidence against that belief, doesn’t qualify as critical thinking. Critical thinking isn’t simply open to change, it welcomes change, welcomes the possibility that around every bend in the road, previously held beliefs may be shattered, or at least revised. And, this is the scariest thing about critical thinking; it’s precisely why some avoid it at all costs. 

* This is precisely what is sought in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. He asks if it is reasonable to assume that because there are similarities between something constructed by a human, such as a house, and something in nature, in fact, nature itself, that this provides sufficient evidence that what we see in nature has a creator. As in any effective dialogue, the reader is left to make that decision.  

An Aside on Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy

In the opening pages of The Problems of Philosophy, when Bertrand Russell outlines the basic philosophical problem of appearance and reality, he writes that artists “have to learn the habit of seeing things as they appear.”* His point has to do with perspective, that we see every object from a personal viewpoint or perspective. I have to wonder whether even in 1912, when The Problems of Philosophy was first published, if artists were still trying to see things as they appear. The impressionist movement, with Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, was already in full swing, perhaps even by 1912 already cresting its wave, and being muscled out by Post-Impressionism, though I suspect this is a category only bandied about by art experts. The point, simple enough, by 1912, the forefront of art had already lost interest, not only in appearance, but reality, since they were painting impressions, or interpretations, or experiences, a move that was mirrored across the Atlantic in pragmatism, which its most vocal proponent, William James, was wont to call a method, and which Russell vehemently denied could call itself a philosophy.  

* My copy of The Problems of Philosophy is a reprint, without pagination, or indeed margins wide enough for me to make notes in. Not being able to write notes in the margins drives me crazy.

Nietzsche's The Genealogy of Morals

I can only describe listening to Nietzsche's The Genealogy of Morals as embarrassing.

The first graduate class I took while still an undergraduate was a summer class in Nietzsche. A hundred pages of Nietzsche every night for five weeks. It was an experience. Ah, but what I learned. I learned how to read critically, how to follow complex and often convoluted lines of reasoning, how to identify and explicate key words and phrases. (Philosophers love to coin new words or give new names to familiar words.) I learned that you could weave understanding out of a philosopher; you didn't have to take the whole system to take what was useful to you and leave what wasn't.

I left that class with a grudging respect for Nietzsche. For quite a while afterwards I found myself saying things like, "The Nazi's misunderstood Nietszche," or "They selected passages out of context." Those youthful appreciation has been shattered while listening to The Genealogy of Morals. This time I can't help but see the "free man" described in the Essay One as emblazoned with a swastika.

Now, I find myself trying to understand my attitude from so many years ago. Reading Nietzsche through the lens of Foucault it is possible to see the free man as the intellectual resisting the "will to power" of the hegemonic discourse. Unfortunately, reading Nietzsche through the lens of Aryan superiority, it is all too easy to see the free man as an oppressor with no concern but his own power. (I am going to assume that this is one case where gendered language will be acceptable.) Either interpretation is possible. Hence, my embarrassment. Can Nietzsche be reformed by reading him as a critic of Victorian morals? Or, is he forever tainted by being read as calling for an opposition to morals in the name of power?

It is a few days later . . .

. . . and I'm in the middle of listening to Essay Three, which intrigues me as much as Essay One embarrassed me, particularly Nietzsche's exposition of the interrelated flaws of the religion, atheism, and science of his day. At the beginning of these passages, he writers that his reader is the reader who does not need to be convinced. We might understand that as the reader who already agrees with him, that is, the audience of most partisan politics. I am drawn back to Plato's distinction between the philosopher and the poet in Ion.  In Plato's parlance, Nietzsche is a poet rather than a philosopher. He is caught up in the muse of anger, and his readers are those who are attracted, like Plato's example of the lodestone, to, even caught up in, that anger.

Rage against the machine, Nietzsche.





 

It's All in Your Mind

I read the following article from Runners World with interest. I have to admit, my initial reaction was a bit smug. The article follows the age old, "mind over matter," or as the article says it, running is "90% mental." The writer quotes Lore of Running author Tim Noakes's claim that the brain is the "central governor" of the body, keeping it from over-exerting, or in runner parlance, performing, and thus damaging itself. I immediately jumped on the tendency for the "mind over matter" cliche to confuse the mind with the brain. Then, though the article sometimes leaned in that direction, arguing that physical fatigue might be overcome with mental fortitude, I realized my own perceptions (I'm going sidestep words such as preconceptions or prejudices) were leading me to miss the point. Yes, the brain is not the mind--because it is part of the body. It is a muscle. Thus, mind over matter is mind over brain. That might be worth trying. 


http://www.runnersworld.com/rt-web-exclusive/mind-over-matter

Gorgias says, "Nothing Exits."

"Nothing exists. If anything existed, we couldn't know it. If we could know it ,we couldn't communicate it."

Gorgias's oft repeated statement on reality (ironic? satirical? even whimsical?) has either tickled the fancy of the post-structuralist inclined, or thoroughly irritated those more devoted to analytical philosophy, IE those who like to think of themselves as logical, what William James refers to as "hard-headed" thinkers. (Might we, in our own whimsical mood, refer to these two entrenched camps as the army of the right-brained and the army of the left-brained?) It is possible, however, that this claim can make sense, and not simply be a mystic expression of an inexpressible metaphysics--or perhaps a bit of overly clever wordplay.

In order to take the slight of hand out of Gorgias's playful denial of the real, I'm going to go back to something that confused me for a long time listening to both Plato and Aristotle, the reference in each of the monad. This term is significant enough that it has its own listing in the Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10447b.htm.   And yes, I start with the Catholic Encyclopedia to emphasize how the term has been reified (syntactical deification; or perhaps a better word, hypostasize) in scholasticism. Eventually, after the word popped up without explication more times than I was comfortable with, started to feel like I might have some inkling of what the term might be getting at when I listened to Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics. Here he talks about the monad and the duad. Simple one and two? I might accept that. It wasn't that doing so didn't make sense, it was that it didn't make enough sense. Then, Aristotle throws in a triad, but not simply a triad, a triangle. He'd already talked about how the duad was more than the two because it couldn't be simply divided into two monads since there is only one monad.The only way his discussion worked, that is, wasn't gibberish, was if the monad, rather than a number, is a point, the duad a line, and the triad a triangle.

A point has no space. When we draw a dot, we are simply making an "imitation" of what isn't there. A line can be divided, but doing so doesn't make the line two monads. The remainder stays a duad--and, remains unmeasurable. Then we come to the triad, the beginning, or basis of the physical world. It would be easier to see this as three dimensions. That, however, doesn't work out, since a line only has one dimension, and a point, no dimension at all.

Here is how this all connects to Gorgias: Since a monad (or a duad for that matter) does not actually exist, I.E. does not take up dimensional space, it cannot be known, since our senses cannot detect it. It can be represented, but since the representation does not refer to the actual, which doesn't exit anyway, it cannot be communicated. Certainly, something we refer to as a point or a line can be communicated. But, just as a dot "." on a screen or page is not actually a point, but only the symbol of a point, that symbol, no more than our words, can actually communicate what isn't there.

I admit, I'm not entirely sure how the triangle fits here, though Aristotle finds the triangle significant, since the 90 degree angle of a right triangle is the constant whereby squares are constructed, which he says makes triangles a first principle.

I also admit that this is an entirely off the wall interpretation, one that is no more explicit in Aristotle than in Gorgias. But, it works. Until someone else can come up with an interpretation of Gorgias's maxim that works better, I'll go with it.

The full text, at least Sextus's version, can be found at https://users.wfu.edu/zulick/300/gorgias/negative.html (Thank you Dr. Zulick. Also see http://rhetoricalgoddess.wikia.com/wiki/Rhetoricalgoddess_Wiki) Sextus's outline of Gorgias's argument is reminiscent of so many arguments about the one and the many that the sophists loved. Zeno's Arrow, designed to show how preposterous the other side's argument was, is just the best known. Plato's Parmenides and Euthydemus are examples of this mode of argumentation. As Plato implies in Euthydemus, such sophism shouldn't be taken seriously because one is never sure what the sophist actually believes, or is just saying to "make the worse case the better." Personally, I'm drawn to lines 83 through 86, and particularly this statement, "is is not possible to say that logos has substance in the way visible and audible things have," because this supports my argument, at least tangentially.


   

George Santayana and the "Pathetic Fallacy"

In The Life Of Reason (Ch 6), Santayana talks about the “pathetic fallacy.” Though this term might sound familiar to rhetoricians, he means something different from the use of pathos as a means of persuasion. For Santayana, the pathetic fallacy is the tendency to attribute to objects the emotions we feel when we observe those objects. For instance, an angry God in a dangerous world, or a loving God in a peaceful world; lambs as innocent, wolves as evil. (Note that this pathetic attribution to wolves is Medieval, while the modern pathetic attribution to wolves sees them as free spirits.

Santayana goes on to argue that there are limited moments when the pathetic fallacy is not a fallacy at all. His first example is that of cattle, one of which might start in fear, causing the heard to share that emotion. The result is a stamped. It matters not to the pathetic if there is an actual danger, simply that all share similar emotions. The response of the herd is to the first animal who started, not to the danger. 

The herd example may be all too apt, since Santayana goes on to argue that “leaders” (quotation marks are mine; the reason will soon be evident) are those who have learned to read the emotions of others and thus lead them, or control their actions. It is evident that the leader may not necessarily share those emotions, which leads to the possibility of the demagogue, the individual who has learned to sway the heard to his own ends, ends that may not necessarily benefit the heard. 

According to Santayana, the leader/demagogue, may control the actions of his followers without changing their consciousness.. As yet, I’m unsure what "consciousness" means to Santayana, though the term is in some ways, akin to Socrates's ideas of the soul. There is a synergy between Santayana's complaints about "leaders" and Socrates’s complaint about the great orators of Athens. Though Pericles is held up as an example of a great orator by others in the dialogues, Socrates asks whether he left the Athenian people any better than he found them. This is the Socratic test of politicians, orators, and sophists: did they leave the people better than he found them? To put this question in Santayana’s terms, did they change the people’s consciousness, or only their actions?

As I mull this question I am reminded of Kant’s “What is Enlightenment?” I’ve asked students in theory classes to read this essay, and they’ve invariably had positive reactions. Yet, it’s always left me troubled. Looking at it now I see Kant's defense of the use of pathetic by leader/demagogues. Note Kant’s praise of Frederick, who he admires for say, “Argue as much as you like, and about what you like, but obey!" In Kant’s enlightened age, we see a leader who has no wish to have anything to do
with his people’s consciousness, but only their actions.

I have to admit, I dislike the idea of a modern state playing with the consciousness of a people, trying to leave them better through legislating morality. My dislike simply leads me back to Socrates, who continually shied away from a public (political) life. However, seeing his life solely as a contemplative life simply ignores the evidence provided by the dialogues—that Socrates was in constant interaction with others. Might we go as far as to identify dialectic as dialogue that explicitly seeks to connect to the consciousness of another?

Kant's ideal state assumes that there is no relation between consciousness and action, that argument can remain out of the public domain. Socrates's argument implies that if the two are not intertwined, one will become stunted.