Confidence in reason

[coberst]

Confidence in reason

A popular adage goes something like this “I cannot argue down a conviction that has not been argued up.” It is impossible for me to use reason to convince someone who is without confidence in reason that they should have confidence in reason.

An adult without confidence in reason must start the effort to study reason before they can gain a confidence in reason. Perhaps that is impossible also. Perhaps it is the case that an adult without a confidence in reason will never have confidence in reason.

I suspect that 95% of the adults in the US have no confidence in reason and if my logic is correct they never will have that confidence. If that does not depress 5% of the population then nothing will. Perhaps it will delight the other 95%.

Further thought leads me to modify that statement. The 95% without confidence in reason do in fact have some confidence in reason. They do recognize that as an instrument to gain a goal reason is necessary.

What can we say about the 95% and reason? I guess we can say that they often have confidence in reason but that confidence is restricted to a limited aspect of life.

Is a person capable of having confidence in reason when that person is almost completely ignorant of the nature of reasoning?

[Subfallen]

By "reason" do you mean "methodological naturalism?" If yes, then I think you are right, and <font color="red">DS</font> has provided (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&amp;Number=11997601&amp;an=&amp;page=0&amp; vc=1) an explanation that I thought rather original:

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I am quite sure that the main reason people believe in the paranormal is because to believe otherwise is acknowledge that a small percentage of the world has a very good idea how things work and that they have no prayer of joining that group.

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[MidGe]

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I suspect that 95% of the adults in the US have no confidence in reason and if my logic is correct they never will have that confidence.

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And what leads you to suspect that, coberst? What's more which logic gets you to conclude that they never will? I mean it is a very bald statement. I think you should give a few of your reasons for making them. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[coberst]

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I suspect that 95% of the adults in the US have no confidence in reason and if my logic is correct they never will have that confidence.

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And what leads you to suspect that, coberst? What's more which logic gets you to conclude that they never will? I mean it is a very bald statement. I think you should give a few of your reasons for making them. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

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It is a matter of observation and judgment. It appears to me that in the US well over 50% of the citizens are religious and well over 90% believe in God and soul and heaven and angels, and miracles, etc. at least that is what I consider to be the case based upon things I see and hear. It is a common cry that "I cannot make that idiot change his or her mind". I suspect we all know that 76% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

[Splendour]

Quote: Is a person capable of having confidence in reason when that person is almost completely ignorant of the nature of reasoning?

Yes. Just because people are ignorant of the nature of reasoning doesn't mean they don't reason. Its just that they arrive at their reason by a different route. For example, commonsense is a form of reason but its experiential or arrived at through a gestalt type process.

The hilarious thing is that in certain situations you will frequently see more down to earth or less educated people saying about the more intellectual educated person that "he's intelligent but he ain't go no commonsense." This could have quite a lot of importance in say a life or death situation.

[luckyme]

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Quote: Is a person capable of having confidence in reason when that person is almost completely ignorant of the nature of reasoning?

Yes. Just because people are ignorant of the nature of reasoning doesn't mean they don't reason. Its just that they arrive at their reason by a different route. For example, commonsense is a form of reason but its experiential or arrived at through a gestalt type process.

The hilarious thing is that in certain situations you will frequently see more down to earth or less educated people saying about the more intellectual educated person that "he's intelligent but he ain't go no commonsense." This could have quite a lot of importance in say a life or death situation.

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Coberst. Confidence in reason is inversely related to ability.

luckyme

[carlo]

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I suspect that 95% of the adults in the US have no confidence in reason and if my logic is correct they never will have that confidence. If that does not depress 5% of the population then nothing will. Perhaps it will delight the other 95%.

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People are very clever in our time. Everyone is smart and they display it daily. If one wants to discuss "reason" per se then they will probably turn their back on him and see him as a pedant with questionable motives. People do not walk around stating that they have a 40% confidence in reason. They know its limitations and act accordingly.

To say that one who is a theist or religious is unreasonable is being obtuse, bloated in one's self involvement, and oh yea again definitely unreasonable.

[luckyme]

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People are very clever in our time. Everyone is smart and they display it daily.

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Interesting. yet less than half the people are tall. hmmm.

luckyme

[MiloMinderbinder]

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It is impossible for me to use peanut butter to convince someone who is without confidence in peanut butter that they should have confidence in peanut butter.

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You can still reason with someone who you think adheres to unreasonable beliefs. They might not go along with you, but you don't need to develop a "confidence in reason" first, because to them their beliefs are reasonable already. Getting didactic on "confidence in reason" won't help -- nor should it.

[TomCowley]

Two intelligent people start talking and find out they have a difference of judgment. Person A decides to let person B explain his detailed reasoning. Upon hearing it, it's clear B hasn't made any logical mistakes. A still shouldn't blindly accept B's analysis- he has to go back and figure out if his difference in judgement was due to a mistake (in which case he'll probably convert to B's point of view), or if it's solely due to different starting assumptions. If it's due to different starting assumptions, then both people need to examine the assumptions both people started with to evaluate which are "better", or if the contradictory result from two seemingly reasonable sets of starting assumptions means that the problem clearly doesn't have enough data to be solved with any confidence.

Now, can the average person even UNDERSTAND that, much less articulate it, much less practice it? No. It's not necessarily lack of confidence in reason (although that cerainly exists), it's complete cluelessness about how reason even works. And that's not even getting into the details of useless/untestable beliefs.

[coberst]

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Quote: Is a person capable of having confidence in reason when that person is almost completely ignorant of the nature of reasoning?

Yes. Just because people are ignorant of the nature of reasoning doesn't mean they don't reason. Its just that they arrive at their reason by a different route. For example, commonsense is a form of reason but its experiential or arrived at through a gestalt type process.

The hilarious thing is that in certain situations you will frequently see more down to earth or less educated people saying about the more intellectual educated person that "he's intelligent but he ain't go no commonsense." This could have quite a lot of importance in say a life or death situation.

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This is a common form of anti-intellectualism. The question we might ask is who in our society gains by people having this anti-intellectual bias. The matador gains when the bull fails to see who is fooling him. Likewise those who wish to keep us under their control can be aided in that task when we have a bias against learning and those who learn beyond that necessary to become good producers and consumers.

[coberst]

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Quote: Is a person capable of having confidence in reason when that person is almost completely ignorant of the nature of reasoning?

Yes. Just because people are ignorant of the nature of reasoning doesn't mean they don't reason. Its just that they arrive at their reason by a different route. For example, commonsense is a form of reason but its experiential or arrived at through a gestalt type process.

The hilarious thing is that in certain situations you will frequently see more down to earth or less educated people saying about the more intellectual educated person that "he's intelligent but he ain't go no commonsense." This could have quite a lot of importance in say a life or death situation.

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Coberst. Confidence in reason is inversely related to ability.

luckyme

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I suspect this might be asking too much but could you use reason to justify your remark "Coberst. Confidence in reason is inversely related to ability."

[luckyme]

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Quote: Is a person capable of having confidence in reason when that person is almost completely ignorant of the nature of reasoning?

Yes. Just because people are ignorant of the nature of reasoning doesn't mean they don't reason. Its just that they arrive at their reason by a different route. For example, commonsense is a form of reason but its experiential or arrived at through a gestalt type process.

The hilarious thing is that in certain situations you will frequently see more down to earth or less educated people saying about the more intellectual educated person that "he's intelligent but he ain't go no commonsense." This could have quite a lot of importance in say a life or death situation.

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Coberst. Confidence in reason is inversely related to ability.

luckyme

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I suspect this might be asking too much but could you use reason to justify your remark "Coberst. Confidence in reason is inversely related to ability."

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Sure. It's an expansion of the socratic stance that we don't know much but we can ask good questions -
In any given situation there are infinite variables that can have an effect on it ( the butterfly dilemma). Those who just pick a few personally obvious ones and treat them as 'the things to consider' come up with clean, strong conclusions.
Those that are aware of all the tangent effects and influences can appreciate that their conclusions, even though reached by a thorough analysis, are still likely to be 'wrong' if they could see everything. So, they're not so sure they are rigt = less confidence than the donk.

that's the short form, hope it helps. luckyme

luckyme

[coberst]

luckyme

You make some good points. You do not justify the remark but you do claify what you had in mind.

[luckyme]

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luckyme

You make some good points. You do not justify the remark but you do claify what you had in mind.

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Can you use reason to justify your remark that I didn't justify my remark? ( this time I get to judge)

luckyme

[Philo]

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Two intelligent people start talking and find out they have a difference of judgment. Person A decides to let person B explain his detailed reasoning. Upon hearing it, it's clear B hasn't made any logical mistakes. A still shouldn't blindly accept B's analysis- he has to go back and figure out if his difference in judgement was due to a mistake (in which case he'll probably convert to B's point of view), or if it's solely due to different starting assumptions. If it's due to different starting assumptions, then both people need to examine the assumptions both people started with to evaluate which are "better", or if the contradictory result from two seemingly reasonable sets of starting assumptions means that the problem clearly doesn't have enough data to be solved with any confidence.

Now, can the average person even UNDERSTAND that, much less articulate it, much less practice it? No. It's not necessarily lack of confidence in reason (although that cerainly exists), it's complete cluelessness about how reason even works. And that's not even getting into the details of useless/untestable beliefs.

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And lamentably, even among those who understand this most refuse to practice it.

[Splendour]

Quote: This is a common form of anti-intellectualism. The question we might ask is who in our society gains by people having this anti-intellectual bias. The matador gains when the bull fails to see who is fooling him. Likewise those who wish to keep us under their control can be aided in that task when we have a bias against learning and those who learn beyond that necessary to become good producers and consumers.


I don't have a bias against intellectuals per se. I'm sure you could go down through history finding many good ones and finding many good things as a result of their ideas.
I do have a problem with the guys in ivory towers though, tilting at windmills so convincingly that they disrupt whole societies with their half baked ideas. They need to be a whole lot more thorough and careful in testing their ideas before they carry them out.

[luckyme]

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Two intelligent people start talking and find out they have a difference of judgment. Person A decides to let person B explain his detailed reasoning. Upon hearing it, it's clear B hasn't made any logical mistakes. A still shouldn't blindly accept B's analysis- he has to go back and figure out if his difference in judgement was due to a mistake (in which case he'll probably convert to B's point of view), or if it's solely due to different starting assumptions. If it's due to different starting assumptions, then both people need to examine the assumptions both people started with to evaluate which are "better", or if the contradictory result from two seemingly reasonable sets of starting assumptions means that the problem clearly doesn't have enough data to be solved with any confidence.

Now, can the average person even UNDERSTAND that, much less articulate it, much less practice it? No. It's not necessarily lack of confidence in reason (although that cerainly exists), it's complete cluelessness about how reason even works. And that's not even getting into the details of useless/untestable beliefs.

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And lamentably, even among those who understand this most refuse to practice it.

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I tend to challenge the premises at the beginning of a discussion if possible. Wasted too many hours listening to a decent presentation built on premises that were flawed ( often by different definition assumptions, sometimes just wrong facts).
Premises first. Argument second. works best for me.

luckyme

[AlexM]

Most people are completely unreasonable.

[madnak]

I think people have an intuitive confidence in reason, but that they're unable to articulate or acknowledge it. People apply reason all the time, they just apply it selectively. I think many people also fail to understand that more "advanced" intellectual arguments are based on the same kinds of processes that simple, common-sense conclusions are based on. So they have a double standard when they see something that strikes them as (to use David's term) "high-falootin'."

[coberst]

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luckyme

You make some good points. You do not justify the remark but you do claify what you had in mind.

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Can you use reason to justify your remark that I didn't justify my remark? ( this time I get to judge)

luckyme

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no

[coberst]

What does it mean to have no confidence in reason?

“Confidence in reason is based on the belief that one’s own higher interests and those of humankind will be best served by giving free play to reason…The very idea of reasonability becomes one of the most important values and a focal point in one’s life. In short, to have confidence in reason is to use good reasoning as the fundamental criterion by which to judge whether to accept or reject any belief or position.” “Critical Thinking” Paul and Elder.

A person who lacks confidence n reason might place their trust in:

1) Charismatic leaders
2) Institutional leaders
3) Corporate leaders
4) Spiritual leaders
5) Social leaders
6) Political ideologies
7) Gut feeling
8) Fate
9) Astrology
10) In all the ideas of our parents