4th edition of ~The Art of Reasoning~ coming soon!


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Laurie M. Rice, who is the research and program assistant for The Atlas Society and the editor of David Kelley’s logic textbook, The Art of Reasoning, announced on Facebook earlier today that she just "Mailed the final chapters of The Art of Reasoning manuscript TODAY! YEAH!!!" When asked if she rewrote the text, she said that she "enhanced its natural gifts. :)"

This is good news for admirers, both critical and uncritical, of David Kelley's fine work. It's likely that we will be able to buy a copy of this long-awaited 4th edition textbook in a matter of months -- dare we hope: by year's end?

REB

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Laurie M. Rice, who is the research and program assistant for The Atlas Society and the editor of David Kelley’s logic textbook, The Art of Reasoning, announced on Facebook earlier today that she just "Mailed the final chapters of The Art of Reasoning manuscript TODAY! YEAH!!!" When asked if she rewrote the text, she said that she "enhanced its natural gifts. :)" This is good news for admirers, both critical and uncritical, of David Kelley's fine work. It's likely that we will be able to buy a copy of this long-awaited 4th edition textbook in a matter of months -- dare we hope: by year's end? REB

The 4th ed has not been announced on Amazon yet.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Laurie M. Rice, who is the research and program assistant for The Atlas Society and the editor of David Kelley’s logic textbook, The Art of Reasoning, announced on Facebook earlier today that she just "Mailed the final chapters of The Art of Reasoning manuscript TODAY! YEAH!!!" When asked if she rewrote the text, she said that she "enhanced its natural gifts. :)" This is good news for admirers, both critical and uncritical, of David Kelley's fine work. It's likely that we will be able to buy a copy of this long-awaited 4th edition textbook in a matter of months -- dare we hope: by year's end? REB

The 4th ed has not been announced on Amazon yet.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Crestfallen...] Well, that might mean that there will be an extended editorial review process, before giving the final go-ahead for publication. I guess we'll find out when we find out...

REB

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[Crestfallen...] Well, that might mean that there will be an extended editorial review process, before giving the final go-ahead for publication. I guess we'll find out when we find out...

REB

I too, would like to see the latest Kelley book. I had the pleasure of recording his 3rd edition for RFBDNJ* (now Learning Ally). I record both Kelley's book on logic and Copi's book on logic. From a purely teaching p.o.v. they are on a par, but Kelley was kind to include a chapter on the newly formulated term logic (after Sommers). I have just ordered up a book on Term Logic: "The Old New Logic: Essays on the Philosophy of Fred Sommers" by David S. Oderberg and P. F. Strawson . From my brief encounter with term logic in Kelley's book, I can see how if compensates for the deficits in the classical syllogistic. However, I have now figured how to derive metamathematical results using Sommers' formulation. More research is called for.

Ba'al Chatzaf

*Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic New Jersey, part of a nationwide organization that prepares recorded material and Braille material for visually impaired students and those with reading difficulties.

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  • 10 months later...

Don't worry! It's coming..... right after book publication of The Logical Structure of Objectivism.

Whoa! This just in: rumor has it that the first edition of Logical Structure will have a new introduction by Congressman (or Vice-President!) Paul Ryan!

With an Afterword by Joe Biden, "If I had read this earlier, I'd still be Vice-President!"

Not!

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  • 11 months later...


Laurie M. Rice, who is the research and program assistant for The Atlas Society and the editor of David Kelley’s logic textbook, The Art of Reasoning, announced on Facebook earlier today that she just "Mailed the final chapters of The Art of Reasoning manuscript TODAY! YEAH!!!" When asked if she rewrote the text, she said that she "enhanced its natural gifts. :smile:"

This is good news for admirers, both critical and uncritical, of David Kelley's fine work. It's likely that we will be able to buy a copy of this long-awaited 4th edition textbook in a matter of months -- dare we hope: by year's end?

REB

I have recorded six college level logic books for Learning Ally Inc, and most of them are quite alike in scope and organization. Kelley's book is different in one respect; it has a chapter on Term Logic which is a modern fix for the Aristotelian Categorical syllogism which enables syllogistic logic to handle binary relations coherently. In the classical categoric logic as formulate by Aristotle in "Prior Analytics" is is impossible to prove the following"

All cats are mammals, X is the tail of a cat therefore X is the tail of a mammal. The problem is the statement X is the tail of Y is not a categorical proposition. Fred Sommers fixed up this defect around 1960 or so. O.K. so it took 2200 years, but better late than never.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Tamler_Sommers

For an affordable introduction to Sommers' work see
http://www.amazon.com/Old-New-Logic-Philosophy-Bradford/dp/B008SM8B76/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374679927&sr=1-1&keywords=fred+sommers+logic

Kelley's book only has one or two references to the works of Ayn Rand and mercifully spares the student any Objectivist polemics on the subject of logic. Kelley's book is solid, well written and complete for the subject matter which is introduction to logic (inductive and deductive) at under graduate college level.



Ba'al Chatzaf
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I'm trying to keep control of my exuberance over the Fourth Edition of The Art of Reasoning.

I'm wondering if it will cause a renaissance of logical thinkers on the nation's campuses, who will move on to Ayn Rand's works?.....In the same way that the astounding performance of the Atlas Shrugged movies at the nation's box offices have reinvigorated interest in the novel and Rand by the Titans of the movie industry.

Now, maybe, Kelley and Thomas can move on to finish-up with The Logical Structure of Objectivism, now I its zero edition? But on the other hand, Professor Irfan Khawaja, on his new IOS website, has come to Dr. Kelley's defense, by pointing-out that we don't really need it, anyway (because we have OPAR??), and adding that Dr. Kelley is too busy on other really important duties at The Atlas Society (due to its burgeoning growth, perhaps? It's lucky that The Objectivist Center's Board of Directors approved its name-change to The Atlas Society,...to deal with the expectant throngs of new Rand fans created by the movies...). So, we are left with the enigma of a major work outlining Objectivism for an academic audience,,languishing in Beta format, on the reefs of the TAS Archives

For almost 15 years.

And teeming throngs of new Rand fans, eager for Dr. Kelley's insights and improvements on Objectivism made in his LSO. Deprived of this essential nourishment, in disappointment, they stagger over to Leonard.

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I'm trying to keep control of my exuberance over the Fourth Edition of The Art of Reasoning.

I'm wondering if it will cause a renaissance of logical thinkers on the nation's campuses, who will move on to Ayn Rand's works?.....In the same way that the astounding performance of the Atlas Shrugged movies at the nation's box offices have reinvigorated interest in the novel and Rand by the Titans of the movie industry.

Now, maybe, Kelley and Thomas can move on to finish-up with The Logical Structure of Objectivism, now I its zero edition? But on the other hand, Professor Irfan Khawaja, on his new IOS website, has come to Dr. Kelley's defense, by pointing-out that we don't really need it, anyway (because we have OPAR??), and adding that Dr. Kelley is too busy on other really important duties at The Atlas Society (due to its burgeoning growth, perhaps? It's lucky that The Objectivist Center's Board of Directors approved its name-change to The Atlas Society,...to deal with the expectant throngs of new Rand fans created by the movies...). So, we are left with the enigma of a major work outlining Objectivism for an academic audience,,languishing in Beta format, on the reefs of the TAS Archives

For almost 15 years.

And teeming throngs of new Rand fans, eager for Dr. Kelley's insights and improvements on Objectivism made in his LSO. Deprived of this essential nourishment, in disappointment, they stagger over to Leonard.

Stagger...or swagger, in some cases. (Thinking specifically of Dyin' O'Shame, who spoke eloquently of just such a deprivation of essential philosopical nourishment, as part of her over-the-top, multi-pronged attack [which is pretty impressive for a chick] on Kelley, Sciabarra, the Brandens and others, a cluster of attacks that allegedly were ~not~ part of the requirements for switching allegiance from the Home of Open Objectivism to the less-kind/less-gentle environs of Leonard's Lair.)

I can understand the enthusiasm of those who think/hope that the staggered cinematic debuts of Parts 1, 2, and 3 of Atlas Shrugged will draw fresh blood (and brains) to Rand's novels and the Objectivist movement. However, judging by the quality and public response to Parts 1 and 2, I'm wondering if more good would be done by presenting skillful YouTube montages of the past 50 (or 100) years of government destruction and social decay, with a blurb at the ending drawing people's attention to Atlas, Fountainhead, We the Living, or Anthem.

As for what The Atlas Society is (vs. should be) doing with its time, energy, and money--hey, it's a free country (sort of), and customers/supporters can and will vote (and have voted) with their feet and their dollars. (I don't send them money or go to their functions any more.) I've always thought that people who celebrate reason and independent, creative, productive achievement ought to be using their Galtian super-powers to do something that others can't or won't do, and not just "chew" (i.e., recycle, rehash) what others have done.

Maybe this outpouring of new, meaty stuff is actually being prepared behind the scenes, and it's just not yet ready for prime-time. But the languishing of LSO (now in its second decade) is not an encouraging sign. Meanwhile, the gnomes at ARI continue to pour out apparently unsupervised editions of Leonard's lectures. While we might cluck our tongues at some of the material flooding from the Irvine-Axis, at least it's something to sink our teeth into.

As for the forthcoming 4th edition of the Good Doctor's logic text, I will cough (or choke) up the $120 or so (list price), for the privilege of inspecting it for any significant alterations from the 3rd edition. Actually, it's more of an intellectual obligation. I am about 1/3 finished with my critique of the text discussion, examples, and problems on Existential Import in the texts by Kelley, Copi, and Hurley, and it will be published as an e-book for those who want an antidote to the lockstep Russellian view. Naturally I want to base this critique on the latest available versions of these authors. At least it's tax-deductible...

REB

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Well, at least we can look forward to the forthcoming, updated, version of the most scholarly text yet published on Objectivism, "Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical," out some time this fall.

Irfan Khawaja (on his new Institute for Objectivist Studies site) has an interesting analysis of why the sum total of scholarly written material on Objectivism is so meager. I think that he overstates the case somewhat, but is essentially right.

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Jerry, I fear that the resurrection of IOS is a bit more than a day late and a dollar short. The 3-year prospectus for seminars in epistemology looks like something that should have been done 20 years ago, when the original Peikoff/Kelley split occurred. But I wish them well. Maybe someone's creative juices will be stirred and some new epistemology work will be produced as a result.

Chris Sciabarra's RR does set a pretty high bar for Randian scholarship and historiography. I knew 30 pages in that it was the best thing I'd read since discovering Rand 30 years earlier. I still shake my head at those who had an immune system-like reaction against it in 1995. Spouting "selfishness" is cool, but reading the word "dialectical" justifies a knee-jerk rejection? Um...

REB

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  • 2 years later...

Well, it looks like I forgot to mention that edition 4 of David Kelley's The Art of Reasoning finally did see the light of day! I have written a review of the book, which I may eventually post to the Amazon page for the book, and which I will share here now, for those who might be interested:

Critical Thinking as an Art? David Kelley’s The Art of Reasoning (Review)

Roger E. Bissell

Antioch, Tennessee


Abstract

David Kelley’s revised 4th edition of The Art of Reasoning gives a more pointed focus than in earlier editions on issues pertaining to critical thinking, including specifically: verbal reasoning, argument analysis, hypothesis testing, and probability. The style throughout is clear and readable; and the organization of the text is both modular, allowing for customized editions for introductory, traditional, and modern logic courses, and developmental, building from a base in concepts and definitions. Although Kelley takes no partisan position regarding traditional vs. modern logic, his treatment of the Aristotelian laws of logic and the controversy over Existential Import amount to a likely unintended biasing of the text toward modern logic. Kelley bases his emphasis on critical thinking upon both the practical need to detect and correct faulty thinking and the moral requirements of objectivity and a concern for facts and truth and fairness to others.


Critical Thinking as an Art? David Kelley’s The Art of Reasoning (Review)

Newly subtitled “An Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking,” this recently updated text by David Kelley of The Atlas Society carries onward his concern for helping students learn how to think clearly and to detect and avoid shortcomings in reasoning by themselves and others. In keeping with this new shift in emphasis is the fact that Kelley’s book engages four of the five dimensions of critical thinking identified in Halpern 2010 – namely, verbal reasoning, argument analysis, hypothesis testing, and probability – only decision-making/problem-solving not receiving dedicated focus by the author. As for his own concept of critical thinking, I will briefly discuss that later in this review.

Though Kelley’s logic text is not (as of this writing) a best-seller on Amazon.com, it is organized, like the book by the current leader in the field (Hurley’s A Concise Introduction to Logic), in a very useful modular fashion. This allows the publisher to offer it in three standard custom editions, including one focused most specifically on informal logic and critical reasoning. A caveat: It is probably an oversight, but Chapters 15 and 16 (Explanation and Probability, respectively) appear to have been excluded from all of the custom editions. Since these topics are arguably of considerable importance in dealing with critical thinking, instructors interested in the more streamlined informal logic/critical thinking edition would be well advised to contact and inquire of the publisher as to whether or not it actually includes those chapters, of which no mention is made in the “Custom Options” section of the Preface.

Aside from its placement of certain material, a relatively minor concern I will discuss shortly, the major virtue of Kelley’s book, in addition to its great clarity and readability, is the overall order in which topics are introduced. He begins at the beginning, as it were, with the component elements of reasoning, namely, concepts (and the classifications they make possible) and definitions of those concepts – and only then going on to their combinations in propositions and inferences.

This more natural, developmental sequencing of topics, recapitulates in a more formal way the order in which students are likely to have learned to think informally as they grew up. As such, it is in stark contrast to that followed by other logic texts, including Hurley’s, which jump immediately into a discussion of arguments and propositions, only later turning to a consideration of concepts (“words” or “terms”) and their definitions.

A rough parallel to the standard approach, which may help to drive home this critique, would be an English course which taught grammar, syntax, and paragraph structure before dealing with vocabulary. In contrast, and to continue the analogy, Kelley’s more naturally organized text is more like an English course that begins with vocabulary and only then proceeds to grammar, syntax, and paragraph structure. (It is not an accident that the Categories is the first book in Aristotle’s Organon.)

Being more theoretically than pedagogically inclined, I am always interested to see how a textbook’s author manages to resolve the issue of how much theory to include. With a title like “the art of” or “introduction to,” a beginning college logic text is clearly aimed, as it should be, at providing techniques and guidelines, not at grinding out the in-depth theory of knowledge which underlies them. Kelley signals this to be his approach by saying, “I have kept theoretical discussion to a minimum, including only those points necessary to make the standards and techniques intelligible” (p. xi). He also indicated in his previous edition that it was counterproductive to have an introductory text where class time was wasted “arguing with the text” on controversial theoretical points (Kelley 1998, p. xiv).

The wisdom of this approach notwithstanding, it is still disconcerting to note how, and to what extent, Kelley deals with two of the perhaps most contentious issues in logic: the status of the laws of logic (or “laws of thought”) and the doctrine of Existential Import in relation to Aristotle’s Square of Opposition.

In regard to the former, we are living in a time when there is a school of logic (Dialethicism) that rejects the Law of Non-Contradiction, when so much of public discourse is infested with false alternatives, and when fewer and fewer of the terms used in such discourse seem to have firm, fixed identities (meanings). It would thus be refreshing, for a change, to open up a college logic text and hear the author state at the outset that the Laws of Identity, Non-Contradiction, and Excluded Middle are the most basic facts of all, are necessarily true, and must be presumed even in the attempt to deny them – and that everything the text presents is baseless and floating unless the student understand those principles are grounding everything else in the book (as well as every other book he reads).

In this respect, unfortunately, Kelley’s text is no better than Hurley’s, neither of them mentioning the laws of logic per se, except well over halfway through each book, in somewhat disguised form, as “tautology” and “self-contradiction.” Another rival text, Copi and Cohen’s Introduction to Logic (2009), only manages to eke out a half-hearted reference to them as “laws of thought,” though it does defend them as “indubitably true” and replies to attacks on them as having “been based on misunderstandings” (pp. 368-369).

As for the debate regarding Existential Import and Aristotle’s Square (although Kelley does not call it such), the latter, which was traditionally held to be a formal delineation of six logical relations between four different kinds of propositions, has been whittled down by modern logicians to just two such relations. The rationale for this downsizing of Aristotle’s Square has to do with widely presumed difficulties in determining the truth status of statements with terms, such as the names of mythical beings, that do not refer to anything in reality.

The moderns claim, for instance, that (to use Kelley’s example, p. 157) both “All unicorns have horns” and “No unicorns have horns” are true, while both “Some unicorns have horns” and “Some unicorns do not have horns” are false. On this interpretation, all of the logical relationships on the Square disappear, except for that of contradiction between the “All” and “Some…not” statements and between the “No” and “Some” statements. Traditionalists, on the other hand, would argue that, as long as the context of myth is specified, both the “All” and “Some” statements are true, and both the “No” and “Some…not” statements are false, so all of the relationships in the full Aristotelian Square remain intact.

Since this is one of those intractable debates that seems impervious to solution, the consensus approach has been to play it safe and promote the modern, minimalized form of the Square. Kelley, to his credit, bucks the consensus and instead recommends that while students should familiarize themselves with both forms, they should feel no qualms about using the traditional form, so long as a statement “clearly refers to [a] class of actual things” (p. 158).

In terms of the amount and location of text Kelley devotes to these two theoretical issues, however, something very puzzling is in evidence. The only indication that anything remotely resembling the traditional (Aristotelian) laws of logic – his brief, somewhat theoretical, but uncontroversial, discussion of tautology and contradiction – appears not in the chapters in Part 2 dealing with traditional deductive logic, but in chapter 9, one of the chapters on modern logic, where it is much too late to provide any basic logical grounding for the traditional material on propositions and syllogisms. In contrast, the theory regarding existential import is given over two pages of treatment; and although it was developed as part of modern logic, it is placed squarely in the middle of chapter 6, the first chapter on traditional logic.

I’m sure it is not Kelley’s intention to stack the case against traditional logic, but this and the fact that the name of Aristotle, the Father of Logic, only appears twice in the text (and once in the index) are two rather discouraging signs. These concerns point to an organizational weakness in the text that generates an unintended bias against traditional logic and a distorted view of its relationship to modern logic. In this regard, at least, Kelley is again unfortunately rather more in step with the approach taken by other authors of logic texts.

On the other hand, since Kelley spends so much time early on rightly pressing the case for the practical need and functions of definitions, it is good to see the extent to which he practices what he preaches. Specifically in regard to the concept of “logic” itself, he has helpfully upgraded his description from 16 years ago (“The core of logic has always been the study of inference…” Kelley 1998, p. 3) to an actual definition: “Logic is the study of the methods and standards of inference” (p. 2) – in other words, learning how to draw conclusions from information we already have, and how to evaluate such processes.

As for critical thinking, Kelley, regrettably, has still not provided a formal definition, though we can piece one together from the context of his discussion of objectivity, which means, he says, “staying aligned with the facts, guiding our thought processes by a concern for truth” (p. 4). The “essence of objectivity,” Kelley says, is the ability to engage in critical thinking, which requires our being able to “step back from our train of thought” (p. 4) and carefully examine it, in several ways. First, we must “check the results of our thinking;” second, we must “give a fair hearing to the evidence and arguments for the other side;” and third, we must “take account of the other person’s context” and look at our thinking “through the eyes of someone who does not share our outlook, our context of knowledge, our preferences, or our idiosyncrasies” (pp. 4-5).

From this, it’s clear that Kelley is concerned not just to provide students with the very practical value of, in the words of Siegel (1988), “protection, self-defense from unscrupulous advertizers, ideologues, and other manipulators of students’ beliefs” (51), but also, on a more philosophical, moral level, to encourage them to participate responsibly and respectfully in the requirements of life in a complex society. Acquiring the ability to carry out such a 360-degree scrutiny of one’s thought processes is challenging, indeed. It requires not only a commitment to being in touch with the facts, but also the various skills, methods, standards, and perspectives for doing so. While the reader and student must supply the former, Kelley’s text is well suited for guiding them in acquiring the latter.

References

Copi, Irving and Cohen, Carl. 2009. Introduction to Logic. 13th edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Halpern, Diane F. 2010. Manual: Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment. Moedling, Austria: Schuhfried.

Hurley, Patrick J. 2014. A Concise Introduction to Logic. 12th edition. Belmont, California: Wadsworth.

Kelley, David. 1998. The Art of Reasoning. 3rd edition. New York: Norton.

______. 2013. The Art of Reasoning: An Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking. 4th edition. New York: Norton.

Siegel, Harvey. 1988. Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking and Education. New York: Routledge.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I bought the tapes [b. Branden's "Efficient Thinking"] more than 4 years ago. I listened a little then, but they didn't grab my attention. I listened to several parts the past two weeks, but about 45 minutes in one day was plenty due to the style of presentation. On the other hand, it may be the most complete, single source of all the informal fallacies listed below coined (I think) by Ayn Rand.

I think the series is mistitled. A more descriptive title -- though not a marketing one -- would be Psycho-epistemology: Good, Bad, and Oodles of Examples of Bad. The titles of 4 of the last 5 lectures are: Emotions as Tools of Cognition, Common Aberrations in Thinking, The Fallacy of the Stolen Concept, and Psychological Causes of Inefficient Thinking!
I wasn't impressed with the lectures on focusing. She approached the subject in a moralizing, polarizing manner, for the most part contrasting being in a daze with fully focused. She used "focus" for both perception and conceptual thought. One can be in full focus conceptually and unfocused perceptually, or vice-versa. She over-simplified.
The contrasting is belabored, often about out-of-focus zombies. Talking about being out of focus is fine, but dwelling on it with numerous examples and excluding other aspects of the topic diminished the talk for me. There is no mention of any other philosopher's comments, as if Ayn Rand was the first philosopher to address the subject. Among philosophers the traditional term is "attention" rather than "focus". See here. Note: the Theories of Attention shown there were very recent or after when B. Branden did the lectures.
I consider every aberration covered in the lectures to be informal fallacies. Included are stolen concept, context dropping, floating abstraction, frozen abstraction, and package-dealing. Informal fallacies are covered in most or all introductory logic textbooks. Hmm, I wonder why none of the five are mentioned in David Kelley's The Art of Reasoning.

Another compilation of the informal fallacies is here.

I notice, Merlin, that the SEP article you link on attention takes some note of William James in his Principles of Psychology (1890). His eleventh chapter is devoted to attention, and here are a couple of passages pertinent to Rand:

Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state . . . . (403–4)

Clearness, so far as attention produces it, means distinction from other things and internal analysis or subdivision. These are essentially products of intellectual discrimination, involving comparison, memory, and perception of various relations. The attention per se does not distinguish and analyze and relate. The most we can say is that it is a condition of our doing so. (426–27)

Did Barbara Branden discuss the reification fallacy (treating an abstraction as a concrete) in her lectures? I think Rand appealed to that on occasion.

In the first edition of David Kelley’s The Art of Reasoning, he treated the informal fallacies in Chapter 6.

6.1 Subjectivist Fallacies

6.2 Credibility

6.3 Fallacies of Logical Structure

In the fourth edition, David treats the informal fallacies in Chapter 5.

5.1 Subjectivist Fallacies

5.2 Fallacies Involving Credibility

5.3 Fallacies of Context

5.4 Fallacies of Logical Structure

The additional section 5.3 collects some of the fallacies formerly put under 6.3 (false alternative, post hoc, hasty generalization, and accident) and adds two not included in the first edition (slippery slope, composition/division).

Rand’s fallacy of Context Dropping might be cashable in a number of more specific fallacies generally set forth in the textbooks. Her fallacy of Frozen Abstraction may coincide with False Alternative. Her fallacy of Package-Dealing seems akin to the form of Non Sequitur that David calls Diversion.

I wonder if Rand’s fallacy of the Stolen Concept is touched on under the name Complex Question in our standard lists. The question “Why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?” could be said to steal the concept of adducing a reason, having put in question the concept of existence, which adducing anything at all presupposes. Then too, the proposition could be said to commit the fallacy of Complex Question, a prior question not attended to being “Is there possibility beyond all existence?” which should be answered No.

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[snip]

Another compilation of the informal fallacies is here.

[snip]

Did Barbara Branden discuss the reification fallacy (treating an abstraction as a concrete) in her lectures? I think Rand appealed to that on occasion.

Thanks for the other compilation.
I don't recall her discussing a reification fallacy as you describe it, but my memory and the notes I took aren't comprehensive.
Also, there are other fallacy labels Rand used that I believe aren't mentioned in The Principles of Efficient Thinking: Reification of the Zero, Argument from Intimidation, Rewriting Reality. The second is akin to Appeal to Consequences and/or Guilt by Association in the other compilation.
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  • 5 years later...

Jimbo Wales is the founder of Wikipedia and former moderator of the forum Atlantis, OWL, etc. Peter

From: Jimmy Wales To: atlantis Subject: ATL: David Kelley on civility Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 08:33:13 -0800. Here's a fairly long quote from David Kelley that is directly applicable to questions about why a civility policy is a good idea on a mailing list which makes an effort to be creative, open, and intensely intellectual.

From “Unrugged Individualism: The Selfish Basis of Benevolence,” p. 38: The forms of civility, and the broader realm of manners, are therefore dismissed by some people as arbitrary.  "Why should I confirm to arbitrary social standards?  I am an individualist."  But while the forms are conventional, what is conveyed through those forms is not. If my argument so far has been correct, then it _is_ objectively important to acknowledge each other's independence in some way or other, whether by saying 'please,' or 's`il vous plait," or by some gesture understood to have that meaning.  It doesn't matter which forms we use to convey this, any more than it matters which sounds we use to express a given concept in language.  But insofar as civility has a communicative function, it does matter that we use the same forms.  Someone who does not practice these forms is rude.  We can assume that his failure to comply reflects indifference to what the forms express (unless he is ignorant, as in the case of a foreigner).

A similar answer can be given to the complaint that the forms of civility are inauthentic.  "What if I don't like the present Grandma gave me and I don't really feel any gratitude?  Am I not falsifying my feeling if I say “thank-you” nonetheless?"  The purpose of that thank-you is not to convey one's specific feelings about the gift, or the person who gives it.  Its purpose is to acknowledge that it was a gift, from an autonomous person, not something owed one by an underling.  (If Grandma wants more than this, and makes it clear that she really wants to know whether one liked the gift, then one should tell her, as tactfully as possible.)

Civility, then, may be defined as _the expression -- chiefly through conventional forms -- of one's respect for the humanity and independence of others, and of one's intent to resolve conflicts peacefully.

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