[lit-ideas] Re: Motivated Irrationality
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2016 19:43:13 +0000 (UTC)
Well, admittedly, my post was terse, because it all boils down to the
truth-conditions given to the truth-functional horseshoe, as philosophers (and
horselovers) call it.>
I think we can boil it down to something more straightforward - is there a
valid alternative to the "logic" which underpins what is correct and incorrect
according to the Wason Tests? The answer is no. I.e. there is no valid
alternative to what is correct and incorrect according to properly framed Wason
Tests.*
That is also to say: there is no valid alterative. And JLS's talk of
alternatives is doomed to failure and irrelevance - for logical reasons. For
the whole notion of validity here is logical validity.
So while JLS may never admit defeat (in the search for a Gricean alternative to
Popper), here logic simply defeats him. There is no alternative.
Though _Logik der Forschung_ may be unread by many on this list, Wason's work
is a reminder of what a profound and inspiring masterpiece it is, with
ramifications for the whole field of knowledge.
DL*On this an anecdote: the Wason Test was given to the teachers at a secondary
school as part of a student project. Those in maths and computing science were
the only ones to briskly get the Tests right - they then stood back in quiet
amusement as teachers in other departments refused to accept their answers were
incorrect and instead engaged in elaborate (and doomed) attempts to give a
different interpretative sense to the Test according to which their answers
would be correct. The language teachers were the worst for contrived attempts
to 'evade falsification' in this way. It is not known whether any of the
language teachers were Griceans.
On Thursday, 25 February 2016, 12:22, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In a message dated 2/25/2016 6:36:09 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes: "But are there alternative _valid_
approaches?
What does Grice, or anyone else for that matter, say that is _valid_ and which
shows that is wrong to say "confirmatory potential is logically irrelevant"
to testing in any valid logical sense? Alternative approaches that are
_invalid_ or irrelevant to the logical point [that "confirmatory potential is
logically irrelevant"] need not trouble us, whether they are sourced to
Grice or anyone else. In a court of law, this [i.e. being focused on what is
relevant and valid] is sometimes referred to as "sticking to the point."
[...]"
Well, admittedly, my post was terse, because it all boils down to the
truth-conditions given to the truth-functional horseshoe, as philosophers (and
horselovers) call it.
i. p ⊃ q
and in my formulation of the MPP and MTT I failed to provide what makes
these two analytic in terms of truth-tables. I see that Evans and Over have
noted that, originally, Wason agreed that the 'classical' truth table for "⊃"
was _defective_. And Evans and Over link this with truth-value gaps in the
antecedent, when false, while Wason prefers to stick with 'relevance', as
will be later be used by 'relevant' logicians. Logicians in general don't
seem to use 'confirmatory potential' (or disconfirmatory postential, if you
wish) and assuming 'relevance' here seems to beg Wason's point. But I will
keep considering the issue.
In any case, I see McEvoy's point, and I enjoyed his explorations on 'by
the right reason' and 'by the wrong reason'. He is arguing that it's always
'by the wrong reason' that alleged reasoners (who failed Wason's selection
task) go, even if the task involves various stages. McEvoy's point being
that an outcome -- the choice of "A" -- for indeed Wason's original selection
task involved vowels and numbers, and not letters and colours, as later
formulations went -- I wonder why, since the original format seems much more
manageable -- may be reached by the right reason or reasons, or by the wrong
ones. McEvoy's reasoning seems to be that since an alleged reasoner (or
misreasoner) arrives at the wrong outcome by obviously the wrong reason (can
you reach a wrong outcome by the right reason? Is this analytically
false?), he generalises -- yet not using the razor, he claims -- (perhaps
overgeneralises, I'm currently fascinatined by this verb) to the choice of A,
and
he concludes that while the outcome is the right one, NOT TO MULTIPLY
'psychologies' (I think his wording is) it is plausible (even as an
assumption,
i.e. nothing analytic about this, or perhaps conceptual-analytic) that
misreasoners (shall we call them?) that this right outcome is reached, also,
by
the WRONG reason.
McEvoy's central point indeed is into this 'confirmatory potential [being]
logically irrelevant'. But when you are discussing with a psychologist,
such as Wason was, who thinks the standard classical truth-table for the
horseshoe is defective, and sticking with errors, rather than successes, you
never know! Any philosopher of reasoning KNOWS that there are 'errors' the
most intelligent philosophers (and some non-philosophers!) make: Grice's
favourite case was Hardy, the mathematician. MY own favourite case is Thomas
Hardy, the novelist. And my sister's favourite case is Tom Hardy (he plays
John Fitzgerald in "The Revenant") who is nominated for an Oscar next Sunday!
I should check if this is linked to the keywords 'confirmatory potential'
and 'logical relevance', but Grice ends his "Indicative conditionals"
lecture with yet another paradox regarding "if" that may well relate to Wason
--
although he formulates it in terms of probability.
Perhaps Wason is ignoring the 'implicatures' of 'if' and it's only natural
this leads to a misconstrual of what's going on. His experimentees, if
that's the word, may also have been confused by the implicatures triggered by
"⊃
", but they were NOT drawn from the Oxford Philosophy Faculty, were they?!
Cheers,
Speranza
References:
Evans & Over, "If: Supposition, pragmatics, and dual processes."
Grice, "Indicative conditionals", in "Logic and Conversation" (Lecture IV),
now repr. in Way of Words, Harvard.
Pears, Motivated irrationality. Oxford: Clarendon.
Strawson, Introduction to logical theory (section on ⊃ vs. if that Grice
attacks in "Indicative conditionals" explicitly crediting the source: his own
tuttee!)
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