In my last post I, referencing Robert J. Gula, who himself was referencing a metaphor from a poem by John Donne (For the record, if anyone wants to read it, I think the poem that Gula references is titled "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning,") explored some of the ways in which comparing one object to another object can be useful, incisive, and beautiful.
I also explored, again using Gula as my guide, one way in which making an argument that derives a conclusion from an analogy can lead to a chain of fallacious reasoning.
In Nonsense, Gula provides several more ways an argument from analogy can be abused. Let's take a look a few more.
From my last post, we know that to draw a conclusion based on an analogy between two objects, the two objects being compared need to have sufficient similarity for the conclusion to hold. According to Gula, other considerations need to be satisfied as well because "Analogies are abused when there is significant dissimilarity that goes unnoticed" (143).
To illustrate Gula's point, let's take a look at the following short dialogue:
Q: "I don't think that I can vote for Smith in the upcoming election."
P: "Why not?"
Q: "Well I'm really unhappy with the way things have gone the past few years. This current administration has not provided enough aid to help people who are struggling with the recent economic decline. And since Smith is an alumni of the same college, same law school, and same business school as is our current governor. Both Smith and our current governor also happen to live in the same wealthy neighborhood; both are filthy rich. I mean isn't it clear? To me it's obvious that Smith will simply continue the same ineffective policies that have gone on the past few years."
P: "But Smith is a Democrat. Our current governor is a Republican. Surely this distinction isn't merely irrelevant?"
The conclusion that Q draws is weak because although many similarities do exist between the two candidates, there seems to be a significant dissimilarity that Q simply ignores. Sometimes, given the public cynicism about politicians and given the influence that money has in the political process, it might seem like the two major parties in the U.S. are not so different as they try to make themselves appear during campaign season.
Nonetheless, I think P's point is a good one. I think the platform espoused by each of the two major political parties in this country contain enough dichotomies to invalidate Q's analogy, thus invalidating the effectiveness of Q's argument.
A third way that analogies can lead to fallacious reasoning is "when one particular similarity is used to equate two very different things" (Gula 144).
To illustrate this potential abuse, let's look at this exchange:
P: "I'm going to Vegas next weekend."
Q: "What's your game of choice?"
P: "Roulette."
Q: "That's risky."
P: "So is buying a Dow Jones Industrial ETF."
Just so you know, an ETF is an Exchange Traded Fund. It collects a group of stocks into a financial instrument and allows it to be bought and sold as easily as a single share of stock. For modern investors, it really is quite an innovation.
Now it is true that buying an ETF that contains the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average is in one sense committing a person to a financial risk. A person who places some chips on red risks a certain amount of money on that spin of the wheel. Similarly, a person who buys an ETF that tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average risks a certain amount of money based on the collective performance of those 30 stocks.
Nonetheless, this similarity obviously does not establish the identity of the two kinds of financial risks in question. For one thing, risking one's money on a spin of the roulette wheel does not allow one the opportunity to recoup the loss. The chips are gone. One would need to risk more chips to recoup the lost chips.
In contrast, the ETF allows a patient investor to recoup just about any temporary decline in cash value. The time horizon for a person who risks money on a roulette spin is different than the time horizon for a person who risks money in an ETF.
The two situations are far from identical, thus P's response is fallacious. Next week the journey continues with part III.
Showing posts with label John Donne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Donne. Show all posts
Friday, February 1, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Analogies Part I
In Nonsense, Robert J. Gula spends a good amount of time discussing and evaluating the use of comparison both as a poetic feature of our language and as a logical feature of our language. I think there is enough material to justify at least two blog posts on the topic. This is the first.
Gula begins chapter twelve by recognizing the benefits of having the linguistic and physical mechanisms capable of generating an almost infinite number of comparisons and contrasts: "Devices of comparison and contrast can aid us in expressing ourselves. They add vividness and richness to utterances, they are sometimes a way of making concrete an abstract idea, and they sometimes provide a means by which we can clarify a complex idea" (141).
Gula then uses his poetic knowledge to illustrate his point. He refers to an evocative comparison made by John Donne, the sixteenth century English poet.
"[W]hen the poet John Donne compares two people in love to the legs of a drawing compass, his comparison allows him to concentrate a complicated thought into just a few lines [. . .]" (142).
In one regard, the legs of a drawing compass are individualized; they are detached from one another. This detachment allows the drawing compass to perform its intended function. Yet the legs of a drawing compass are not completely detached from one another. They share a common hinge.
The image of a drawing compass's legs provides us with an concrete image of separation and unity. When two people are in love, they are still two individual people. One can fly to Miami; the other can fly to Helsinki. True, they are not constrained by something as tangible as a pair of handcuffs, yet they do seem to be constrained in a more abstract way. The thoughts of each person for example may repeatedly cycle back to pictures and articulations of the beloved, thus constraining each's ability to effectively perform any task that requires an act of higher cognition. Each may be constrained emotionally by the absence of one's beloved.
Thus, the balancing of separation and unity is nicely captured by the concrete image of a drawing compass. Donne's analogy is a creative achievement to be enjoyed.
Some creative achievements may not have the poetic excellence or the literary endurance of a lyric by John Donne. For those of you who are interested in the stock market, an event recently occurred--Apple Computer released its first quarter earnings results on Wednesday--that gave people a chance to create some charming colloquialisms. For example, I heard one person say that "Apple is sitting on a mountain of cash."
I guess an image is helpful when you try and understand how big a pile of money 137 billion dollars actually is.
I heard another person say, after the earnings report came out and the stock was down about ten percent, "Apple is a melting ice cube."
This expression is, in my opinion, better than the previous example because it's less cliche, and it captures in a familiar image the bearish case against Apple Computer. Again, it may not have the longevity of a Donne poem, but comparing a stock that was once the darling of Wall Street to a melting ice cube is a analogy that I appreciate; it is a creative achievement that helps people understand a complex phenomenon.
However, like other creative achievements that are properly enjoyed, analogies can be used immorally.
According to Gula, "It is one thing to use an analogy to help convey an idea. It is another thing to argue by analogy or to use an analogy to form an inference or judgment. [. . .] Analogies are abused when they try to claim similarity and to establish identity under the guise of merely suggesting that similarity" (142).
Gula then provides four examples to clarify the sorts of situations in which analogical reasoning is abused. I will explore the first one here and continue exploring the rest in next week's post.
Suppose you are discussing with a colleague your favorite chili recipe. "My grandfather's chili is the best I've ever had."
"Yeah," your colleague replies with a dismissive smirk. "That's because you've never had my recipe. For reasons of nostalgia and elderly respect, I know my chili can never surpass your grandfather's." Your colleague, smiling, then looks you in eye and says, "Parity, I think, would be impossible for you to dispute."
"I doubt it."
"What's in your grandfather's chili? Tomato sauce? Chili Powder? Some cayenne? Garlic? Salt, pepper? Right?" The colleague nods, shrugs his shoulders.
"Right. Well I put all that stuff in my chili so your grandfather's chili and mine would taste the same. Equally delicious."
Here we have a speaker claiming that because some object (a pot of his chili) contains several of the same ingredients that another object contains (a pot of grandpa's chili), they are identical in taste. But it seems like a pot of chili is too complex an object to be generalized in this fashion. Sure, the two recipes share some features, share some ingredients, but the conclusion that they will taste the same because of their shared ingredients would be fallacious. The similarity between the two pots of chili would need to be more comprehensively established before such a conclusion would be justified.
Gula begins chapter twelve by recognizing the benefits of having the linguistic and physical mechanisms capable of generating an almost infinite number of comparisons and contrasts: "Devices of comparison and contrast can aid us in expressing ourselves. They add vividness and richness to utterances, they are sometimes a way of making concrete an abstract idea, and they sometimes provide a means by which we can clarify a complex idea" (141).
Gula then uses his poetic knowledge to illustrate his point. He refers to an evocative comparison made by John Donne, the sixteenth century English poet.
"[W]hen the poet John Donne compares two people in love to the legs of a drawing compass, his comparison allows him to concentrate a complicated thought into just a few lines [. . .]" (142).
In one regard, the legs of a drawing compass are individualized; they are detached from one another. This detachment allows the drawing compass to perform its intended function. Yet the legs of a drawing compass are not completely detached from one another. They share a common hinge.
The image of a drawing compass's legs provides us with an concrete image of separation and unity. When two people are in love, they are still two individual people. One can fly to Miami; the other can fly to Helsinki. True, they are not constrained by something as tangible as a pair of handcuffs, yet they do seem to be constrained in a more abstract way. The thoughts of each person for example may repeatedly cycle back to pictures and articulations of the beloved, thus constraining each's ability to effectively perform any task that requires an act of higher cognition. Each may be constrained emotionally by the absence of one's beloved.
Thus, the balancing of separation and unity is nicely captured by the concrete image of a drawing compass. Donne's analogy is a creative achievement to be enjoyed.
Some creative achievements may not have the poetic excellence or the literary endurance of a lyric by John Donne. For those of you who are interested in the stock market, an event recently occurred--Apple Computer released its first quarter earnings results on Wednesday--that gave people a chance to create some charming colloquialisms. For example, I heard one person say that "Apple is sitting on a mountain of cash."
I guess an image is helpful when you try and understand how big a pile of money 137 billion dollars actually is.
I heard another person say, after the earnings report came out and the stock was down about ten percent, "Apple is a melting ice cube."
This expression is, in my opinion, better than the previous example because it's less cliche, and it captures in a familiar image the bearish case against Apple Computer. Again, it may not have the longevity of a Donne poem, but comparing a stock that was once the darling of Wall Street to a melting ice cube is a analogy that I appreciate; it is a creative achievement that helps people understand a complex phenomenon.
However, like other creative achievements that are properly enjoyed, analogies can be used immorally.
According to Gula, "It is one thing to use an analogy to help convey an idea. It is another thing to argue by analogy or to use an analogy to form an inference or judgment. [. . .] Analogies are abused when they try to claim similarity and to establish identity under the guise of merely suggesting that similarity" (142).
Gula then provides four examples to clarify the sorts of situations in which analogical reasoning is abused. I will explore the first one here and continue exploring the rest in next week's post.
Suppose you are discussing with a colleague your favorite chili recipe. "My grandfather's chili is the best I've ever had."
"Yeah," your colleague replies with a dismissive smirk. "That's because you've never had my recipe. For reasons of nostalgia and elderly respect, I know my chili can never surpass your grandfather's." Your colleague, smiling, then looks you in eye and says, "Parity, I think, would be impossible for you to dispute."
"I doubt it."
"What's in your grandfather's chili? Tomato sauce? Chili Powder? Some cayenne? Garlic? Salt, pepper? Right?" The colleague nods, shrugs his shoulders.
"Right. Well I put all that stuff in my chili so your grandfather's chili and mine would taste the same. Equally delicious."
Here we have a speaker claiming that because some object (a pot of his chili) contains several of the same ingredients that another object contains (a pot of grandpa's chili), they are identical in taste. But it seems like a pot of chili is too complex an object to be generalized in this fashion. Sure, the two recipes share some features, share some ingredients, but the conclusion that they will taste the same because of their shared ingredients would be fallacious. The similarity between the two pots of chili would need to be more comprehensively established before such a conclusion would be justified.
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