Arguments that God exists tend to be weak and the refuge argument that God exists because it can’t be proven that she doesn’t exist is nonsense. That argument is known as argumentum ad ignorantiam, Latin for “argument [as an appeal] to ignorance.”
Argumentum ad ignorantiam tries to prove a proposition by asserting that it has never been disproved. That something hasn’t been disproved is never an argument that it has been proved. How could it be? Yet the argumentum ad ignorantiam has widespread applications among the ignorant: Ghosts must exist because nobody has established that they do not. UFOs exist because no one has proven that they do not.
By the way, I know UFO abductions exist because I am a victim. Years ago, I was abducted by twenty Venusians, all of whom looked like Marilyn Monroe in her salad days. They took me aboard their space ship and repeatedly subjected me to. . . . Well, you get the picture.
Work on this statement by telling what it asserts:
We are the master race.
The we refers to the German people. The statement is Hitler’s claim for the German people. He claims that
1. There is a master race.
2. The German people are a race.
3. The German people are the master race.
4. Since there is a master race, there must be a slave race.
5. Since there is a master race and a slave race, the master race may enslave the slave race.
Claims 1 through 3 are part and parcel of the original statement. Claims 4 and 5 follow directly from the first three claims as subaltern claims implicit in the statement. Claims 1 through 5 are false. Can you prove they are false?
To avoid ambiguity, as well as a great many other difficulties, symbolic logic replaces the word is by arbitrary symbols that are not subject to the vagaries of literary grammar and syntax but present a simplified grammar of logical structure. For instance, consider:
p. 100 a. The rose is red. In this statement, is ascribes a property to an element known as rose.
b. Rome is greater than Athens. In this statement, is has been included only as an auxiliary value of asserting the dyadic relation, ”greater than.”
c. George Bush is President of the United States. Here is expresses identity.
d. Bill Clinton is a legendary liar. Here is indicates membership in a class, the class of legendary liars.
e. To sleep is to dream. This is implies entailment because it says that dreaming entails (implies) sleeping.
f. God is. As we noted before, this statement has an is that asserts existence.
So we see that a and b have an is that is only part of the verb. It serves to assert a relationship, which is otherwise expressed. But in the remaining cases—c, d, e, f—the is expresses a different relation in every case. These ises really name a relation that would appear to have a common form but would wear the badge of their distinctions plainly in view, signaled in symbolic logic by special signs so that the relation is clear:
c. George Bush = President
d. Clinton ∈ legendary liar
e. To sleep ⊃ to dream
f. E! God
Shades of meaning and word atmosphere—Le mot juste.
The wealth of words that are nearly synonymous yet embody subtle shades of difference in meaning makes language more precise and helps us capture a precise tone and sense by providing exactly the right word. For example, deciding between the words paternal and fatherly in the following sentences involves sensitivity to a distinction that few languages other than English make:
The judge’s decision rested on Tom’s ____ rights.
Pop gave Marge a ____ smile and went back to reading his newspaper.
I would have put paternal in the first sentence and fatherly in the second. Fatherly and paternal share the same basic meaning or denotation, and I could have used fatherly in the first sentence and paternal in the second, but the opposite choice is preferred because of matters of p. 101 connotation, the secondary associations of a word. Paternal is more formal and more appropriate to a legal context, while fatherly is less formal and more appropriate to a home situation. Fatherly implies by extension the idealized qualities of fatherhood, personal warmth, love, caring protection, and so forth.
In addition to denotation and connotation, words tend to have an atmosphere and a history that also confer meanings. Paternal comes from the Latin pater and father comes from Old English, which, in turn, was derived from the ancient Indo-European word patre, probably originally from baby talk meaning papa. We don’t have time or space to go into this, but the history and atmosphere of a word can be just as important in communication or thinking of anything as strict dictionary meaning. Style, mood, and level of familiarity plus emotional coloring may come through or influence our thoughts without our conscious awareness. For instance, I can’t help but think of the Arabs when someone mentions coffee. Nor can I help thinking of American Indians when someone mentions tobacco. What images come to your mind when you read words like landscape, yacht, algebra, holster, avocado, shampoo (one of the few Hindu words in English), pantaloons (where our word pants comes from), asparagus, daisy (condensation of Day’s eye, the old term for that flower), weenie, black out, beat, booby trap (originally a bucket of water over the entrance), allomorph, affricate, pancration?
Notice if you don’t know the word—and lots of people don’t know allomorph, affricate, pancration—nothing comes to mind, or just puzzlement, confusion, and self-doubt. When you see an unfamiliar word, what should come to mind? Think for a second. What action should be suggested by your encounter with a word that you don’t know?
Answer: The desire to head to the dictionary and look it up.
Take, for example, a quotation from pages 5 and 6 of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland: “Let me see: that would be about four thousand miles down, I think— . . . yes, that’s about the right distance—but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?” (Alice had not the slightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she thought they were nice, grand words to say.)
Principle: Words have meanings. Some words have many meanings and many shades of meaning. Some meanings you may know, and others you may have to look up.
p. 102 From which follows that Alice should look up longitude and latitude, and you should abide by this lesson:
Lesson: When you are unclear on a word’s meaning, look it up. And for heaven’s sake, avoid using a word that you don’t know.
I keep an index card in my pocket and use it to write down the words I come across in my daily life that I am not sure of. You do the same. Write the word down and look it up that night. Pay attention to the word’s denotation and connotation. Study the word’s atmosphere and history. Try to discover if the word has any hidden meanings, which brings us to the next topic.
Hidden meaning is an important topic. At this point before you tackle it, you may wish to prepare by getting a cup of java, getting up to stretch, or taking a short walk to refresh your soul. What you are about to read should have a major influence on your life and prosperity. You want to be maximally alert to benefit maximally from what you are about to learn about hidden meanings.
Principle: Every statement has two meanings: overt and covert.
Almost every statement you hear has at least two meanings, the obvious meaning and the hidden meaning. These meanings are known as the overt meaning and the covert meaning, respectively. The overt meaning is easy to understand just from the literal interpretation of the statement. The covert meaning is not open or as easily understood and often depends on the hidden implications of the overt statement.
“There are two things I can’t stand: Prejudice against other cultures and the Dutch.” The overt meaning of that prejudicial statement from the movie Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me is clear and so is the covert meaning that Austin’s father is in fact prejudiced against the Dutch. Since he claims he doesn’t have a cultural prejudice and actually does, Austin’s father is also telling us that he is a hy
pocrite.
Why hidden meanings exist is not entirely clear. I believe it is some primitive attempt of the unconscious mind to tell the truth. I believe hidden meanings reflect the innate goodness of the human spirit, the unconscious assertion of a kind of natural law, like the second law of p. 103 thermodynamics, with a vector pointed in one direction, toward truth and away from falsehood. I believe that is why the hidden meaning can be so helpful to those interested in knowing the truth.
Psychoanalysis uncovers hidden meanings.
Long ago, in an attempt to help hysterical Viennese housewives get over their neuroses, Freud uncovered the unconscious mind, the ideas of which often surfaced in disguised form in dreams and in slips of the tongue. While all that is interesting, it won’t concern us here. We will not have to use the tedious techniques of psychotherapy to figure out the hidden meanings of what people say to us. Instead, we will just have to think and think clearly.
Analyze this: “I hate going to parties where most of the other guests are unfamiliar to me.” What’s the overt statement? What does she mean? The overt meaning is easy enough to understand and is to the point. She doesn’t like to party with strangers. But what is the covert meaning? What does she mean covertly? What is the hidden meaning behind the overt statement?
Without actually saying it, the woman has told us that she doesn’t find it easy or pleasant to strike up a conversation with people she does not know. She has said covertly, “I am shy.”
How about this one? “I am calm. I am calm. I am calm!”
If a young woman says she is calm and says it in a calm, detached voice, then we might believe her. But if she repeats herself in a crescendo and ends up shouting it, she is trying to convince—us and herself—of something that probably isn’t so. How she says what she does contradicts the literal interpretation of what she said. Also, people who repeat that they are calm are less likely to be calm than those who don’t repeat. Emphasis, especially undue emphasis, suggests the speaker is trying to convince. If she is trying to convince, it is possible that there are (justified) doubts. Perhaps she has doubts herself. For that reason, “I am calm” is more likely to be true than “I am perfectly calm.”
How about this one?
“Do unto others what you would have done unto you.”
That’s the formulation of the Golden Rule. It is closely related to the greatest of all commandments for human conduct, as stated originally in the Old Testament: Love thy neighbor as thyself.
What is the overt message? What is the covert message? The overt message is easy. The covert message is that self-regard is natural and primary and that regard for others is derivative. The covert message is that p. 104 concern for others must be shaped by using the only available reliable standard, namely, that of self-concern. The implication is that without the commandment, our bias is toward indulgent treatment of the self and niggardly treatment of others. Self-love is taken as the given, inevitable, primary datum of ethical life. Love for others must be commanded. Christian philosophy therefore recognizes that a large draught of self-interest, self-centeredness, and self-concern permits the persistence and survival of the individual. An altruism that fails to take account of this, that fails to grant that one’s own interests are inherently part of any situation, is misled and shortsighted, a consequence of faulty perspective—and probably the root error underlying Marxism. The failure to consider individual self-interest is probably the root cause of the failure of communism to deliver as many goods and as many services for the majority of people under the same constraining economic resources as are delivered by capitalism.
Work on the following statement: “Any other person, when I entered the room, would have snapped to attention and taken their feet off the desk and stopped reading the newspaper. But, because you are one of my most productive employees, it doesn’t bother me.”
Pause and think. What is the overt statement? What is the covert statement? How many covert meanings do you detect? What items about the employee’s behavior does the boss like? What does she dislike? Is it true that the employee’s behavior does not bother the boss?
Answer: If the employee’s behavior didn’t matter, why bring it up? The covert message actually contradicts the overt message. Not only that, the covert message particularly describes in a kind of divisional definition all the behavior that the boss does not like. She really wants the employee to snap to attention when she enters the room. She really wants the employee to keep his feet off the desk. She really wants the employee to stop reading the newspaper in her presence. She may even want the employee not to read the paper on the job at all. If the items enumerated did not matter, then why would she have so precisely enumerated them? Further, this boss sends a covert message that if productivity should falter, the employee will be in trouble, since that is the only redeeming feature mentioned about the employee and maintaining his employment.
Question: Can you think of any advantages that this employee would gain if he decoded the hidden meanings behind what the boss said?
OK. Did you get the answers? Some of them are obvious, right? When we do what the boss wants, we are more likely to get a pay raise, p. 105 more benefits, and more favorable consideration when making requests. When we meet and exceed the boss’s expectations, we are more likely to get a promotion and other things that taken together tend to increase our own personal happiness and security.
But did you get the real covert messages in this boss’s statement? The real messages, in my view, were two: “Respect me” and “Continue to be productive.” In dealing with this kind of a boss, I would try to cater to those two things, especially respect, because that is what she said she wants. Chances are that feeding her ego with some fawning attention would confer great benefits. Worth a try anyway. Worth a try, that is, if you have the stomach for it.
On the other hand, having gotten the covert message, you may decide that you don’t like and don’t want to work for a boss that has such trivial concerns. You may decide that that kind of bossing style with that kind of boss who has some kind of gigantic ego defect is not your cup of tea. In the which case you might decide to exit early and find a company to work for that more closely matches your needs. Either way, uncovering the covert meanings has put you a step ahead of the competition because you understand the truth, the reality situation, better than they do. Because you understand the truth better, you are better positioned to take intelligent action.
The feet-on-the-desk example above showed how detecting hidden meanings can improve your future, boost your career, enhance business success, and help achieve other goals toward personal happiness. But beyond that, detecting hidden meanings is important in two major areas: negotiating and inside information.
Stop and think about it. Every day you are bargaining. Every day you are negotiating with people about all sorts of matters. These talks and discussions, as I prefer to call them, vary from the trivial to the important and sometimes to the sublime.
Getting your granddaughter to go to bed on time, for instance, requires some understanding of your granddaughter’s needs and desires. We have found that our granddaughter, Callie Suzanne Patten, doesn’t want to go to bed. She will put up a fight if she is forced in that direction. But when Craig and Michelle, my son and daughter-in-law, discovered that Callie would go to bed without a fuss if they all just had a parade into the bedroom, the problem was solved. So when Craig and Michelle want Callie to go to bed, they announce the start of the parade, hum parade music and fall into line in the living room. Callie p. 106 falls in between them and off they all merrily march to the bedroom. Since Callie is hardly seventeen months old, it is unlikely that she thinks in words. But that she does think cannot be doubted. She had made clear her position about going to bed, and in a certain sense, she bargained that she will go to bed if she can parade. “You give me something, and I give you something” is the net result of any negotiation, whether the negotiation is something important like getting the kid
to bed or something trivial like getting two billion-dollar corporations to merge. Callie traded acquiescence for a parade. Notice that the outcome was beneficial to both parties, a win-win situation. Callie got some fun. Craig and Michelle got a hassle-free bedtime. No one knows where Callie got that deep internal desire to parade to bed. My guess is that it came from one of those Winnie the Pooh videos that she is fond of watching. Notice that the bedtime job now gets done without tears or fuss. Craig and Michelle also have learned that parading before bedtime can be fun. Having seen the ritual, I do it myself. It’s fun.
Whether he is a car salesman, a labor union leader, a telemarketer, or a cold-calling broker from New York, a negotiator often covers up what he’s really doing and really thinking. He wants to get the biggest possible advantage for himself and the biggest possible concession from you. The more he tells you the truth, the reality situation, the less likely he will get undeserved returns. The problem is that in order to effectively deal with you, he must appear sincere so that he can win your trust. Thus, real negotiators develop the knack of seeming to speak candidly without actually giving any information that will aid you to know the truth, the reality situation.
Fortunately, you already know that hidden meanings can be deduced and that the more the opposition talks, the more he reveals. The best way to tune into the covert messages is to listen attentively to the flag words.
Flag words give a good indication that the speaker is not speaking the entire truth. Let’s go over a few flag words and phrases so that you get what I mean: Naturally, of course, no doubt, obviously, as expected, to tell the truth, not surprisingly, as you would expect, as everyone knows—when you hear these words or words like them, watch out. Any statement preceded by such words or phrases is suspect. These words indicate that the speaker is trying to get you to accept some questionable information as fact. The degree of certainty about any statement that follows these words is less than (sometimes far less than) he would like you to believe.
Truth, Knowledge, or Just Plain Bull: How to tell the difference Page 12
