Logic hates

[j4]

Is there a name for the (il)logical pattern that goes something like:

"I believe/think/have experienced X. You believe/think/claim to have experienced not-X. Therefore you are deluding yourself"

?

I've been tagging it as "false consciousness" in my brain, but that's a bit of a misnomer.

Comments

[barnacle.livejournal.com]

I consider that to be less of a specific logical pattern than a breed of syllogism, one which is only true from a particular philosophical standpoint. That might be Berkeleian idealism, perhaps?

It's a perfectly valid view in more vigorous metaphysical structures, of course, and you find its equally blinkworthy converse in starey-eyed evangelical atheism. Well, I find I blink more often when people stare at me, at any rate.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I think the bit I'm really objecting to in the thing I (badly) described is the assumption that because A hasn't experienced (or genuinely thought or believed) the thing under discussion, B's claim to have experienced (or genuinely thought or believed) it must be false. It's ... it's arguing from your own experience to dismiss someone else's experience, which feels like rather insidious double standards. Or some kind of metaphysical autism.

Evangelicals of both stripes* do this, definitely. "You claim to have (never) experienced God, I have (never) done so, therefore you're deluded." Delete where applicable, PLEASE, DELETE DELETE DELETE.

* "badger evangelist"

[htfb.livejournal.com]

Gosh, I remember talking to you about your experience of God in the world at a party on the Botley Road in about, oh, 1997. You did very well in presenting a coherent picture, though the universally moralising God at St Aldate's is to my mind a metaphysical extravagance...

You ask for a technical term. A's and B's point of difference is in their idols of the cave (idola specus); A's fallacious dismissal of B is an idol of the theatre, idola theatri.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Your technical terms are beautiful, and "therefore" true. I will go and read more.

I sincerely hope that I didn't tell you that you were deluded for not having experienced God; though if I did, well, I guess most people have to be 18 once in their lives, but hopefully can avoid remaining so for any longer than strictly necessary. :-}

I'm not sure what you mean about the "universally moralising God" of St Aldate's, though. But then I've blanked a lot of it from my mind.