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

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

Solipism, narcissm, or self absorbtion.

[vatine]

I ususally label is at "category error", unspecified if it is on behalf of either or both. Sometimes, it is just miscommunication or reliance on non-shared frames of reference.

[teleute.livejournal.com]

Mostly it sounds like an inability to see another's point of view, and an inability to realise how much one's own experiences affect one's own viewpoint - especially in the cases which are actually "I have experienced X therefore I believe Y. If you do not believe Y you are deluding yourself." I suspect many judgemental religious believers fall into this category. In the general and severe case I believe it to be a sypmtom of narcissism (the psychological diagnosis).

However, in certain cases I think it's a perfectly valid statement: "I have experienced gravity acting to pull objects towards the earth. You claim to have experienced gravity acting to pull objects into the sky. Therefore you are deluding yourself." But where you get to draw the line between 'everyone believes it so it must be true' and 'just because a majority believe it doesn't mean I have to too' is probably a very handwavy place.

[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.

[nja.livejournal.com]

Bearing in mind that I have just walked a dozen miles and am sitting in Wetherspoons with the best part of a pint of Bath porter inside me pecking this out on my PDA:

There's a Latin or Greek word for suppressed premises which I can't remember, because I am not Gottlob Frege, But your suppressed premises (or those of your hypothetical arguing idiot) are that your knowledge etc is incorrigible and therefore X is certainly true. But how much of our knowledge is actually incorrigible?

I may not mean incorrigible. Time to haul myself up the hill I think.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Overconfidence/self-importance? There's no doubt a more formal fallacy as well, but that might not necessarily be the right way to think of -- it sounds like:

(a) I think/have seen X
(b) You think/have seen contradictory thing Y
(c) I'm right
(d) Therefore you're wrong

Without considering that they might be as likely to be mistaken as you are, or the relative certainties of the observations. Although I might have got the wrong end of the stick -- did any particular examples inspire this frustration?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

I'm most familiar with this when it comes up as the double whammy of condescension and illogic:

I've experienced X. You haven't experienced X yet. Therefore when you grow up enough to experience X you'll realize I'm right.

I consider it imposing your narrative of progress on other people. With my friends it's shorthand, now-- "Sorry for narrative-of-progressing you."