By way of brief (albeit unnecessary) exposition, Daniel C. Dennett is an extremely influential contemporary philosopher. Many who have read his work admire his shrewd observations about free will, consciousness and evolutionary biology. Although some may disagree with the positions he adopts, there should be no doubt as to the fact that he is an excellent thinker. What that entails is not falling into logical or argumentative pitfalls and while students of philosophy are quick to claim ‘Occam’s Razor!’ or feel clever when they have identified a false dichotomy — Dennett provides some original anti-thinking tools, or ways in which philosophers may deceive us (knowingly or unknowingly) that we may not notice.

‘Occam’s Broom‘ –> This refers to the way in which inconvenient truths/facts may be swept under the rug, so to speak. The example Dennett cites is that of the Creationists who, being unable to dissect the wealth of evidence against their theories, simply dismiss their opponents. It looks a lot like confirmation bias, but it differs in that it tells us that we sometimes have to look for the facts that are not there, rather than the ones that simply are. ‘Jootsing’–> This is a colourful abbreviation for “jumping out of the system’ and it is perhaps one of the most important tools for thinking that exists. Some of the best philosophers are known for not conforming to the traditional narrative that, say, analytic philosophy promotes. Post-modernist thinkers for instance, provide some of the greatest insights into the way the world works, by trying to think/jump outside of the proverbial box of philosophical orthodoxy. The problems that arise in philosophy perhaps result from a stubbornness to not jump out of the current system of thought. Goulding –> From my reading of Dennett, he is a vehement opponent of Stephen Jay Gould – a late philosopher and evolutionary biologist. After analyzing his work Dennett discovered three forms of bad philosophical reasoning that occurred frequently and he cristened them as various species of the philosophical genus (lol) of ‘Goulding’ (a neologism coined by Dennett to refer to making argumentative mistakes): Rathering is when we present a view and nefariously insert a “rather” to suggest that there could be no other alternative to the view in question. For example, ‘free will is not to be understood externally but rather as an internal set of motives…’ Notice that there is no explanation as to why it is the case that it is to be understood as a ‘internal set of motives’ or why the external and internal causes could be compatible.

is when we present a view and nefariously insert a “rather” to suggest that there could be no other alternative to the view in question. For example, ‘free will is not to be understood externally but rather as an internal set of motives…’ Notice that there is no explanation as to why it is the case that it is to be understood as a ‘internal set of motives’ or why the external and internal causes could be compatible. Piling on is when we add an unnecessary rhetorical flourish to an argument and provide no explanation to justify it. For instance, “evolutionary theorists assume that no principles of design could be in place in nature, there could be nothing further from the truth.” Why could there be nothing further from the truth? While this article is not considering the debate about intelligent design, there is something to be said about not piling unnecessary rhetorical flourishes onto an argument.

is when we add an unnecessary rhetorical flourish to an argument and provide no explanation to justify it. For instance, “evolutionary theorists assume that no principles of design could be in place in nature, there could be nothing further from the truth.” Why could there be nothing further from the truth? While this article is not considering the debate about intelligent design, there is something to be said about not piling unnecessary rhetorical flourishes onto an argument. The Gould Two-Step starts by building a straw-man out of our opponent’s position and refuting it (that is the first step). The second step is to suggest that in this refutation, your opponents should/have grudgingly accepted your attack on their position. We are all familiar and perhaps guilty of building a straw-man, but the rather ingenious part of this is to go a step further and commit the Gould Two-Step. These three species of bad reasoning, are ones we ought to be on the look-out for as they happen far too frequently (and not just in Gould’s works).

4. The Surely Operator –> This is perhaps one of the most devious argumentative ploys. This happens when we begin our counter-argument with “Surely you cannot believe X” and thus it is made apparent that there is an ostensible flaw within our opponent’s position when we are simply making a bald assertion. In Dennett’s words:

“If the author were really sure all the readers would agree, it wouldn’t be worth mentioning.” – Dennett, 53.

In fact, you can even conduct a little experiment to find the “surely” operator in any of the works you have written or of the philosophers that you have read — you might be surprised to see what you find. Surely, you’ll find that these operators crop up in the unlikeliest of places.

5. Rhetorical Questions –> Who could doubt the prominence of this rhetorical device? (Sorry, I’ll stop.) Using rhetorical questions in arguments is extremely common, as it represents the author’s inability or laziness to flesh out the counter-argument in question. Dennett recommends we look for an unobvious answer to it and surprise our interlocutor with it so as to defuse the power of the rhetorical question.

6. Deepity –> The deepity is a proposition that seems important and achieves its importance by being ambiguous, one can certainly conjure up many examples. Without offending too many philosophers, I’ll cite perhaps one of the most common deepities:

“Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self…” – Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death.

Now, of course, some will think this example to be unfair or that I am being uncharitable, but nevertheless the way the concepts are presented are by virtue of their being ambiguous. This is commonly a critique of modern metaphysics and continental philosophy which sometimes abuses deep–sounding words to pass them off as truths by virtue of how unclear these words are by nature.

Hopefully this article has provided with you a concise list of anti-thinking tools, argumentative mistakes that we must recognise in ourselves and others that stray away from the conventional grocery-list of fallacies that we are fond to identify. All of these seem to stem from the simple yet true observation that Dennett makes that “thinking is hard.” However, that does not mean that it cannot be made easier by recognising these anti-thinking tools wherever they might come up.

Bibliography:

Daniel C. Dennett “Intuition Pumps and other Tools for Thinking.” Penguin UK.