“The Ancient sage Booboo Baba described the healing powers of celery and skunk dung poultices.”

Logic, Physics, and Ethics are Stoicism's main divisions. By studying and practicing the teachings within these categories, we become better ‘doctors of our own souls’, thereby moving us closer to well-lived lives.

Rational thinking

Modern Stoics often emphasize Stoicism’s ethical dimension, but we also know Stoics put great stock in the power of reason and the importance of its continual development. Thinking clearly improves the quality of our judgment, and it parts the fog when we scrutinize our perceptions, motives, and behaviour.

Rational thinking is the bulwark against the seductions of unexamined popular beliefs fostered by propaganda or the fervor of the herd. Clear-thinking individuals provide insurance that groups of which they are a part will not succumb to tyrants.

Social media vs. Thinking skills

With the growing prevalence of social media, our traditional understanding of credibility and authority based on expertise, specialized knowledge, demonstrated merit, or relevant experience has been muddled. Keeping our thinking skills well honed is more important than ever. Reason is how we distinguish truth from falsehood, the important from the trivial, the worthy from the unworthy. Though we are endowed with reason, it must be trained, because we are equally endowed with emotions that are easily swayed.

Keeping thinking muscles toned

One of my favorite ways to keep thinking muscles toned is by studying fallacies. Fallacies are tricks of logic or language that help a claim be passed off as something it isn’t. The motivations of those who commit fallacies can be anywhere from innocent to wickedly manipulative. Fallacious thinking, speech, and argument pull our attention away from truth. So, the ability to spot fallacies is as handy as it is intellectually and morally essential.

The bifurcation fallacies

Here are a few of my favorite fallacies: The stunningly common Fallacy of Bifurcation. This fallacy sets up an ‘either/or’ framework to distract from other alternative options. A classic expression of the FofB is ‘If you aren’t with us, you’re against us’. Or, ‘There are two types of people in this world: those who dream big and therefore win versus those who think small and therefore live the small lives they deserve’.

Concealed quantification fallacy

One more: Concealed Quantification. CQ is found in statements made about a class that sometimes are about all of its members, but sometimes about only some of them, and it’s not clear which is referred to. Example: “Contractors don’t finish on time or on budget.”

Age-related fallacies

Finally, two common age-related fallacies we run into all the time are the argumentum ad novitam and the argumentum ad antiquitam. The first fosters the mistaken belief that the newness of something contributes to its soundness or value. ‘Introducing the iPhone XYZ-154353 Ultra: the newest way to call, text, and take pictures’. (Please ignore your current phone which does those things fine.)

The second equates oldness with truth or value. ‘The Ancient sage Booboo Baba described the healing powers of celery and skunk dung poultices for removing the body’s impurities’.

Strengthen your reason and have some fun with fallacies!

---

Sharon Lebell is the author of The Art of Living: The Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness, the first modern interpretation of Epictetus’ teachings. She Tweets@SharonLebell.

 

---