the fluxive fallacy

The Fluxive FallacyAuthor(s): Laurence J. LafleurSource: Philosophy of Science, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Jan., 1940), pp. 92-96Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Philosophy of Science AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/184464 .

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The Fluxive Fallacy BY

LAURENCE J. LAFLEUR

HERE are no new fallacies under the sun, any more than there are any new methods of reasoning. Therefore, the Fluxive Fallacy is nothing new. Yet, pointing out the Fluxive Fallacy

) and giving it a name has a distinct advantage g in that it directs one's attention to errors which,

without the advantage of a definite name and description, might pass unobserved.

By the Fluxive Fallacy, I mean that error which exists when the meaning of a phrase or philosophical position is indefinite, having two or more incompatible interpretations, and when some of the disadvantages inherent in the philosophy can be met by one of the possible interpretations, and other disadvantages by other interpretations. In such a case, once a decision as to the interpretation has been reached, the philosopher must face serious difficulties, but due to the failure to appreciate the dilemma of interpretation, the holder of the philosophy is unaware of the difficulties or considerations which have to be met.

Such a fallacy arises easily in any of a few typical situations. First, we have the case of a thinker who devotes a considerable part of his time to a given philosophical view, finding that it satisfactorily meets certain traditional objections. Eventually, he discovers that the philosophy is subject to other difficulties and in attempting to meet these difficulties he makes what seems to him slight alterations in his principles. He is apt to assume that the traditional objections, which he is aware his earlier

92



L. J. Lafleur 93 position was capable of overcoming, are still harmless to his revised philosophy, whereas the revision has not uncommonly rendered the traditional objections insurmountable.

Many philosophical problems are in the nature of a dilemma, forcing the thinker to meet the threats of Scylla or Charybdis. Those who have chosen to avoid the whirlpool of Charybdis spend their lives trying to evolve a scheme to get by Scylla, and often end by unconsciously putting the Charybdian position in the terminology of the followers of Scylla, failing to realize that the dangers of the maelstrom are not to be avoided by any such decision.

Let me give an example to make this point clearer: Kant was for the early part of his life a rationalist of a type which he later called dogmatic. As such, the peculiar problems which face any person of subjectivist tendencies had no terrors for him. He would not have to be concerned, as would Berkeley or Hume, in deciding how he could be sure another person existed, nor as to how he could distinguish the true from the false, the subjective speculation from the objectively valid perception. Eventually, being awakened by Hume from his "dogmatical slumber", he takes a position analogous to that of Berkeley, the one described by Kemp-Smith as Kant's Subjectivist position, in which he maintains that each person manufactures his world for himself. Now this position, stated baldly, would have all the objections of any extreme subjectivist position, and those objections were in this case met by a philosophy which alternated between the position of subjectivism and the position of phenomenalism (again using the terminology of Kemp-Smith) which was more closely related to the dogmatic or rationalistic tendency. The trend of thought is fairly obvious: let each man manufacture his perceived world for himself and let all men be substantially alike in their processes of creation. Then all these created worlds will be substantially similar, will be for all practical purposes the same; and it will be as though all men lived in one and the same man-created phenomenal world. The subjectivist position meets the philosophical Charybdis while the "as if" clause takes care of Scylla.



94 The Fluxive Fallacy To the present author it seems that the Fluxive Fallacy which

is inherent in Kant's position is to be found in many of his out- standing followers. In Fichte, for example, the considerations which make his "Ego" seem a logical solution to the philosophical problem, are considerations which apply exclusively to the individual ego, while Fichte utilized the "Ego" as a universal entity or "Absolute". In Fichte, as in many other Idealists, a parallel is drawn between the "Self" and the "Absolute", and this analogy serves to obscure the fact that the two entities are independent, however similar they may be. The egocentric predicament is involved in any position which accepts the reality of the individual ego; but, if the individual ego be not established, then every consideration leading to the supposition of an "Abso- lute" disappears. The details of the fallacy as applied to Absolute Idealism are too complex to deal with in this article; but, if the reader will go over any argument for an absolutist position, bearing in mind that considerations that concern the individual ego have no necessary application to an "Absolute", and vice versa, he will find, I think, that a hiatus in the argument becomes apparent.

A second common way in which the Fluxive Fallacy may arise stems from the historical origin of philosophical problems. The "man in the street" is not aware of the philosophical problems involved in many of his ordinary conceptions. It has taken a philosophical tradition of thousands of years to make the philosopher aware of them, so much so that it might be said that the discovery of problems is a more important result of philosophical endeavor than their solution. Philosophers in the past offered solutions of problems of which they were aware, in ways which involved concepts of whose ambiguity they were unaware. That ambiguity, later discovered, may make it seem to the present day reader that the philosopher was evading the issue by intentional obscurity. This feeling is one which modern readers easily get when reading works of the Greeks. Even when it is not as apparent as this, however, the advance of philosophical thinking shows ambiguities, sometimes involving fluxive fallacies, in the works of earlier thinkers. The same development may, of course,



L. J. Lafleur 95 occur contemporaneously when a thinker happens to be unaware of the development of contemporary philosophical thought. Such unsuspected flaws are inevitable, and doubtless exist in any of our present philosophies, to be discovered by some future generation that will read the record of our thinking with wonder that we should leave obscure the meaning of terms which to them seem evidently ambiguous.

Possibly the most obvious example of a Fluxive Fallacy which arises in this manner is that which is involved in the Socratic belief that knowledge implies virtue. "Can anyone," asks the Greek, "know the good and not desire it?" To us the answer is obvious: to know my own good, to know what is good-for-me, might imply that I would seek that good. But that I should know the good-for-others involves no such implication. That which is good or useful to me, that which is good or useful to others, and that which is ethically good, is constantly confused in Greek thought; never, in modern.

A third source of the Fluxive Fallacy, of comparatively little importance in genuine philosophical thinking, although doubtless common enough and important enough in the social world of today, lies in the rationalising tendency of human nature. A man discovers a new twist in scientific or political thinking; straightway, he is emotionally interested in validating that method or in exaggerating its importance. So in the hands of Freud, the importance of sex becomes exaggerated; and this exaggeration becomes accomplished by means of an extremely broad interpretation of the meaning of sex. So Hedonists, from time immemorial, have validated their belief in the importance of pleasure through an extremely broad interpretation of the meaning of pleasure. Intrinsically, there is nothing illogical in a position reached in this way. Logical fallacy arises only when considerations pertinent to sex or pleasure in the narrow sense and those true of the same subject in the broader sense are confused. The history of ethical speculation is full of the confusion of happiness with physiological stimulation, of individual happiness with social happiness, of pain with misery.

A further source of the Fluxive Fallacy arises in the hypnotic



96 The Fluxive Fallacy power of words. It is terribly easy to assume that two phrases mean the same thing because each contains the same words.

A good example may be found in the field of Cartesian philosophy. "We have," says Descartes, "an idea of perfection, and since any event must have a cause at least as great as its effect, there must be a perfect cause for this idea." The fallacy in this

part of Descartes' reasoning should be obvious, but it is astound- ing how often, even at the present day, this particular flaw is overlooked. The assumption has been made unconsciously that the "idea of perfection" is a "perfect idea" and the fact that the two phrases involve the same words has enabled Descartes and hundreds of others to substitute one phrase for the other, one thought for the other, without realising that a substitution has, in fact, been made.

Examples of the Fluxive Fallacy will be found everywhere in current as well as historical speculation. It is worthwhile to be

particularly on one's guard against it.

Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, N. T.



the fluxive fallacy

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