Jamie Whyte describes himself as “Outraged of Highbury” – someone who endlessly sends furious letters to newspapers complaining about sloppy thinking, logical errors, fallacies and muddles. He does the same at parties – and even on trains. Fortunately he’s a professional philosopher – or he might have attracted the attention of the authorities long ago.<\/i><\/p>\n
Im New Scientist<\/i> erkl\u00e4rt er die grunds\u00e4tzlichen “fallacies” \u00f6ffentlicher Debatten, unter anderem<\/a>:<\/p>\n There is a terrible tendency to treat people as reliable sources of fact when in fact they are simply “important” people or people who happen to be in the news.<\/i> Genau das ist es, was mich in der Debatte um die Hartz-Reformen zur Wei\u00dfglut bringt (und nicht nur dort): Der Mangel an methodisch sauberer und vernunft-basierter Argumentation. Ich kann es deshalb den Schreibern und Schreiberinnen der S\u00fcddeutschen Zeitung<\/i><\/a> gar nicht hoch genug anrechnen, dass sie unverbr\u00fcchlich sachlich zu diesem Thema erkl\u00e4ren, aufkl\u00e4ren, berichten, logische Bez\u00fcge herstellen. Danke, die Herrschaften.<\/p>\n
\nund:
\nToo many people see truth as just a game between groups, as a kind of tribalism. That is not rational. Far too many people are not prepared to say: “I don’t believe this and here’s my argument why I don’t.” They don’t feel they need to. Instead, they will say something like: “Economists are just part of the capitalist conspiracy so I don’t have to listen to their arguments about free trade.” Thus they dismiss all economists’ views on the grounds that they are members of a particular group.<\/i><\/p>\n