"psychologizing"

I've read in various places that it is a logical fallacy to critique a position based on this practice.

Does this approach have any use at all though?

For instance is there a limited number of psychological reasons why someone could adhere to an idea that can easily be proven wrong?

And is it worthwhile to examine these reasons?

Post 1

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 7:56am

Hi Jason,

Since no one has ventured an attempt to answer your qestion, I have a couple of thoughts that might help.

If I understand your question correctly, psychologizing, as a logical fallacy, is a form of Ad hominem fallacy - (against the man). Ad hominem is the attempt to impugn an argument by attacking the arguer's character, motives, personality, intentions, or qualifications; or, in this case, his psychology.

It frequently takes the form, "he thinks all black dogs are dangerous because, when a child, he was bitten by a black dog." The point is, any argument that he makes about the danger of black dogs may be ignored, because they are not based on reason, but a quirk of his psychology.

In every day life, the argument usually takes the form, "He is a democrat ..., she is a vegetarian ..., they are all atheist ..., he is a business man," implying that such people have predetermined psychological states or ideologies that determined what they think and say; therefore, their arguments may safely be dismissed. That kind of psychologizing is always a fallacy.

Note, however, that arguments in the other direction may be perfectly valid and useful. While attempting to deduce the validity of someones argument based on there general ideology or psychological states is wrong, deducing someones psychology (or ideology) from what they do and say is often correct.

Suppose someone argues that, "so long as anyone in the world is poor, we are all poor." The attempt to repudiate that, "argument," by saying it is just the viewpoint of someone who is essentially a socialist, is fallacious. The argument is not wrong because the one making it is a socialist. (It is wrong, because all such anti-individualistic collectivist views are wrong, no matter who says them.) On the other hand, it is perfectly correct to say, anyone holding the view expressed by that argument holds a collectivist socialist ideology.

Sometimes, pointing out certain views and actions are indicative of specific ideologies and psychologies is called 'psychologizing.' In those cases, it is the judgement that is the fallacy, not the use of psychology.

I know this may not answer the specific question you had in mind. I would be interested in your comments.

Regi

Post 2

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 4:59pm

I recognize and agree that "psychologizing" as an attempt to disprove someone's argument is an ad hominem.

Your comment that: "deducing someones psychology (or ideology) from what they do and say is often correct." is what I'm interested in examining:

How much and what kind of evidence is enough to conclude that someone isn't (putting this in simplest terms) trading with due to their psychology?

From my own experience I can point to people who exaggerate and/or say one thing and do another as indications of poor character, and also their choice of friends.

Though perhaps I'm drifting out of the realm of psychology and more accurately called "How to determine the values someone holds?"

Post 3

Tuesday, May 18, 2004 - 7:57pm

My understanding is that �psychologizing� is a much more broad than an ad hominem argument. Instead of a simple insult, it is an attempt to dive into someone�s psychology (usually in an adversarial context) and make wild and speculative comments about someone�s state of mind -- rather than address specific content of behavior. At least that's how I understand it. It's very inappropriate, in my opinion, to make broad generalizations about someone's character prior to having adequate information.

Here is a text-book case of psychologizing from another thread in this forum that was directly at me by Reginald Firehammer:

Reginald says: �Don's post reveals a certain kind of personality--the kind of personality that is both easily offended itself and believes the solution is to offend others. That brow-beating method probably works with the kind of people Don is used to dealing with. My response to Don was to demonstrate, it does not work with everyone, that there are people in this world whose relationships with others are based on reason, not emotional manipulation.� [Reginald Firehammer, May 18, 2004, Post 26 of the �Problem of Interaction� thread in the Objectivism Q&A Forum.]

Of course, you would have to go do the �Problem of Interaction� thread to see the full context of his comments� You can read Reginald�s comments (notably: Post 14, Post 24 and Post 25) and decide for yourself. My only comment was Post 23.

In any case, regardless of whether 1) he is was rude to me or 2) I was somehow inappropriately angry at him -- the FOCUS here is on his psychologizing of me. I point out to those who are reading that I have NEVER met Reginald Firehammer in my life. I have no idea who this guy is� I just barely arrived here. Yet how does he portend to know so much about me?

- Notice how Reginald seems to know �the kind of people I am used to dealing with!� How does he know how I am �used to� dealing with others!? From only one post?! Wow.

- Notice how Reginald very directly implies I rely on �emotional manipulation� when I deal with others. Wow, I didn�t even know that about myself. From only one post he knows me well enough to say this?! To the contrary, I thought I was very direct! Where am I �manipulating� him?

You can further break down a wide range of his comments further...but, I'm sure you get the drift.

He bases these deep insights into my psychology from only one post (Post 23)!

This is an important topic because it's very disconcerting when somebody makes such baseless personal attacks at you [although, of course, on the Internet nobody really knows your real name anyhow].

The goal of intellectual discussion, in my view, is to share ideas. It's pretty obvious that psychologizing does not facilitate this process. Good topic for discussion...

I'm sure Reginald will be able to help you out from here.

Regards...

:-)

Post 4

Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - 9:42am

Hello, Jason:

Psychologizing is thought of as dealing with a person on the basis of his real or presumed psychology in contexts where one ought to be concerned only with what he actually says and does. Which is almost all of the time unless one is acting as a professional therapist!

Of course sometimes it is worthwhile to explore reasons why people hold certain views, once it is established that the reasons cannot be intellectual. No aspect of reality should be exempt from analysis. However, my view is that in intellectual debates this is seldom appropriate to bring up. First, it can be a tricky matter to establish non-intellectuality. Second, one�s opponent would never admit to such thing, so it is a waste of time; the only possible persons who might benefit would be third-party listeners, provided they are interested in the psychology of evasion.

One reason why I think it is tricky to charge evasion is that one may not have tried hard enough to delve down into the roots of one�s opponent�s thinking. Sometimes the only intellectual recourse is to attack some premise held deeply by the other side. And even after one has successfully shaken another�s position, one must realize that the consequences need time to percolate; the integration involved in changing one�s mind often takes time, and this is not an indicator of dishonesty. Also, if one has been rude and unpleasant, don�t expect the other person to suddenly make an about-face publicly.

In a debate, it should be enough to disprove what the other person is saying. In egregious cases of anti-intellectualism, one can�t escape speculations about the person�s psychology, but how often is it right to air these publicly?

(Edited by Rodney Rawlings on 5/19, 11:20am)

Post 5

Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - 4:48pm

Amen, Rodney. A well written and thoughtful post. Let me add that I would venture to say that anyone who is serious about fostering rational discussion should take this seriously because it goes to the very essence of philosophical debate.

Let me also suggest that the "light of day" is the greatest disinfectant. So, I actually think that if one points out those particularly eggregious examples of inappropriate behavior (i.e., psychologizing or whatever), then it becomes discouraged. If nothing else, such persons realize they are not going to get away without a fight -- that is, have the light of day shine on them.

:-)

--------

Stated coarsely: if your going to say something about someone's state of mind, then you better have evidence to back it up. Otherwise, you will (and should) get called on it. In Objectivism, this is a commitment to the primacy of existence.

If I believe I have been insulted, it is impossible for me to know that person's motivations. Maybe he/she didn't understand that I was offended. Maybe the person had a bad day. Maybe his/her dog just died. Or, maybe I was wrong in interpreting their behavior as insulting. There are so many possible "explanations." One cannot know why unless, as Rodney pointed out, one spends a lot of time with that person. And, even then, psychological explanations are "iffy," at best -- in my opinion.

In my view, the appropriate/rational thing to do (in an intellectual forum) is to point out the specific behavior (or post) that you believe is inconsiderate along with a brief explanation as to why. This gives them a chance to apologize and/or explain to you why your interpretation is wrong. It is amazing how disagreements quickly (and amicably) end when this approach is taken. And, even if you have to agree to disagree, then at least you learn about each other's boundaries.

This may sound obvious. But, it never ceases to amaze me how people jump to wild and speculative conclusions about the character of other people.

If anyone has any experiences of this and would like to share them here, then please contribute. This discussion is certainly helpful to me...And, I'm willing to bet others have been frustrated by this as well...

Kind regards...

Don

Post 6

Wednesday, May 19, 2004 - 5:35pm

Thank you. Note that in writing, I was not thinking of anything that happened here. I was just trying to analyze the concept and state the proper attitude about it.

I am rather lenient toward Ayn Rand's own sometime analysis of motives in philosophy--basically because such psychology is sometimes part of the philosophy she is presenting.

Post 7

Monday, June 7, 2004 - 5:11am

Great posts guys. I myself have just recently been handed a great deal of psychologizing in another forum, and it even consisted of going to my website and digging up my method of discussing just to show my psychological issues. The facts are that I do have pretty bad grammar (and need to do something about it sooner or later), and that I do write in a stream of consciousness (in a ~discussion~), yet after giving them that and taking more than two hours of my time to outline my arguments and the discussion beforehand, the focus never went to my main arguments (although plenty of misrepresenting nit-picking was done before and after), and continued to get more vicious and psychological. I wrote in plain English, and I couldn't have been so confusing as to not be understood in the slightest, so there was no excuse to not go to my arguments. The main arguments I had being left untouched, and a pure focus on my way of thinking and writing (even to the point of digging in my personal website to locate its origins), as well as questioning my motives to my defending claims that they didn't agree with (or just offending them), would clearly be a case of psychologizing, wouldn't it? I had to drop out after enough of it, and really I cannot understand the motives. But let's not focus on my case (it may or may not be too mixed with psychologizing and regular ad hominems and actual attempts at arguing), and consider the obvious ones that I'm sure almost everybody has experienced in their arguing with objectivists.   Not to pull out the ARI-label, but a look at forums and essays would show it is common among many with that sort of attachment to Rand.  Quick sidenote: although a case of it may have been cited in an above post, I have found this site to be amazingly free of it---a pleasurable surprise!

I ask myself (and any who care to think about it): Is this psychologizing a conscious way of refuting the person so as not to consider their arguments, or is it a psychological reaction to something different from their line of thinking, or even is it just a methodological error that "illegally cuts through a huge parking lot to avoid stoplights"---as I call it (in this case in leaping from a different perspective to psychological issues)? Or is it something else?

There is clearly an obvious issue in the world of Objectivism with this psychologizing, and I'd be more likely to believe that it is the result of either (1) people who can't really understand philosophy, but have learned to nearly mimic Rand and perhaps ARI, or (2) the result of some sort of religious, cult-like attachment to Rand. The oddly common connection to the need for direct absolute certainty, the need for sweeping generalizations to cover all context, the need to argue in a way-too-linear matter, as well as the need to not only refute without understanding but also to show that all others are evil, is a really scary thing. (Anything else that can be added?)I'm doing some of my own psychologizing perhaps in trying to understand the motives in only a few possible ways, but there's a difference in that I'm not claiming to ~know~ them, nor to really cover all possible ground, and am using a pretty hefty amount of evidence of the same sort of thinking to base my questions.

BTW, Hi I'm Dominic, and it is a pleasure to meet everybody. I hope to have plenty of fruitful discussions, and love the entire lay-out of these forum-subjects, as well as the civility of its members.  As a quick note to add, the link to "importanceofphilosophy.com" makes me remember nearly 3 years ago, when that was the site I came across to discover Objectivism and have an excellent introduction to Rand's ideas. :)

-Dominic

Post 8

Monday, June 7, 2004 - 12:51pm

Welcome, Dominic. I myself am currently too busy to continue in some of the debates I have been involved in, but I hope you find it stimulating here. The most serious, challenging, and fundamental disagreements with Objectivism that I have encountered are those brought up by Messrs. Marc Geddes, Daniel Barnes, and "Citizen Rat."

There has been some psychologizing on both sides, I'm sure--but we usually get back to focusing on the issues.

Post 9

Monday, June 7, 2004 - 1:57pm

Thank you for the welcome, Rodney. :)
-Dominic

Post 10

Monday, June 7, 2004 - 9:26pm

Actually, "psychologizing" as I understand it, is when you attempt to fallaciously gain power over someone by bringing up all sorts of critiques which do not address their strictly logical processes.

With that said, as the psychology industry does not generally analyze logical processes in any systematic, objective manner -- if at all, which is almost never -- then the vast majority of the psychology industry is nothing more than "psychologizing", as far as I'm concerned.

The only person in the psychology industry who really and legitimately address pure logic and evidenciary analysis is Aaron Beck, M.D., father of "cognitive therapy". But he is mostly neglected and given lip service to, because most people who gravitate to the field of psychology are not enamored of logic, but rather the potential to wield pseudo-logical mumbo-jumbo over people.

There is another so-called "logical" leader in psychology, but he's a fraud. He doesn't model the logical process at all; he's a cult figure. His name is Albert Ellis, creator of so-called "Rational-Emotive Therapy", which goes like this: If I say it's rational, it is. I do not explain my logic, you just have to trust me. If you do not follow what I say, you are irrational.

These are seriously the sort of people in this "field".

I could also post a link to an article about a "psychologist" in the first half of this century, who conducted secret psychological experiments on orphans, to implant obsessional speech neuroses, because he wanted to see if he could create lifelong stutterers out of wholly normal children, while telling them he was giving them "speech therapy".

And guess what; he did.

And guess what; years later, after a number of them committed suicide due to the insecurity and neurosis he forced upon them, some of them have taken up a lawsuit against his graduate assistant who knowingly administered the "therapy".

I will never stop declaring to the world, what a secretly sadistic horror show the so-called "mental health industry" really is.

Post 11

Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - 9:17am

Orion,

Were you aware that Nathaniel Branden once had a famous public debate with Albert Ellis, or that Ellis wrote one of the first books to attack Rand?

-Bill

Post 12

Tuesday, June 8, 2004 - 12:30pm