Flexible Thinking in a Time of Imprecise Statements

By Gary Berg-Cross

Even in normal times politicians can say the darndest, imprecise but attention getting things. In a big election season the ante is raised leading to many vacuous or misleading statements. One of the recent ones, expressed in great dismay by Rick Perry in announcing his run for the Republican presidential nomination, was the seeming injustice that “nearly half of all Americans don’t even pay any income tax.”

This infallible, conservative attack line is one of those statistical facts that is an un-fact. It’s imprecision is aimed at an impression from one perspective. It reduces some complexity to a misleading statement. You can find support for the statement in reality. There is a recent estimate, by the nonpartisan Joint Committee for Taxation, that in 2009 about 50 percent of taxpayer units (individuals or couples) had no income tax liability. However, a more precise way and better perspective to understand the data is that 20 some percent had no actual income liability (many are retired people living on Social Security), while 30 percent received refundable credits that wiped out any liability they owed in income taxes. Some may remember that this idea for tax credits was a favorite idea of conservative economists and promoted under Reagan. But never mind, politicians know who to blame and how to pass on a destructive meme.

Another part of the imprecision is that the 50% statistic doesn’t consider all taxes, just state and federal income taxes. It does not include payroll taxes (such as Social Security and Medicare) or taxes on gas. Since the Social Security tax is levied on only the first $106,800 of income, this falls mostly on the poor and middle-class. Indeed as Gale & Rohaly of the Tax Policy Center note, 75 percent of tax filers pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. So when income taxes and payroll taxes are combined, there is significant tax burden on the working class poor.

The way I view it there is a continuum of realism, precision and perspectives made in statements. Science and Logic places a highly value on realism, precision and adequate answers in light of everything we know, while politics seems at the other extreme.

But one problem with precise statements is that they are often brittle and rely on support from other statements and validation from observation. The above example was made precise by looking at people paying income taxes, but left out quite a bit of reality of other taxes which give a more contextualized perspective.

Other situations that politicians discuss come with their own imprecision, but people try to make neat sounding pronouncements about them anyway. It’s the type of thing well understood in critical thinking and Logic classes. Consider the situation of Libya which is currently in turmoil without a defined government. This reality affects the range of statements we can make. Consider the statement "The current President of Libya is bad." People like Bertrand Russell wondered how to logically answer such a question: Is this statement true, false, or is it meaningless?

It does not seem to be true, for there is no present President/ leader. But if it is false, then one would suppose that the negation of the statement, that is, "It is not the case that the current President of Libya is bad " or some equivalent - "The current President of Libya is not bad," is true. Neither of these seems to have a greater claim to truth than the original statement, although the statement is not meaningless as a sentence. One can understand the question.

The problem is the implied assertion that there is a leader in Libya. It’s part of what Logicians talk about as a definite description which ties language to reality. Definite descriptions denote a fact in the form of a phrase such as “the current President of the US". Logicians say a definite description is proper if the phrase’s noun applies to a unique individual or object which the above does. For example: The “first US president” or the “current Senate Majority Leader” are proper. The definite descriptions "the person in Houston" and "the leader of Libya" are improper because the noun phrase applies to more than one thing, and the definite descriptions "the first man on Venus" and "the Senator from Libya." are improper because the noun applies to nothing. Improper descriptions raise some difficult philosophical questions about the law of excluded middle as well as denotations faithful to realism.

A philosophy of realism asserts that reality and its constituents exist independently of human linguistic or conceptual representations. I can talk about Libyan leaders as a theoretical or cultural idea, but it doesn’t change the facts. But sometimes social and material reality that there are alternate views of reality with equally legitimate perspectives on reality. The perspectival stance maintains that there may be such alternative views. I have a sense that liberals and progressives tend to prescribe to such a philosophical position more than conservatives. One of conservative criticisms of liberals is that they are unrealistic, usually in a politically pragmatic sense but also in allowing alternate views. It seems to me to be a misunderstanding of liberal thinking. You can believe in perspective and still be a realist. A philosophical stance of perspectivalism is constrained by realism. It does not amount to the belief that just any old view of reality is legitimate. There is a method to establish which views are legitimate. In this we weigh a hypothesis against their ability to survive critical tests when confronted with reality. The acid test is scientific experiments, but in everyday life we have less formal means of testing ideas such as illustrated on the previous example on taxes.

It is a fact that sciences change with time just as the situation in Libya does or our understanding of what taxes people pay. And so at some time in the future there may be a current President of Libya (and in a good economy more will pay income taxes). This introduces another idea from Science – that all assertions we make should be conditional and understood against the background of fallibilism. This stance (Of Charles Peirce and Karl Popper, for example) accepts that our theories and classifications of reality are subject to revision. At any one time they may be adequate for our purposes, but not the final answer of what is reality.

We should be skeptical of political statements which violate realism, logical rigor and the test of adequacy. They are not to be trusted.

See Michael Weinman, Two Forms of (Political) Fallibilism for more on this topic.

Political Pragmatism and Philosophical Pragmatism

Pragmatism usually refers to a practical way of dealing with life. It's a very down to earth way of deaing with problems in a sensible and realistic fashion. Pragmatic approaches are often contrasted with decisions and actions based on ideological, highly abstract or theoretical frameworks. This difference may over dichotomize things as discussed in my article on the Binary Thinking Habit, but popular accounts often use a simple notion of pragmatism in discussing decision making styles. Thus, to a mixture of praise and frustration, President Obama’s governing style is often labeled politically “pragmatic”. One example of this was his approach to health insurance reform. The HC reform approach evolved from the government-sponsored language he used in campaign speeches, to a hybrid compromise that could be passed by both Houses of Congress. He was also called pragmatic to attempt to compromise with Republicans in extending unemployment benefits and providing some relief to the middle class when he gave up on a key campaign promise to roll back Bush-era tax cuts for the “wealthy”.

This practical politics has lead some to ask what values Obama really has. His pragmatism makes various stances seem unprincipled, hard to define and predict. Is he focused on the economy, or terrorism on managing government? What won’t he compromise on?

According to University of Chicago political scientist William Howell, Obama often starts with some "clear policy views," for the longer term, but they may not be clear to casual public scrutiny because "they're conjoined with a recognition that presidential power is contested ... and he gets very pragmatic very quickly." Such political pragmatism is often described as one that recognizes here-and-now “realities”. But what are realities and how do they different from political positions?

Obama's Mideast speech was described by some as pragmatic since it recognized US limitations along with democratic yearnings evidenced by what has been called an Arab Spring. But the speech also repeated his position that Israel-Palestine peace negotiations must acknowledge the 1967 borders as a starting point 1967 borders. This is politically practical in the sense that Obama’s position represents a general consensus. Reflecting this he has already secured the political backing of the United Nations, European Union and Russia. But to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this policy is not grounded in reality as he sees it. He frames the issue differently, a process discussed in my blog on Towards Understanding Rationality and its Limits Regarding Complex Issues . Netanyahu would prefer to ground things on new “demographic facts on the ground”. The 67 border lines do not take into account what Netanyahu called "demographic changes that have taken place over the last 44 years," This includes an estimated 500,000 (illegal as discussed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement) Israeli settlers living on West Bank land. These settlements represent an occupation which the US and most others do not recognize and to many it represents a manufactured, force based outcome dictated by an occupation plan of a greater Israel.

One problem with trying to get practical results is opponents can see the possible path you can take and attempt to block it. Political pressure can be brought to accept "facts on the ground”. So are we pragmatic to deal with facts on the ground such as this or facts based on terrorist stances whether national or group? Such perceptual differences in reality are part of the challenges and dangers for what some call practical approaches and inquires into reality – political or otherwise.

Another is that problems and decisions may involve multiple issues and so one may need a coldly calculating meta-practical approach to decide how to tradeoff various positional strengths the reality of which is hard to know. In reality pragmatic approaches involve inquiry and analysis to understand what truthfully has worked, is working and will work. In pragmatic theory truth can neither be separated from the specific context of an inquiry, nor can it be divorced from the interests of the inquirer (Obama and Netanyahu for example). Understanding past analyses, the habits of the culture and persons involved are all part of a complicated analysis that makes something practical or not. For all these reasons it is easy to see why pragmatic policies are hard.

But are Obama’s approaches to things like health care, budget, and the creation of a 2 state solution really pragmatic? In a traditional, shallow sense they are part of a uniquely American political approach called political pragmatism. This philosophy was observed by Tocqueville during his American journeys which he described as a philosophy that says, 'if it works, we don't really care why.' As such it is a rejection of a purely /theoretical and ideological approach to solving political problems. To a European it was a new form of politics using means-tested facts and grounded reality. This still represents a recognizable American value and bears some relation to the broader, formalized pragmatic philosophy that originated in the US a bit later in the 19^th century by Charles Sanders Peirce and William James. These are 2 philosophers that Americans should be proud of and know more about. Some of the background story for their story and the whole American pragmatism movement is covered Louis Menand’s enjoyable book: The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. The book argues that the Civil War swept away the slave civilization of the South, but the brutality of an uncompromising ideological struggle also damaged the whole intellectual culture of the North. It took nearly half a century for Americans to develop a set of ideas, a way of thinking that would help them cope with the resulting conditions of “modern” life. That struggle, especially the philosophical struggle is elucidated by Menand’s book as he explains how the philosophy of pragmatism grows out of it.

But problems seem to have grown up about our understanding of what is pragmatic. Current political pragmatism is to the philosophy of pragmatism a bit like what Social Darwinism is to Darwin’s theory of evolution. It has some connection, but it is a loose application of some simple expressions of core ideas. without a validated theory and can lead in problematic directions. The family of ideas called pragmatism was concerned with broad theories of meaning, truth and reality and how a person comes to know. At its core is an emphasis on the practical consequences of a person or a group holding a belief. The question of what happens in the future is essential. Consequences are the behavioral and observational means we use to evaluate the truth of that belief. This simple focus on the practical helps evade many earlier metaphysical and epistemological problems discussed in Western philosophy. That’s good, since American don’t like endless debate on philosophical issues. So belief is something like an hypothesis. It is true if it brings about a satisfactory result in a particular inquiry or investigation. The truth of Darwin’s theory of evolution is measured by what it can be applied to and the results it secures. Obama’s push for a 2 state solution isn’t Newtonian Physics, but to a pragmatic philosophy it might be tried on to see how useful it is. Of course it is easier to test the validity of falling bodies than of establishing states and peacefully controlling borders. As I asked before, is a pragmatic approach practical for such types of issue? It’s complicated, but as we are all concerned with better outcomes it behooves us to understand the world in practical terms by their implications as well as the validated consistency of their predictions. As a philosophical stance Pragmatism helps clears away some of the philosophical underbrush, but the reality of the world and especially the social world represents real challenges for a practical philosophy. Which is a long, humbling way to say that what is called pragmatic politics may be better than a purely unvalidated, ideological approach; but is far from the approach to knowledge, truth and meaning that philosophical pragmatism espouses.

Towards Understanding Rationality and its Limits Regarding Complex Issues

Rwahrens recently penned an article on this Blog addressing what he called real challenge for Democrats and “progressive voters” – should they support Obama for a 2nd term, or should they send a message to a party and president who is not being progressive enough. Rwahrens presented what seems a reasonable argument that Progressives should agree on one thing: “beating the Republican Party and preventing them from getting into office” For example he pragmatically cited the damage that a Republo-Conservative tide could effect which should override “every single other issue you may have.” It also makes reasonable arguments, including historical precedents such as what happened when moderates were beaten by ideological conservatives. But it is also true that some of the assumptions can be challenged. I’m not writing here to fight this specific battle, which is obviously an important one, but rather to briefly (very briefly) frame some of the problems that make it difficult to reach objective conclusions on such issues. The questions concerns conceptualization of truth and objectivity and why we think certain things (x, y, z) will happen if we have a or b. Well it is usually complex and there is a threefold mix of rational, empirical and pragmatic elements in all such arguments that make the pursuit of good judgment difficult.

All 3 elements (rational, empirical and pragmatic) are part of the humanist tradition, but the type of reasoning we call rational is probably a good place to start. The pre-Socratic Greeks, starting with Thales, gave us a style of natural/rational explanation of phenomena. History notes that Anaxagoras brought philosophy and the spirit of rational inquiry from it start in Ionia to Athens where it developed further. Much later the Enlightenment humanists built of this idea and its products using what they called reason and logic to create moral and ethical systems. This was not just armchair philosophy as they advanced the proposition of using reasoning as a progressive tool to effect good in society. It is natural for modern day humanists to pursue a rational system of inquiry to advance the good in and through the political realm. The Secular Coalition, for example, commits to:

“ promoting reason and science as the most reliable methods for understanding the universe and improving the human condition. Informed by experience and inspired by compassion, we encourage the pursuit of knowledge, meaning, and responsible ethical codes…” http://www.secular.org/

Which brings me to the scientific-empirical side of reasoning and logic. We now know more about the limits of human rationality and reasoning. It is deeply flawed and subject to leveraging by all kinds of biases. Indeed the American Pragmatists like Peirce, James and Dewey, who built on Kant’s critique of reason (pure reason ends in irresolvable paradoxes), were all over this limitation in the late 19th and early 20th century. Humans reasoning, as given to us through the building blocks of our animal evolution, is in practice, often limited and not strictly logical. Our reasoning includes adaptive heuristics that offers quick and compelling judgments, which ignore details that are too hard to compute. Indeed cognitive studies have shown that much of thinking depends on emotion, and that people’s rationality is bounded by limitations of attention and memory. This means for example, that we find it difficult to employ all relevant facts. For one thing facts and asserted arguments are not passive, objective things. People are actively trying to make their case and using selective facts, shading issues and fuzzing up arguments all the time. We live in a dynamic mix of half truths and manufactured positions. We often have to rely on external fact checking because, to paraphrase Twain, much of what we are exposed to in the media just ain't so. This inability to handle all the uncertainly and complexity that we find in our culture means we focus on some details/facts and avoid or dismiss others. We are aware of this in debates on complex topics, but often in debate we aren’t sure of why reasonable arguments, based on empirical evidence, do so poorly in persuading others. Can’t we see the facts, for example, of what a Conservative administration has done (2000-2008) and just extend the inferences to current and future situations? Well yes, but mechanistically it requires lots of assumptions and long lines of reasoning that can be challenged along the way. It is an inexact science and subject to influence by the intents of the reasoner.


Another way of speaking about such reasoning (and reasoning in general) is that it is practical and serves our pragmatic purposes. A tool for this pragmatism is to frame issues and using metaphors to organize our thought. This idea has been developed by the linguist George Lakoff, who argues that most (if not all) thought is based on unconscious metaphors that are usually physical in nature. So when arguing about the economy we heard then Fed Chairman Greenspan talking about “headwinds” slowing down recovery. This grounds us in the idea of resistance, but what exactly is the nature of these headwinds? They are certainly an uneconomic item. The familiar metaphor allowed him to ignore real economic details but give us a sense that we understand what is going on. Beliefs on complex issues, such as economics or politics, are largely determined by the metaphors in which these ideas are framed. Facts are organized to serve the purposes of frame designers and they influence how we feel about them. We see this in some of the arguments used in the Wisconsin union collective bargaining dispute. Actions by the executive, that seem extreme by one standard, are framed as powerful action to avoid fiscal disaster. Increasingly, such political arguments are understood in terms of physical conflict, struggle, disaster and war or sports metaphors –e.g. They shot down my argument, He couldn’t defend his position, or She attacked/tackled my theory. These are all motivating metaphors which can push rational argument to the back of the bus.

This view of our rational abilities is humbling. It further undermines the Enlightenment ideal of conscious, universal, and dispassionate reason based on logic. It even challenges an easy scientific formulation that empirical facts combined with reasoning gives us a privileged view of the world. This is possible, but it requires great discipline since we are attracted to compelling arguments that offer a good story (as previously posted on the Meme idea). Such narratives do make sense based on our experience, but these too are shaped by a non-logical process. To make sense of the world we inevitably see things from a particular point of view. This point of view includes the many experiences and biases accrued over our lives and is hardened into beliefs that serve our immediate needs. Beliefs and opinions are further shaped into belief systems by our cultural experience, exposure to stories and as member of political groups and parties. In most conversation these selective, easy to communicate and attention-getting, subjective experiences and judgments tend to be dominant over purely objective experiences.

Which I guess brings me back to the recent blog on “beating the Republican Party and preventing them from getting into office”. How do we decide? We are rarely isolated and reflective enough to have an objective base, but it may be possible to expose the issues involved, the relevant data and the chains of reasoning over time. It takes time and we need tolerance in our conversation to avoid continued conflict between formulated and preprocessed perception of reality. This is especially true in complex situations such as political topics which are generated from frame models of reality. This is not to criticize the Humanist tradition of rationalism, science or empiricism. Indeed these are important. It is just that these aren’t enough, without being integrated together into a system that deals with the imperfections of human cognition. These remain part of a larger systematic solution which includes a sustained effort to understand. Understanding rather than debate for its own sake is a useful goal and part of real process of inquiry. Open inquiry in turn depends on critical thinking, some tentativeness if not doubt and pragmatic ways of resolving uncertainty.