DID ANY OF YOU REALIZE that I had skipped Day 42? Anyway, that was what happened, so I am writing this post right now to make up for the poor Day 42 that I unintentionally skipped and nobody cared enough to inform me (sob)(sob). Alright, the anthropomorphic Day 42 who is standing right next to me right now has just told me to let it go (meaning he's forgiven me -- and you, my dear readers), and instead make it count.
I want to write, again, today about what I have learned from my colleague Mike, who, in a way, has taught me more than many people who have formally been my teachers. Recently, in fact, I posted on my wall an article from the English newspapers The Guardian regarding why we have children?
Many people who know me probably know that I personally have been wrestling with this question for a very long time, although I have, also for quite a while already, come to the conclusion that I won't have mine.
The reason for which was simple: there's a way for me to take care of myself when I am old, and that I don't need an heir to inherit any of my materials or financial remains after I die (I have decided to donate everything -- including my body -- to those whom I believe would make the best out of it whether or not they are related to me by blood, and also to charity).
I have come to this conclusion after having deeply and thoroughly exercising my ability reason. I can't think of any other reasons to want to throw someone into the world without his or her consent just because I want that person to take care of me when I am old, or to inherit my last name, or my assets (not that I think I'd have very many for anyone given how stoic my life after beginning to think about myself philosophically has been).
Mike, then, commented with the following words: Yeah right, how absurd it is that a person who hasn't got any children is trying to answer the question whether to have any children. Mike was right about one thing: I don't have any children. It was obvious that he was attacking me, by pointing out that I should not be able to say anything in this matter, that this question was out of my intellectual reach.
This form of attack, in a form of a argument, has a name: Ad Hominem, which is a Latin word meaning "against the man" or "against the person." The definition of Ad Hominem that I can possibly come up with goes as followed: By discrediting the source of information, whether by attacking the source's lack of arbitrary qualities or, simply, by attacking the person (therefore " ad hominem "), the person using ad hominem argument succeeds in disengaging himself or herself from the argument completely. It's true.
Mike was trying to shut me up, by saying that I did not even possess the right to even come up with this question. After having read Mike's comment again for the second time, however, I spent a few minutes thinking silently to myself about I may have done wrong (again, I am a falliblist, so I don't always think of myself as being right even when I have adequate evidence that I may be right).
Was I wrong to think that I wouldn't want a kid because I don't want anyone to have to take care of me? Was I wrong to think that I could try to draw a conclusion about a problem without having to experience it? Was I wrong to think that I do not need to have kids to know whether I would want to have kids, or not?
(By the way, tangent alert** The German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, building on the theory of knowledge hitherto developed by Scottish Enlightenment thinker David Hume, has the answers for all of these questions covered, in what he calls a synthetic and analytic and a priori and a posteriori analysis, which is a topic for another time). After spending some time musing over Mike's comment, I eventually arrived at the conclusion Mike's comment was ridiculous for two reasons.
Contextually, the goal of the question that I posed in relation to the article was to get people to think carefully whether or not they should have kids. What are the pros and cons, and what are hidden pros and hidden cons of having someone who is an biological and analog product of your marriage, and so on. So, to point out that only those who already have kids can answer this question is just missing the point. It's not about competing to show- off whose experience is more legitimate.
The goal of the post was to try to get people, as many as possible, to entertain both their trained and innate ability to reason to come to grips with something that might allow us to save ourselves from a mistake.
I mean, what if one really shouldn't have a child because one is not ready, not interested in having someone to be around, not wanting to spend a large part of one's income on another member of the family, etc., and would have to take the responsibility to taking care of -- or not, as one can always disown a child and let that child starve to death, give him or her to the orphanage, or worst, sell him or her in the black market -- for the rest of one's life?
Second, Mike's argument is full of fallacies, the ad hominem fallacy was one, and there's an obvious another, which is what many would like to call a "slippery slope" fallacy. In Mike's case, he believes that it is always the case that a person could only know what it means to possess something after he or she has possessed it.
If that's the case, since "slippery slope" means to claim that the only possibly scenario once something is believed, allowed, and acted upon is the most extreme version of that particular view, then there's nothing any one of us can know at all. For instance, one can argue that Mike doesn't know anything about having children because he only has a child (and therefore, by definition, not children) therefore he himself also has no access to the knowledge of the experience of having more than one child.
Even that, he still wouldn't know it anyway because his child is different from other child, and therefore, since experience of a person varies hence there's no way of grasping the gist of the complete idea of parenthood. The list goes on, and you get the point.
In other words, the person with a particular experience gets to monopolize the knowledge., which would mean that, when applies this principle elsewhere, there is no way to foresee any problems because you are going to need to have those problems yourself before you could get to say about them. In that case, what is the purpose of education then?
In fact, I would go so far as to say that we human beings have not extinct because we listen to each other, we exercise our reason, and we learn from the mistakes of others. Otherwise, make no mistake, we would all be dead. Examples of counterarguments to this kind of "slippery slope" fallacy are all over, and you can tell how ridiculous they sound.
For instance, "are ou saying that you can't know whether a snake is poisonous until you get bitten by it." Or "are you saying that you can in no ways know that an act of suicide is bad until you try it." Good luck with that, Mikey. I'll learn from the expert which kinds of snakes to avoid, and I will not commit suicide because I can imagine (sort of) how would my loved ones feel like to not having me around any more because of my untimely death.
Another colleague of mine, Bill, also wrote a response. Bill was a proponent of the idea of having children, and his argument was: Why have children? For me, it's one major thing to experience in life as a human being. I wouldn't not have a baby for the fear of what I've missed out on! Like me, Bill also doesn't have any children (so, if Mike happened to know Bill, Mike would have smacked Bill with the same ad hominem argument).
But what's the problem with Bill's argument, especially on the part in which he said " it's one major thing to experience in life as a human being.
" One of the most common fallacies in argumentation is what we call "Appeal to consequences," and the idea of which is just because something, when appear to be true, will fit into the domain in which one happen to believe that which would make one's life better (in this sense, "to not missing out on what life has to offer") does not mean that it is true.
Bill and I are good friends, and I can see the point from which he is coming, and I can't say that he's wrong to say that. My problem is, solely, with his argument.
Another side note on the Appeal to consequences fallacy is another form of Appeal to consequences fallacy, known as "using consequences as antecedents." The description of this fallacy goes as followed: just because one happens to believe that a consequence is something one personally would be happy to have doesn't mean that which is the only option, both for oneself and for others.
Just because one see, feel, think of something doesn't mean that which one see, feel, and think is the only way that which could be seen, felt, and thought about.
So, in the sense, the kind of argument that Bill was making might sound similar to something like, "I don't want to miss out on the opportunity to go out hunting large wild animals -- because it's one major thing to experience in life as a human being, as hunting is a true proof that culture is above nature, and that human beings are above animals in the food chain." Think for a second here.
These two argument are the same kind of argument -- they appeal to the consequences that one wish to obtain: to have children for Bill, and to prove human being's ability to kill lives (which may result in having a feast or having a trophy stuffed animal heads afterwards). This is a dangerous kind of fallacy. I then went on to listen to the latest episode from my favorite Podcast program Philosophize This, in which the host Stephen West discusses common fallacies in argument.
He wrote the blurb: Have you ever found yourself in the middle of an argument listening to your opposition, and you have a strong feeling that something is very wrong with the point that they're making, but you can't pinpoint exactly what it is? So, as always, I jumped into the shower (whenever I run out of ideas I always like to pour some hot water on my head).
While taking a shower this morning, listening to this particular Philosophize This episode, I came up with some thoughts on common fallacies we use (sometimes without knowing them) in arguments. Knowing them, I believe, we can avoid making them, and therefore will become much more careful when making arguments -- a very useful thing to know in debating anything at all.. First, "Appeal to consequences" and "Using Consequences as Antecedents" -- see above à la Bill's comment.
Second, "Appeal to ignorance": Just because there is no definite proof that something doesn't exist, or isn't true, doesn't mean that which doesn't exist or isn't true, and therefore must exist and then true. This is a very very common fallacy. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides the following example: Nobody has ever proved to me there's a God, so I know there is no God. There're so many things we don't know.
Just because we used to believe, at one time, that the world wasn't spherical (and that it was flat) doesn't make the world not spherical and therefore flat. Simply put, just because you don't know, can't prove something doesn't mean they don't exist, or not true. For this particular fallacy, the key is to be open-minded and constructively skeptical. Even better, to be fallabilistic or to have the essential quality of being open- minded and constructively skeptical at the same time.
Third, "Appeal to comforting status quo": Also known as the "if it ain't a broken don't fix it" fallacy. Status quo here means "the existing state of affairs." Some might even call it "an argument of a lazy swine." Just because something works for someone -- for now and perhaps the immediate future -- doesn't mean that it will always work. My college Mike No.
2 (yes, there're two Mikes and they're both my great teachers on how not to make an argument -- ouchs), once said to me: If I have been in China for 7 years -- doing well -- without having to learn Chinese, why would I need it now?
The extreme version of this kind of fallacy would be to say, "the plane is still flying, let's wait until it is no longer flying properly to fix it." Well, once that happens, one often does not have the opportunity to fix it, doesn't it. My friend Max has helped me putting it into words by noting that it might also not be the best way for something to work in the status quo, not only that it might stop working at some point.
Well, one can also see this kind of argument being based on the idea of arrogance, and the lack of the understanding of self-development. Another related fallacy to Appeal to comforting status quo is "Appeal to personal incredulity," meaning just because something seems too difficult or complex for one to understand, that one has the right to say, assume, or make judgement that which isn't true, or that which is not necessary.
An example of this comes from my friend Sands, who said to me one time after her effort to try to understand the very basis of Socratic ideas of arguing-by-questioning failed miserably: I think all philosophers are stupid. All I need is my own philosophy. I don't give a damn about other people's thoughts.
Fourth, "straw man fallacy": This fallacy takes place when one of the parties engaging in an argument takes the direction of the argument differently by creating a simplistic straw man to attack based on his or her misunderstanding of your original argument, and therefore making you feel as though the original argument with which you have come up is weak. Dr. Michael C.
Labossiere, the author of a Macintosh tutorial named Fallacy Tutorial Pro 3.0 has provided us with the following example (with a minor modification to fit the current world's situation) of a straw man fallacy. Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack of the ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) in Syria. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless, and be killed by the terrorist like that.
There're a few more, actually, but I got to go home now, so I'll stop here (what kind of fallacy is that???). I am still at my office, typing this, guys. Okay, two more. Fifth, the "False equivalence" fallacy. This is also known as the "black and white" fallacy. Basically, you happen to believe that either A or B is true, and you happen to also believe that B is not true. Therefore, A must be true.
For example, imaging you really love someone, and therefore you believe that which person has to either love you (A) or not love you (B). Then, because that person still talks to you so therefore that person must not not love you, therefore that person must love you (A is true). What happens next is that you would then decide to leave no room for any alternatives because of your fixation on the fallacy that A must be true.
This is the kind of conversation that could happen when you do so: Look, you are going to have to make up your mind. Either you decide to marry me, or you decide you are going to live the rest of your life without me in it. Finally, sixth, a "bandwagon fallacy": Just because most people like it doesn't mean it has to be true.
The website above describes it as followed: The Bandwagon is a fallacy in which a threat of rejection by one's peers (or peer pressure) is substituted for evidence in an "argument." You here this all the time, especially in China. I also calls this kind of argument "the social structure is bigger than me" fallacy. For example, what I hear all the time are: I have to get married because I turn 27, otherwise the "whole society" will think of me as being unwanted -- leftover to rot.
I have to study hard, otherwise why would anyone look at me? I have to make a lot of money, so that I can be a member of that group. Whenever you happen to say "you have to" do something and you don't know exactly why, and after you carefully entertain your reason and find out that there's nothing there except the peer pressure, then you're under the malignant of a bandwagon fallacy.
So, as opposed to saying "I have to," say "I should." These are questions that provide you with better preconditions to your decisions: You should get married because you have found someone you love with whom want to spend the rest of your life (or as long as possible), no matter how old you are. You should be studying hard because you believe in the power of knowledge not because you want someone to look at you.
You should be making money because you want to make good use of it, not because you want a membership of a certain group that judges a person based on how much money he or she has. This fallacy is also a slippery slope. You could say something like, "I must do this because if I don't do it then I'd be the odd one out." Here, one can substitute "this" with all kinds of horrible things (e.g., steal, rape, kill, just to name a few).
So, when someone says that he or she is doing it because he or she believes that which to be the only argument that is valid, you could tell that person to "get off that wrong bandwagon" -- and walk, run, bike, or whatever. Therefore, living his or her life, instead, in "good faith."
post Day 45:Philosophy of Everyday Life Sat, 09 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 This post is going to be brief. It's 1am in the morning and I need to hit the sack.
Although I just had a weird dream -- I wasn't sure where exactly I was in my dream, and when my eyes finally opened I had to spend a few second thinking about where I was until I eventually came to realize that I was in my room, here in Shanghai, and not in Bangkok, Boston, Tokyo, or any other places.
Tomorrow, although I sort of know that it won't be a crazy long day like any other days this week, will still be an important day for me -- just like any other days. As always, I want to get up early although I don't have to. I want to start working (which, these days are mainly) writing as early as I can, although I could cut myself some slack since I have been working quite hard in the past four days, particularly, this long week.
I want to get drinks with friends at the end of the day, as always, to relax and let out some steam. Fulfilling my life in my way, I want to make the best out of each and every day of my life, with no exception. Weekends and weekdays are the same to me. I want to feel as though in each and every day of my life I have accomplished something.
Frankie, once a student of my moral philosophy class, also once asked me to tell him about what I thought I'd learned from teaching it. Lingering, still, in my head since I have never got around to answer him, this question was coming from him right after our last meeting, during which I asked the entire class, including Frankie, "which morality ideas that we had discussed in class they think they could use in real life?" So, what have I learned from teaching moral philosophy?
I believe that we should be learning philosophy because it has a true usage in our life. It can make our life better since it can change the way we see things in the world — and most of the time, believe it or not, we are unhappy just because we aren't looking at things from the right angle. Philosophy can also make your life better by equipping you with the basic tools of making convincing arguments, which can enhance your career, study, relationships, and self-respect as a whole.
Again, this post is going to be brief. I will try to restraint myself from writing a bunch of words. There're so many great people -- thinkers, philosophers, idealists -- living throughout the history of the world and of human kind.
These people have great ideas, and their ideas, in essence, make me realize two thing: First, that nothing I will ever be able to come up with in my lifetime will ever be novel, as all these thinkers have gotten it all covered already; yet, that doesn't mean I can't live an authentic and innovative life.
In fact, thanks to their great ideas I can, by building on the great ideas they have come up with, my ideas, though will never be as great, will be something that is applicable to my time, to my people, and to my life and myself. Second, these people make me humble.
I am not obsessed with coming up with my own ideas to the point that I would appeal to my own ignorance and incredulity by saying something like "I don't care about those dead philosophers -- I live myself by my own rules" (for those who have read my last post on how not to make an argument, you would be able to tell right away that such claim is also a 'slippery slope' kind of argument).
Last time someone said "I don't care about those dead philosophers -- I live myself by my own rules" to me, I felt sick to my stomach.
We can our own rules, and in some way that might make us a little bit more unique and more authentic, at least to ourselves if not to no one else; yet, to dismiss other people's great thoughts just to be unique just doesn't sound right (for those who have read my last post on how not to make an argument would be able to say why right away)knowing their thoughts not only make me humble, but also open- minded. What makes ideas and thoughts great is their timelessness.
I used to take for granted ideas from the past. I used to think that there's no point learning ideas from thinkers who are long dead. I was dead wrong. Great ideas are timeless, because they are not about the particular forms, surfaces, and facades of a particular situation, but the "deep structure" which, by definition, never changes. I exist, therefore I am. This sentence summarizes the basic premise of a modern philosophical school of thought called existentialism.
To exist, simply put, is to choose to be (i.e., choose not to commit suicide, and to make it an option when things get bad), and only once one is in the state of being, one can then decide what one wants to do freely, based on the key assumption that one is to be, also, f ully responsible for one's own action. This way of thinking is powerful for two reasons.
First, it makes me realize how uneasy it is to determine between to be and not to be — to give up the option of taking one's own life completely for once and for all no matter how hard my life will ever get. The ancient school of philosophy called Stoicism leaves room for suicide — but only when one comes to realize that one is no longer stronger than one thinks.
Then, "to be" is to set up ground rules for my own conduct, so that I can follow them. Second, this way of thinking gives me a better definition of freedom. Many people mistake freedom for being able to do whatever they want, including not doing anything, sabotaging their own health by drinking and smoking excessively, and, in an extreme case, killing other people. That's not freedom.
Existentialist thinkers would argue that those are not acts of freedom, but acts of those who are, to put it plainly, slaves of their own naturalism, animal instinct, and their self-impose immaturity. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant would condemn these people for wasting their potential to develop themselves into fully mature human beings through reason. Kant would go as far as to say that these people aren't human beings anymore once they have chosen to exist outside the realm of reason.
To be free, that is to say, is not to be able to do whatever I want and whenever I want, but to be able to come up with my own system of morality and rigorously follow it.
Reading philosophy makes me feel more certain that ever that I want to be, and that I want to be in my own way, and that way is the way that recognizes myself as a being that is not just another slave of my own natural inclination or the society, but of my own rational reasoning. A good argument is power.
Learning about philosophy may not have benefited me metaphysically (i.e., I still don't know whether there is God) although some of the great ideas have provided me with some ideas on how I may want the form of my moral compass to be shaped (and when I won't be able to do it regardless of how hard I try).
But what learning about philosophy has provided me with that is lifelong and fruitful are lessons on "how to come up with convincing arguments," as well as how to stop myself before I commit myself to fallacies. At the end of the day, preaching philosophy is about using reason to convince yourself, and then others, through language.
So, learning about philosophy has given me numerous opportunities to explore, analyze, and comprehend how great thinkers (and not very great thinkers) of the past and of the present construct their arguments, come up with their persuasion, as well as how they deliberately counter-argue themselves at the right time (namely before their readers do it) in order to make the point that they have thought about the possible drawbacks of their arguments, and therefore, by saying so before someone else does, bring the point home about how and why they think their arguments are still better than any other arguments.
This way of thinking resonates with me, and I am "practically" (because it's practical) using the philosophical methods in construction arguments in every second of my waking life. Moral philosophy is the only branch of philosophy that resonates with me. The reason we need morality? Simple. Because we're not alone. I do care about metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, and so on, but insofar as they could help me explain my role in the society.
We are dealing with the state of being a member of a larger whole; hence, a set of principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong, good and bad behavior, is the most important to me in the study of philosophical thoughts. I don't let the society make me who I don't want to be, but I want to be useful to the society whenever I can.
As the French sociologist Durkheim famously describes human nature as being "in the middle of the dualism between the expectation of the society and each and every individual's own desire." I hate it when some people who think they are so cool when they go around saying something like "I don't care about the society at all" really say it. Why? Because it's a false statement by definition.
If that person doesn't care about the society, what makes that person want to use the language of this society to construct an expression of his or her discontent in such a way that is expected to be communicatively understood by the entire society? Shouldn't that person be inventing his or her own language to speak to himself or herself only? Shouldn't that person go live in the woods? With the wild trees and wild animals?
What this person says, basically, is not that he or she doesn't care, but that he or she "only care about the society as long as it benefits him or her," which, to me, is the most irresponsible, shameless, and selfish attitude one could have. That said, as we all know, people like this are everywhere, which is annoying (sadly). I do care about the society, and because I care about it, I want to make it better.
I don't want the direction of the society to benefit me, but I do not mind receiving some fruits of my contribution to the society in return from time to time. We should spend more "alone time" with ourselves. I once thought that to be happy was to be surrounded by friends, to be accepted and admired by a large number of folks, and to receive a lot of attention both from those you know and those you don't.
Reading great ideas from great thinkers have changed this way of thinking that I once shamelessly called mine completely. It was through reading ancient philosophy (especially those of the ancient Chinese Laozi and ancient Athenian Epicurus) that I eventually came to senses that I had been misled by my own misunderstanding about what it meant to be respected. I also realized that I was lonely even when I was surrounded by many people.
I didn't know what I wanted, so no matter how many people were there to help me I still couldn't possibly tell them what was in my mind. It was because I never felt the need of making any efforts (light or serious) to spend time with myself — to talk to myself about what's been going on (i.e., reflecting on each and every of my life) and to ask myself what it/I needed.
Simply put, I thought that I needed a lot of people because those people told me so. They somehow made me feel that they "represented the society," under whose authority I lived myself, and therefore whose attention and approval I must attain as a prerequisite even to respect myself. Reading philosophy makes me realize this way of thinking is not just wrong — it's ridiculously wrong, logically fraud, and argumentatively nonsensical. How could the thinking of other people possibly make you respect yourself? It's the other way around.
Reading philosophy allows me to come to sense with who I want to exist to be, what I want to exist to want, and the goals in the life that I want to achieve. Then, the society will have to decide whether they like whom I am, what I want, and my goals in life. If they don't like it, I will not bother them, and will stay in solidarity and continue to introspecting.
If they like it, I will do my best to contribute to it in the way that works with own my moral sensibility. You can't have a clear thinking when you are surrounded by a lot of people. Find time to be with yourself, and you will learn about yourself, which, needless to say, is the most important subject to learn in your life. All for now, Frankie. I need to sleep!
On Loneliness