Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

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jj_appelbaum

Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by jj_appelbaum »

An interesting perspective...


Abstract

An immunizing strategy is an argument brought forward in support of a belief system, though independent from that belief system, which makes it more or less invulnerable to rational argumentation and/or empirical evidence. By contrast, an epistemic defense mechanism is defined as a structural feature of a belief system which has the same effect of deflecting arguments and evidence. We discuss the remarkable recurrence of certain patterns of immunizing strategies and defense mechanisms in pseudoscience and other belief systems. Five different types will be distinguished and analyzed, with examples drawn from widely different domains. The difference between immunizing strategies and defense mechanisms is analyzed, and their epistemological status is discussed. Our classification sheds new light on the various ways in which belief systems may achieve invulnerability against empirical evidence and rational criticism, and we propose our analysis as part of an explanation of these belief systems’ enduring appeal and tenacity.

https://sites.google.com/site/maartenbo ... strategies


1 Introduction

Skeptics of pseudoscience and the paranormal have been amazed and sometimes exasperated about the enduring popularity of beliefs that are either very implausible or impossible from a scientific and rational perspective (Benassi, Singer et al. 1980; Shermer 2002; Hines 2003). Although many of these belief systems have been thoroughly debunked, the critical efforts of skeptics are mostly unavailing. In this paper, we discuss the remarkable recurrence of immunizing strategies and defense mechanisms, which play an important role in the tenacity of these belief systems. We define an ‘immunizing strategy’ as an argument brought forward in support of a belief system, though independent from that belief system, which makes it more or less invulnerable to rational argumentation and/or empirical evidence[1]. By contrast, an epistemic ‘defense mechanism’ is defined as an internal structural feature of a belief system, which has the same effect of deflecting rational arguments and empirical refutations.
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Juggernaut Nihilism
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Juggernaut Nihilism »

It is not just adherents of pseudoscience and the paranormal that utilize immunization and defense mechanisms, but also any assumption or dogma regarding challenges to its essential value. For example, by most people in America, the following questions will not be answered with evidence or rational argument:

Why is liberty good? Better than, say, beauty or efficiency?
Why is diversity desirable?
Should we cull the weak or stupid from the population? Why not?

These are all questions that were very much open to debate during the first half of the last century. There may be rational answers to all of them. But that's not important. What is important is that they not be asked, and that any person asking them be considered morally defective, possibly even evil, certainly not to be trusted. Some arguments are simply wrong, and have been settled, and anyone still clinging to the former positions are rightfully looked at as stupid; but when people are looked at as morally culpable for holding an opinion, the alarm bells should start to ring.
"The fundamental rule of political analysis from the point of psychology is, follow the sacredness, and around it is a ring of motivated ignorance."
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Marcus »

. . Personal Knowledge is a long and philosophically challenging work, and Moleski’s methodical chapter-by-chapter summary is helpful in focusing on Polanyi’s central thesis that all knowledge is personal because all knowledge is either tacit or rooted in tacit knowledge. Polanyi sees knowing as an art, and like Newman, he attends to the role of intellectual passions and creative imagination in leading the mind forward in the pursuit of truth. He argues that behind all the formal methods and specifiable procedures of scientific inquiry lie the informal and tacit operations of the scientist’s own mind. Explicit logical processes are effective only as tools, and the rational application of such tools is always a personal performance, an act of ultimate self-reliance. Polanyi’s goal is to describe and account for that personal performance.

Read more: http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/a ... z26C9w7d4d
http://www.compilerpress.ca/Competitive ... 201961.htm

http://www.kfki.hu/chemonet/polanyi/9912/sheppard.html

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rosen ... oHeaSicUnd
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jj_appelbaum

Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by jj_appelbaum »

JN,

Thank you for the fine exposition. :)
Interestingly enough, the author of the OP has written another short paper in which he considers why some rationales seem more resilient than others:

How Convenient! The Epistemic Rationale of Self-validating Belief Systems

Abstract

This paper offers an epistemological discussion of self-validating belief systems and the recurrence of “epistemic defense mechanisms” and “immunizing strategies” across widely different domains of knowledge. We challenge the idea that typical “weird” belief systems are inherently fragile, and we argue that, instead, they exhibit a surprising degree of resilience in the face of adverse evidence and criticism. Borrowing from the psychological research on belief perseverance, rationalization and motivated reasoning, we argue that the human mind is particularly susceptible to belief systems that are structurally self-validating. On this cognitive-psychological basis, we construct an epidemiology of beliefs, arguing that the apparent convenience of escape clauses and other defensive ‘tactics’ used by believers may well derive not from conscious deliberation on their part, but from more subtle mechanisms of cultural selection.
https://sites.google.com/site/maartenbo ... convenient
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Marcus »

jj_appelbaum wrote:
. .This paper offers an epistemological discussion of self-validating belief systems . . the human mind is particularly susceptible to belief systems that are structurally self-validating. . .
************
To deny circularity when it comes to an ultimate authority is to subject oneself to an infinite regress of reasons. If a person holds to a certain view, A, then when A is challenged he appeals to reasons B and C. But, of course, B and C will certainly be challenged as to why they should be accepted, and then the person would have to offer D, E, F, and G, as arguments for B and C. And the process goes on and on. Obviously it has to stop somewhere because an infinite regress of arguments cannot demonstrate the truth of one's conclusions. Thus, every worldview (and every argument) must have an ultimate, unquestioned, self-authenticating starting point. Another example: Imagine someone asking you whether the meter stick in your house was actually a meter long. How would you demonstrate such a thing? You could take it to your next-door neighbor and compare it to his meter stick and say, 'see, it's a meter.' However, the next question is obvious, "How do we know your neighbor's meter stick is really a meter?" This process would go on infinitely unless there were an ultimate meter stick (which, if I am not mistaken, actually existed at one time and was measured by two fine lines marked on a bar of platinum-iridium allow). It is this ultimate meter stick that defines a meter. When asked how one knows whether the ultimate meter stick is a meter, the answer is obviously circular: The ultimate meter stick is a meter because it is a meter. This same thing is true for Scripture. The Bible does not just happen to be true (the meter stick in your house), rather it is the very criterion for truth (the ultimate meter stick) and therefore the final stopping point in intellectual justification.
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
******************
"I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels."
—John Calvin
jj_appelbaum

Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by jj_appelbaum »

Marcus wrote:
jj_appelbaum wrote:
. .This paper offers an epistemological discussion of self-validating belief systems . . the human mind is particularly susceptible to belief systems that are structurally self-validating. . .
To deny circularity ...is to subject oneself to an infinite regress of reasons.

Circularity is presupposed via the term, "Authority".

What is it about a regress that a circularity is supposed to solve?
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Marcus »

jj_appelbaum wrote:What is it about a regress that a circularity is supposed to solve?
Circularity doesn't solve, circularity exposes.
jj_appelbaum wrote:
Marcus wrote:
jj_appelbaum wrote:
. .This paper offers an epistemological discussion of self-validating belief systems . . the human mind is particularly susceptible to belief systems that are structurally self-validating. . .
To deny circularity ...is to subject oneself to an infinite regress of reasons.
To embrace circularity does exactly the same thing.
Circularity, that is ultimate appeal to a self-authenticating source of authority, is inescapable.

How do you know that "to embrace circularity" subjects one "to an infinite regress of reasons"?


Your turn . . ;)
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
******************
"I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels."
—John Calvin
jj_appelbaum

Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by jj_appelbaum »

Juggernaut Nihilism wrote:It is not just adherents of pseudoscience and the paranormal that utilize immunization and defense mechanisms, but also any assumption or dogma regarding challenges to its essential value. For example, by most people in America, the following questions will not be answered with evidence or rational argument:

Why is liberty good? Better than, say, beauty or efficiency?
Why is diversity desirable?
Should we cull the weak or stupid from the population? Why not?

These are all questions that were very much open to debate during the first half of the last century. There may be rational answers to all of them. But that's not important. What is important is that they not be asked, and that any person asking them be considered morally defective, possibly even evil, certainly not to be trusted. Some arguments are simply wrong, and have been settled, and anyone still clinging to the former positions are rightfully looked at as stupid; but when people are looked at as morally culpable for holding an opinion, the alarm bells should start to ring.

Interesting stuff here:

Open-question argument
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The open-question argument is a philosophical argument put forward by British philosopher G. E. Moore in §13 of Principia Ethica (1903), to refute the equating of the property good with some non-moral property, whether naturalistic (e.g. pleasure) or meta-physical (e.g. God's command). That is, Moore's argument attempts to show that no moral property is identical to a natural property.[1] The argument takes the form of syllogistic modus tollens:

Premise 1: If X is good, then the question "Is it true that X is good?" is meaningless.

Premise 2: The question "Is it true that X is good?" is not meaningless (i.e. it is an open question).

Conclusion: X is not (analytically equivalent to) good.

The type of question Moore refers to in this argument is an identity question, "Is it true that X is Y?" Such a question is an open question if a conceptually competent speaker can question this; otherwise the question is closed. For example, "I know he is a vegetarian, but does he eat meat?" would be a closed question. However, "Is the morning star the same thing as the evening star?" is an open question; the question cannot be deduced from the conceptual terms alone.

The open-question argument claims that any attempt to identify morality with some set of observable, natural properties will always be an open question (unlike, say, a horse, which can be defined in terms of observable properties).
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Enki »

Very interesting topic.
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Simple Minded »

Excellent topic.

Not only do humans have an infinite capacity for self-delusion, but their beliefs/perferences vary with the times/peer pressure/culture.

All sorts of thought patterns, standards of beauty/good/styles are popular for a few decades, are outcast as obsolete in favor of more enlightened perspectives for a few decades, and then return to favor.

But why?
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Juggernaut Nihilism »

Simple Minded wrote:Excellent topic.

Not only do humans have an infinite capacity for self-delusion, but their beliefs/perferences vary with the times/peer pressure/culture.

All sorts of thought patterns, standards of beauty/good/styles are popular for a few decades, are outcast as obsolete in favor of more enlightened perspectives for a few decades, and then return to favor.

But why?
Probably related to the same reason that kids resent their parents but get along with their grandparents. History is a series of sine waves.
"The fundamental rule of political analysis from the point of psychology is, follow the sacredness, and around it is a ring of motivated ignorance."
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Simple Minded »

Juggernaut Nihilism wrote:
Simple Minded wrote:Excellent topic.

Not only do humans have an infinite capacity for self-delusion, but their beliefs/perferences vary with the times/peer pressure/culture.

All sorts of thought patterns, standards of beauty/good/styles are popular for a few decades, are outcast as obsolete in favor of more enlightened perspectives for a few decades, and then return to favor.

But why?
Probably related to the same reason that kids resent their parents but get along with their grandparents. History is a series of sine waves.
:D Thats what I like about you JN, you're definitely smarter than the average bear.

Not only is history a series of waves, so are people. Societies are like drunks walking down the hall by bouncing off both walls.

Telling the average Joe that in 20-30 years you will be a lot like the generation you currently resent, usually only earns contempt. But it is often the smart bet.

As someone once said "Every man thinks they live during the New Year's eve of time."
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Juggernaut Nihilism »

Ever read any Peter Sloterdijk, jj? You'd probably be interested. He's only now being translated into English, and I've been looking forward to the rest of his Spheres trilogy after Bubbles. You have to be comfortable with some PoMo bullshit (which I'm mostly not), but really he is a bridge - or he tries to be - between modernist (say, Heidegger) and PoMo thinkers (assholes).
Rejecting the century’s predominant philosophical focus on temporality, Sloterdijk, a self-described “student of the air,” reinterprets the history of Western metaphysics as an inherently spatial and immunological project, from the discovery of self (bubble) to the exploration of world (globe) to the poetics of plurality (foam). Exploring macro- and micro-space from the Greek agora to the contemporary urban apartment, Sloterdijk is able to synthesize, with immense erudition, the spatial theories of Aristotle, René Descartes, Gaston Bachelard, Walter Benjamin, and Georges Bataille into a morphology of shared, or multipolar, dwelling...
There is some Freud in him that a lot of people balk at (he doesn't focus on psychoanalysis, but does embrace the idea that many of the "spheres" that we construct - inhibited and strictly defined self through which to filter and interpret sensory experience, ideology, church, nation, etc as lenses of various size and purpose through which to filter and shape incoming data, etc - are attempts to build a space which mimics the stability and comfort of the womb. I don't know about all that, even though I agree with his basic point, that we construct stable spaces to sterilize incoming experience and that have built-in immunological reactions to data that don't easily fit. His portions about what happens when something happens that overwhelms our epistemological immunities are particularly excellent (Heidegger's broken hammer, etc), and we think of things like Hurricane Katrina, when the shell of the carefully ordered system of the modern urban center was cracked open and everyone went berserk, with police going around shooting citizens and all the rest. He's more readable than some of the French like D&G and has none of the forbidding technical or mathematical material that Badiou employs, but it's still heavy reading. But if you have any use for Heidegger, he is a must-read.
"The fundamental rule of political analysis from the point of psychology is, follow the sacredness, and around it is a ring of motivated ignorance."
Farcus

Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Farcus »

Marcus wrote:...Polanyi...
Rosenzweig

Looks like the cat got your tongue Marcus! :lol:
Farcus

Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Farcus »

Marcus wrote:
jj_appelbaum wrote:What is it about a regress that a circularity is supposed to solve?
Circularity doesn't solve, circularity exposes.
I suppose the next question would be just what a defect like a circularity is supposed to "expose" about a presumably "inifite" "regression", other than some well-known flaws in how the cosmological argument is set up?


Marcus wrote:
jj_appelbaum wrote:. .This paper offers an epistemological discussion of self-validating belief systems . . the human mind is particularly susceptible to belief systems that are structurally self-validating. . .
I don't think jj_appelbaum said any such thing. I may have missed it?





To deny circularity ...is to subject oneself to an infinite regress of reasons.
To embrace circularity does exactly the same thing.
Circularity, that is ultimate appeal to a self-authenticating source of authority, is inescapable.
LOL It's inevitable when you "presuppose" your conclusions in your premises. :lol:

Some of us who hold a certain standard see that sort of thing as a defect, but if you think it's legitimate, then you think it's legitimate because you think it's legitimate. :lol:


Primary difference between theology and anything else is that in theology, you get to assume all your conclusions from the outset and concentrate on the literary aspects. Frees a mind right up to get to the important stuffs.
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Marcus »

Farcus wrote:
Marcus wrote:Circularity doesn't solve, circularity exposes.
I suppose . .
I don't think . .
Some of us . .
. . . . ;)
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
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Farcus

Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Farcus »

Marcus wrote:
Farcus wrote:
Marcus wrote:Circularity doesn't solve, circularity exposes.
I suppose . .
I don't think . .
Some of us . .
. . . . ;)

Thank you for your considered response. :lol:
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Marcus »

:arrow:
Last edited by Marcus on Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
******************
"I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels."
—John Calvin
Farcus

Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Farcus »

Marcus wrote:
. . . ;) . . . ;) . .

AQtQE8CsM-E
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Marcus »

:arrow:
Last edited by Marcus on Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:41 am, edited 3 times in total.
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
******************
"I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels."
—John Calvin
Farcus

Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Farcus »

Marcus wrote:
Stinky.JPG

. . . ;)
1MRE2K3x-AY
Farcus

Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Farcus »

Juggernaut Nihilism wrote:
Simple Minded wrote:Excellent topic.

Not only do humans have an infinite capacity for self-delusion, but their beliefs/perferences vary with the times/peer pressure/culture.

All sorts of thought patterns, standards of beauty/good/styles are popular for a few decades, are outcast as obsolete in favor of more enlightened perspectives for a few decades, and then return to favor.

But why?
Probably related to the same reason that kids resent their parents but get along with their grandparents. History is a series of sine waves.
With enough smoothing, everything resembles a sine wave if you squint your eye just right. Just like some teleological theories of history. Great armchair stuff. Like astrology.
Last edited by Farcus on Mon Oct 01, 2012 1:06 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Marcus »

Juggernaut Nihilism wrote:Probably related to the same reason that kids resent their parents but get along with their grandparents. History is a series of sine waves.
Kids resent their parents because kids must submerge their own identities in order to win their parents' approval.

Kids get along with their grandparents because their grandparents accept the kids as they are.

Been there . . done that . . . ;)
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
******************
"I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels."
—John Calvin
Farcus

Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Farcus »

Marcus wrote:
Juggernaut Nihilism wrote:Probably related to the same reason that kids resent their parents but get along with their grandparents. History is a series of sine waves.
Kids resent their parents because kids must submerge their own identities in order to win their parents' approval.

Kids get along with their grandparents because their grandparents accept the kids as they are.

Been there . . done that . . . ;)

Yep. Aunts and uncles too.
Simple Minded

Re: Immunizing Strategies & Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

Post by Simple Minded »

Farcus wrote:
Marcus wrote:
Juggernaut Nihilism wrote:Probably related to the same reason that kids resent their parents but get along with their grandparents. History is a series of sine waves.
Kids resent their parents because kids must submerge their own identities in order to win their parents' approval.

Kids get along with their grandparents because their grandparents accept the kids as they are.

Been there . . done that . . . ;)

Yep. Aunts and uncles too.
:D Amen Marcus & Farcus!

Aunts, Uncles, and Grandparents definitely seems to enjoy children more than parents.

More fun to be a corrupting influence and let others worry about being the law-layer-downers. ;)

I have always approached dealing with children with the idea that kids want to know the world makes sense, that they can figure it out, and that they can learn to control their destiny.

Seems sensible to both of us.
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