In a time when many people are cynical about truth and rational argument, Ray Scott Percival topples erroneous presuppositions behind notions such as a "Post-Truth" society.
"It's like talking to a brick wall" and "We'll have to agree to disagree" are popular sayings referring to the frustrating experience of discussing issues with people who seem to be beyond the reach of argument. It's often claimed that some people--fundamentalists or fanatics--are indeed sealed off from rational criticism. And every month new pop psychology books appear, describing the dumb ways ordinary people make decisions, as revealed by psychological experiments. The conclusion is that all or most people are fundamentally irrational.
Ray Scott Percival sets out to demolish the whole notion of the closed mind and of human irrationality. There is a difference between making mistakes and being irrational. Though humans are prone to mistakes, they remain rational. In fact, making mistakes is a sign of rationality: a totally non-rational entity could not make a mistake. Rationality does not mean absence of error; it means the possibility of correcting error in the light of criticism. In this sense, all human beliefs are rational: they are all vulnerable to being abandoned when shown to be faulty.
Percival agrees that people cling stubbornly to their beliefs, but he maintains, first, that not being too ready to abandon one's beliefs is rational.
Brief Table of Content
PREFACE
PROLOGUE: PEOPLE ARE RATIONAL
My Outrageous Idea
The Main Arguments for the Closed Mind
ARGUMENT#1. EMOTION
ARGUMENT#2. WISHFUL THINKING
ARGUMENT#3. LINGUISTIC OR CONCEPTUALFRAMEWORKS
ARGUMENT#4. IMMUNIZING STRATAGEMS
ARGUMENT#5. PROTECTIVE SHELL AND ESSENTIAL CORE
ARGUMENT#6. BLIND FAITH
ARGUMENT#7. PEOPLE ARE ILLOGICAL WHEN TESTING
THEIR BELIEFS
ARGUMENT#8. MIND-VIRUSES
ARGUMENT#9. DUMB DECISION RULES
Ghostly Logic
The Orthodoxy
The Turnover of Adherents
My Sense of 'Rational'
What Would an Irrational Human Look Like?
Terrorism and Emotion
The Problem
My General Position
The Logic in Ideology
Why Dawkins's Memetic Approach Is Not Enough
Is My Argument Open to Argument?
The Examples of Marxism and Freudianism
CHAPTER 1. The Persuader's Predicament
CHAPTER 2. Survival of the Truest
CHAPTER 3. Does Emotion Cloud Our Reason?
CHAPTER 4. Ideologies as Shapeshifters
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Dr Ray Scott Percival is the author of the philosophic science fiction book
Zeno's Ravens: A Philosopher Tells Tales.
He wrote and directed the documentary
Liberty Loves Reason: Charles Darwin versus Political Correctness.
(Starring David Deutsch FRS and Professor Paul Levinson.
Only on Amazon Prime.)
RAY SCOTT PERCIVAL is founder and editor (with Professor Barry McMullin, DCU) of the Karl Popper Web and was the organiser of the Annual Conference on the Philosophy of Sir Karl Popper, 1988-1998, both sponsored by the Open Society Institute and the London School of Economics. In 2000 he was listed by Barron's Who's Who as one of five hundred "world leaders for the new century." He has taught at the University of Lancaster and now teaches philosophy at the United Arab Emirates University. His YouTube channel is NaiveRealist.
