Yeah, I get annoyed by the false equivalence in the litany of gendlin too. It steps you through a sometimes-useful reasoning process but stealths over its most contentious assumption: that knowledge can cause only positive or at worst no change in your ability to improve the situation. Info hazards totally exist.
Note that you’re also making a reasoning error too, in your examples.
Deciding whether it’s worth arguing with someone is not actually the same question as whether they would be better off believing something else. Telling or persuading someone of the truth is a particular action under your consideration, which may lead to them changing beliefs. It’s not the same thing as them seeking an honest understanding. Of all the actions you could take to help a person in those mentioned straits, it’s not a very efficient one; I’d feel compelled to slap anyone who wasted the opportunity cost like that.
Yeah, I get annoyed by the false equivalence in the litany of gendlin too. It steps you through a sometimes-useful reasoning process but stealths over its most contentious assumption: that knowledge can cause only positive or at worst no change in your ability to improve the situation. Info hazards totally exist.
Note that you’re also making a reasoning error too, in your examples.
Deciding whether it’s worth arguing with someone is not actually the same question as whether they would be better off believing something else. Telling or persuading someone of the truth is a particular action under your consideration, which may lead to them changing beliefs. It’s not the same thing as them seeking an honest understanding. Of all the actions you could take to help a person in those mentioned straits, it’s not a very efficient one; I’d feel compelled to slap anyone who wasted the opportunity cost like that.
See also Raemon’s post on this subject: link to issues with gendlin post