“What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse. Not being open about it doesn’t make it go away.
“And because it’s true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn’t there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.”
There are a few problems with the litanies, but in this case, it’s just embarrassing. We have a straightforward equivocation fallacy here, no frills, no subtle twists. Just unclear thinking.
People are already enduring the truth(1), therefore, they can stand what is true(2)?
In the first usage, true(1) refers to reality, to the universe. We already live in a universe where some unhappy fact is true. Great. But in the second usage, true(2) refers to a KNOWLEDGE of reality, a knowledge of the unhappy fact.
So, if we taboo “true” and replace it with what it means, then the statement becomes:
“People are already enduring reality as it is, so they must be able to stand knowing about that reality.”
Which is nothing but conjecture.
Are there facts we should be ignorant of? The litany sounds very sure that there are not. If I accept the litany, then I too am very sure. How can I be so sure, what evidence have I seen?
It is true that I can think of times that it is better to face the truth, hard though that might be. But that only proves that some knowledge is better than some ignorance, not that all facts are better to know than not.
I can think of a few candidates for truths it might be worse for someone to know.
- If someone is on their deathbed, I don’t think I’d argue with them about heaven (maybe hell). There are all kinds of sad truths that would seem pointless to tell someone right before they died. Who hates them, who has lied to them, how long they will be remembered, why tell any of it?
- If someone is trying to overcome an addiction, I don’t feel compelled to scrutinize their crystal healing beliefs.
- I don’t think I’d be doing anyone any favors if I told D-Day soldiers what their survival odds were.
- If I could talk to people in the Nazi concentration camps, I don’t think I’d spend my time “helping” them question the evidence of God.
- I’m not sure that examining the constructed nature of certain moral ideas and rights would be a good idea for at least some people.
The Litany of Gendlin is conjecture supported by fallacy, with no evidence for it, and a great many plausible disproofs.
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.
People are already enduring the truth(1), therefore, they can stand what is true(2)?
Your examples are mostly cases where 1 doesn’t exactly hold, so 2 not following in those scenarios doesn’t seem like an invalidation. (If someone argues “If A is true then B is true.” and you argue that ‘there are cases where A isn’t true that B isn’t true’ that doesn’t really address the argument.)
The Litany of Gendlin is conjecture (1) supported by fallacy (2), with no evidence for it(3), and a great many plausible disproofs(4).
It is true that I can think of times that it is better to face the truth, hard though that might be. But that only proves that some knowledge is better than some ignorance, not that all facts are better to know than not.
(1) A conjecture is “an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information”. On what basis is this a conclusion based on information? (In context if you said it was an incorrect statement that would make sense. Claims about the process by which it was generated require evidence, and are beside the point, which is whether it is correct or incorrect.)
(2) What fallacy?
(3) You have already stated there is evidence—narrow enough it does not fit the conclusion in full, but that is different from “no evidence for”. (Unless you think there’s no evidence for gravity.)
(4) Most of your “disproofs” are the same. Aside from its logic, you are arguing as if some divine authority might force the truth upon everyone if we accept this Litany, or some diabolical force might do so only in the worst possible cases. The Litany does not say that seeking out all knowledge should be your first priority—you would die of starvation before proving the primality (or compositeness) of every positive integer.
Litany of Gendlin
“What is true is already so.
Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse.
Not being open about it doesn’t make it go away.
“And because it’s true, it is what is there to be interacted with.
Anything untrue isn’t there to be lived.
People can stand what is true,
for they are already enduring it.”
There are a few problems with the litanies, but in this case, it’s just embarrassing. We have a straightforward equivocation fallacy here, no frills, no subtle twists. Just unclear thinking.
People are already enduring the truth(1), therefore, they can stand what is true(2)?
In the first usage, true(1) refers to reality, to the universe. We already live in a universe where some unhappy fact is true. Great.
But in the second usage, true(2) refers to a KNOWLEDGE of reality, a knowledge of the unhappy fact.
So, if we taboo “true” and replace it with what it means, then the statement becomes:
“People are already enduring reality as it is, so they must be able to stand knowing about that reality.”
Which is nothing but conjecture.
Are there facts we should be ignorant of? The litany sounds very sure that there are not. If I accept the litany, then I too am very sure. How can I be so sure, what evidence have I seen?
It is true that I can think of times that it is better to face the truth, hard though that might be. But that only proves that some knowledge is better than some ignorance, not that all facts are better to know than not.
I can think of a few candidates for truths it might be worse for someone to know.
- If someone is on their deathbed, I don’t think I’d argue with them about heaven (maybe hell). There are all kinds of sad truths that would seem pointless to tell someone right before they died. Who hates them, who has lied to them, how long they will be remembered, why tell any of it?
- If someone is trying to overcome an addiction, I don’t feel compelled to scrutinize their crystal healing beliefs.
- I don’t think I’d be doing anyone any favors if I told D-Day soldiers what their survival odds were.
- If I could talk to people in the Nazi concentration camps, I don’t think I’d spend my time “helping” them question the evidence of God.
- I’m not sure that examining the constructed nature of certain moral ideas and rights would be a good idea for at least some people.
The Litany of Gendlin is conjecture supported by fallacy, with no evidence for it, and a great many plausible disproofs.
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
Your examples are mostly cases where 1 doesn’t exactly hold, so 2 not following in those scenarios doesn’t seem like an invalidation. (If someone argues “If A is true then B is true.” and you argue that ‘there are cases where A isn’t true that B isn’t true’ that doesn’t really address the argument.)
(1) A conjecture is “an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information”. On what basis is this a conclusion based on information? (In context if you said it was an incorrect statement that would make sense. Claims about the process by which it was generated require evidence, and are beside the point, which is whether it is correct or incorrect.)
(2) What fallacy?
(3) You have already stated there is evidence—narrow enough it does not fit the conclusion in full, but that is different from “no evidence for”. (Unless you think there’s no evidence for gravity.)
(4) Most of your “disproofs” are the same. Aside from its logic, you are arguing as if some divine authority might force the truth upon everyone if we accept this Litany, or some diabolical force might do so only in the worst possible cases. The Litany does not say that seeking out all knowledge should be your first priority—you would die of starvation before proving the primality (or compositeness) of every positive integer.