Hee. You just proved something that I learned in social psych class and have been reading about. The tendency to inaccurately conclude something from one mention of it. Example: I said Plato had problems with women and that may have affected his philosophy. Then stated Plato had a huge effect on Western Culture and we haven't studied the other philosophers as much. Then wondered what we'd think if we studied Confucisious or someone else.
No where in that did I imply or state that I thought they'd feel differently about women. Just that we may have a different outlook.
But because I mentioned in the first portion of the paragraph that Plato had problems with women - you jumped to the conclusion that this is what I thought - possibly because your own bias highlights that one phrase and saw it as the theme of the paragraph?
It's fascinating how we think. In class the teacher gave each student a different test question to read and answer - leading us to believe we were given the same one, and it was the same, except for the first three sentences. Without exception - every student in the class's interpretation of the statement was based on what they read in that first sentence - it colored their view of the rest. They read everything after that with that bias in mind.
You did exactly the same thing here. And so does everyone on the net. We watch TV the same way - we don't see the entire story, just the bits that leap out at us and conclude things based on those bits - which will leap out due to our bias. Plus it is how we were taught to reason in school - if the first sentence says this - then everything afterwards is arguement supporting the first sentence. But that is not always true - particularly in how some of us write on the net - stream of consciousness hodgepodge. I know I'll often throw out many things. So you cannot draw the conclusion that I think Confucious etc don't have bad views towards women, just because I think their views are different from Platos, and I think Plato felt negatively towards women. I see how you came to that conclusion, but the way you did it contained a flaw in deduction - what you did was read beyond the information given. You made an assumption instead of reading what was on the page at face value, which of course we are taught to do, it's natural, it helps us but it can also lead to dangerous prejudices - it's that type of reasoning that lead the Sec of Education to make the statement he did about blacks - he read beyond the data given and jumped to a conclusion.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2005-11-14 05:41 pm (UTC)Hee. You just proved something that I learned in social psych class and have been reading about. The tendency to inaccurately conclude something from one mention of it. Example: I said Plato had problems with women and that may have affected his philosophy. Then stated Plato had a huge effect on Western Culture and we haven't studied the other philosophers as much. Then wondered what we'd think if we studied Confucisious or someone else.
No where in that did I imply or state that I thought they'd feel differently about women. Just that we may have a different outlook.
But because I mentioned in the first portion of the paragraph that Plato had problems with women - you jumped to the conclusion that this is what I thought - possibly because your own bias highlights that one phrase and saw it as the theme of the paragraph?
It's fascinating how we think. In class the teacher gave each student a different test question to read and answer - leading us to believe we were given the same one, and it was the same, except for the first three sentences. Without exception - every student in the class's interpretation of the statement was based on what they read in that first sentence - it colored their view of the rest. They read everything after that with that bias in mind.
You did exactly the same thing here. And so does everyone on the net.
We watch TV the same way - we don't see the entire story, just the bits that leap out at us and conclude things based on those bits - which will leap out due to our bias. Plus it is how we were taught to reason in school - if the first sentence says this - then everything afterwards is arguement supporting the first sentence. But that is not always true - particularly in how some of us write on the net - stream of consciousness hodgepodge. I know I'll often throw out many things.
So you cannot draw the conclusion that I think Confucious etc don't have bad views towards women, just because I think their views are different from Platos, and I think Plato felt negatively towards women.
I see how you came to that conclusion, but the way you did it contained a flaw in deduction - what you did was read beyond the information given. You made an assumption instead of reading what was on the page at face value, which of course we are taught to do, it's natural, it helps us but it can also lead to dangerous prejudices - it's that type of reasoning that lead the Sec of Education to make the statement he did about blacks - he read beyond the data given and jumped to a conclusion.