Weiye Loh's Library tagged Neutrality → View Popular, Search in Google

May

2012

Logic and Neutrality - NYTimes.com

Principles of logic can themselves be debated, and often are, just like principles of any other science. For example, one principle of standard logic is the law of excluded middle, which says that something either is the case, or it isn’t. Either it’s raining, or it’s not. Many philosophers and others have rejected the law of excluded middle, on various grounds. Some think it fails in borderline cases, for instance when very few drops of rain are falling, and avoid it by adopting fuzzy logic. Others think the law fails when applied to future contingencies, such as whether you will be in the same job this time next year. On the other side, many philosophers — including me – argue that the law withstands these challenges. Whichever side is right, logical theories are players in these debates, not neutral umpires.

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...logic-and-neutrality

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Logic Neutrality Philosophy

Another debate in which logical theories are players concerns the ban on contradictions. Most logicians accept the ban but some, known as dialetheists, reject it. They treat some paradoxes as black holes in logical space, where even contradictions are true (and false).
we’d be in trouble if we could never agree on anything in logic. Fortunately, we can secure enough agreement in logic for most purposes, but nothing in the nature of logic guarantees those agreements. Perhaps the methodological privilege of logic is not that its principles are so weak, but that they are so strong. They are formulated at such a high level of generality that, typically, if they crash, they crash so badly that we easily notice, because the counterexamples to them are simple. If we want to identify what is genuinely distinctive of logic, we should stop overlooking its close similarities to the rest of science.

Jul

2011

Gregory Rodriguez: The virtue of 'I don't know' - latimes.com

Do we really need a beauty queen to tell us how to solve our local school curriculum controversies? Maybe so, but only if she's actually thought it through and can articulate her argument. Just once, instead of dishing up happy talk regarding nuclear disarmament, I'd like to see Miss Wherever stand tall on her stilettos and say, "You know what, I've honestly never given it a thought and have no clue."

www.latimes.com/...susa-20110627,0,7215966.column

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Data Survey Unknown Neutrality Opinion

In a world where uninformed opinion is ubiquitous, wouldn't that be a sign of excellent Miss USA-worthy character?
We seem to be obsessed with opinions because we take them to be a marker of individual independence, distinctiveness and reasoned intelligence. Expressing opinions is how we also express our freedom of conscience and flex our political rights. But when we're obliged to have an opinion on everything, all the time, our expressions of conscience are less about independent thinking than about making stuff up.
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- A 1981 study out of the University of Michigan found that roughly 30% of survey respondents were willing to offer an opinion on a highly obscure piece of legislation if a "no opinion" option wasn't available. The researchers concluded that people "who really have no views on the issues under inquiry " often "simply flip mental coins in order to satisfy the interviewer's expectation."
- A similar 1983 study by University of Cincinnati political scientist George Bishop also revealed that roughly 30% of people who are polled will give their considered opinion on an entirely fictitious piece of legislation if not explicitly offered a "response alternative" that "allows them to admit they 'don't know' anything about it.'"
- Bishop concluded that "there is little to no relationship between an individual's willingness to admit ignorance and his or her tendency to offer opinions."
- Studies like these have led pollsters to realize that "no answer" isn't a missing data point (or a sign of a respondent's moral failure); having no opinion is a perfectly valid position. In fact, a "don't know" option can increase the accuracy of survey findings.
- Almost 2,500 years ago, Socrates was way out ahead on the "no opinion" option. On trial for the equivalent of heresy in Athens, he sparred with a pompous politician over the meaning of wisdom. He won: "I appear to be wiser than he," Socrates wrote, "because I do not fancy I know what I do not know."
- Beauty queens — and everyone else — should take a lesson. Especially in America. We have as much of a right to our ignorance and indifference as we do to speak our minds. We're free to say "I don't know."