The Epoch Times’s current Opinion section tackles a subject that might surprise you. Polylogism!
What?
The term was coined by Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises. “There is not one logic, one truth, one path of thinking that is subject to verification,” Jeffrey A. Tucker asserts in “Polylogism Is the Root Problem.”
Polylogism is the idea behind a lot of trendy isms, pushed by many ists.
“Every group and every interest operates according to its own logic,” Tucker goes on. “No one is in a position to say: This does not follow from that. There are multiple and infinite ways to think and emote, and no one is in a position to say which is correct, valid or invalid.”
The idea that there can be “many” logics is indeed present in many forms of modern and post-modern argumentation, like Marxism and Freudianism. C. S. Lewis also attacked the ploy, calling it “Bulverism” in an amusing essay named after a fictitious fellow named “Bulver” who learned from his mother how to argue most effectively — “Oh you say that because you are a man,” she challenged.
It’s an evasion.
According to Bulverism, er, polylogism, “There are no fallacies,” argues Tucker, “only perspectives.”
Remember Nietzsche? “There are no facts, only interpretations.”
This sort of thing makes arguing against tyranny hard, because the tyrant’s sycophants can simply say ‘what you call tyranny only looks like that because you are x; but we are y, and therefore what you call tyranny is freedom to us.’
“Polylogism sounds like a fancy philosophy,” Tucker concludes, “but it is nothing but the handmaiden of tyrants.”
Are you thinking of Newspeak?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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