Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) [B255/p414]
The Roots of Sound Rational Thinking explores elemental values from an expanded but simple view both different from and similar to other approaches.
Elemental: It is elemental because it examines problems underneath science, policy, empirical theory and metaphysics.
Values: It is about values because it explores what we should do rather than purporting to describe what we do do.
Expanded: It is expanded because it presents a theory updated to fit modern discoveries and develops ideas that are often implicit but not expressed.
Simple: It is simple because it investigates fundamentals in plain words.
Similar: It is similar to many approaches because it promotes traditional affirmative guidelines of sound rational thinking and encourages the cultivation of commonsense.
Different: It differs from other works in the field because of its emphasis on definitions, its updates and because it sets a long-range goal (progress in peace) as a reference point to measure improvement.
The Roots of Sound Rational Thinking began as a book which is now being adapting to the web. The web structure can help connect definitions, tenets, theories, essays, examples and sources into a self supporting network. It will take time to get the basics in place. We edit and add as time permits.
We appreciate comments and suggestions.
For an explanation of plus definition policy see Definition Essay. See Terminology and Essays for definitions and explanations of terms.
The system developed herein differentiates between authentic and affirmative.
Authentic: Authentic refers to intrinsic values that are true, proper, and sustained independent of our knowledge of them.
Affirmative: Affirmative refers human judgments, deductions, points of view and other conditions that we have good reason to believe adequately affirm authentic values. Affirmative supports and uses guidelines of sound rational thinking or at least offers noteworthy improvement. Affirmative claims to be good enough for the occasion, but does not profess absolute certainty.
Q-Gap: There is a gap, usually small, between authentic and affirmative referred to as the Q-Gap.
Negative, as used in this study, refers to remarks, theories and affairs that hinder, contradict and/or repudiate affirmative values of sound rational thinking. Negative is an umbrella term for that which hampers affirmative from a small pin prick to radical dialectical revolution. There are many ways of being negative.
Spurious refers to procedures, thoughts, themes, theories and points of view that circumvent the authentic and confound the affirmative.
Minus: The term minus designates specific propositions that are spurious, that is to say, negative from a plus point of view.
Degrees: Human transactions abound with gradations of harmony. The affirmative approach can absorb a limited amount of spurious material without losing its basic fellowship. However, at a certain degree of accumulation, negative procedures begin to dominate. If this happens disharmony sets in and feelings of fellowship dwindle. When discord reaches a certain point of antagonism, interaction moves outside the realm of civility and into the realm of hostility. Interplay turns into vindictive confrontation. Interaction becomes polarized into a rancorous win/loose conflict.
Antithetic: Antithetic designates sophisticated philosophies, particularly ideologies, dialectics, and avant guard literary criticism, that integrate deep, cutting negative assertions into their presentations at fundamental junctures. This viewpoint rejects basic requirements of affirmative thinking and measures progress primarily by effectiveness. Having thus asserted a negative thesis, people of this persuasion proceed as if their edict has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. Critics of an antithetic disposition often use affirmative facades to rationalize negative manners.
Totalitarian: In plus definitions, totalitarian thinking refers to the use of all or none judgments in cases where more or less fits the case. Plus root theory emphasizes as a basic tenet that: there is a crucial distinction between all-or-none thinking and either-or thinking. Either-or thinking is a legitimate use of affirmative logical relationships. Often either-or thinking is useful in making good decisions. Nonetheless, there are times when people mistakenly treat a situation as either-or, that in reality is a more or less. When we make this mistake, our thinking tends in the totalitarian direction.
Radical is deep denial of basic guidelines of sound rational thinking. Radical effectively inhibits affirmative development.
Crucial Root Problem: People committed to antithetic ideologies will not accept the terminology presented herein. What affirmative thinkers assume is good, radical ideologists proclaim is illusory. Negative inclined antagonists attempt to appropriate for their cause affirmative terms that have favorable connotation in the public eye. Affirmative people who wish to defend their beliefs are robbed of their vocabulary. If this process is allowed to develop and mature, civil discourse becomes swamped with confusion and high quality negotiation fades to a wistful dream. Plus root theory is designed to address our modern conflict between affirmative and counter affirmative propensities.
Throughout this study, the terms ‘root’ and ‘elemental’ refer to values that subsist beneath surface content. Root is a metaphor suggesting elemental. Root theory and elemental theory are generic terms which include epistemology, logic, grammar, semantics, linguistics, and other subjects that deal with rational form.
As an added bonus, the words 'elemental' and 'root' are easier to type and pronounce than 'logical, epistemological, linguistic, sematical and related subjects'.
The terms 'elemental' and 'root' are used in this study as shortcuts.
The elemental theory advocated herein and in the book, The Roots of Sound Rational Thinking, aims to be affirmative, normal, mainstay, nonpartisan and such. For a name, it is plus root theory or other terms that begin with plus.
Plus root theory promotes traditional affirmative guidelines of sound rational thinking. It theorizes and concludes that we can improve society by boosting root verities and correcting root errors.
Root verities are affirmative judgments about elemental theory. They are concerned with true and false, right and wrong, good and bad. Root verities, being values, carry with them the implication that we should seek them and work to promote them.
Plus root theory contends that we should nurture root verities in our systems of belief.
Although there is a gap between a root verity and an authentic root value, we humans, with proper diligence, can ascertain basic root verities adequate for the occasion. Our affirmative judgments may not be absolutely perfect but they are good enough. [See Chapter 21 Q-Gap]
Root errors are judgments about elemental issues that are insufficient for the occasion. They are elemental mistakes.
The term 'root error' refers to an incorrect, insufficient, or misleading assumptions or statements about elemental guidelines accepted as if the assumption were true.
Root errors can be viewed as incorrect answers to questions-about-thinking.
Since a root error is a failure to employ a root verity, it follows that root errors and root verities are different sides of the same coin. Root errors are blunders in elemental matters.
As with root verities, there is a gap between what we designate to be a root error and what actually is an elemental mistake. To be open minded and balanced we need to stay modest about our own judgments.
Root problems are challenges we face in trying to spot and correct underlying mistakes in rational theory, either of omission or commission. Root problems cover a wide range of questions.
Numerous philosophical problems are elemental. For example: How do we know that what we think we know really is true? How do we know we are not deceived? How certain can we be? What do we do when wrong answers become accepted in the rational style of a society? Does it matter whether our answers are right or wrong? Is there a difference between right and wrong? Is it worth the trouble it takes to try to answer these questions?
The above questions are only a few taken from a mile long list. [See List Essay] Many of the problems appear arcane or trivial to the uninitiated. But if they are answered wrong, the effects can be serious all down the line. A wrong answer can obstruct our ability to reason together in a constructive manner. When we loose our ability to reason together, people resort to force and violence to resolve conflict. Force and violence often result in war, slavery, genocide and other evils of totalitarian despotism. From a peace-loving point of view, maintaining our ability to reason together in a constructive manner is of the highest priority.
Plus root theory step by step puts together a method that works well in finding adequate answers to crucial root problems. By solving problems one at a time, we reach a place where solutions fit together into a set that becomes as an operating unit. This is the breakthrough discovery set discussed at length in part C of this study.
A critical study of root values is commonly called logic or epistemology.
Logic: Logic aims to distinguish valid from invalid and to express the requirements of sound rational thinking. Logicians ask: "Is the reasoning sound?"
Epistemology: The business of epistemology is to examine the relations of knowledge, thinking, understanding and truth. The epistemologist seeks to understand the suppositions that underlie logic. Epistemology asks: "Are we justified in making a distinction between valid and invalid." "What is reason?" "Is it possible for us to know anything with absolute certainty?"
Epistemology and logic are sister sciences, but epistemology goes deeper than logic.
Epistemology and logic are mutually interdependent. However, sometimes people develop a passable logical system while espousing a distorted epistemology and vice versa. This creates numerous problems for both epistemology and logic.
Many professionals handle high tech elemental questions with skill but compromise their ideas by making mistakes in normal commonsense. Bertrand Russell, for one, broke ground in mathematical logic. His Principia Mathematica has very few blatant errors. However, in other writings, Russell makes huge blunders. Russell is meticulous in mathematical details, but stumbles in basic matters, such as his use of the word ‘truth’.
If research in root thinking were purely academic, ludicrous mistakes would be a source of fun and give us all a laugh. However, these errors are not benign. Root errors perpetuated by persons of influence lower the caliber of rational style. Low caliber rational style damages the abilities of societies to negotiate conflict and harms our capacity to build a safe and sane world.
Logic and epistemology interact with each other so intimately that their roots become one subject. Grammar, rhetoric, semantics, linguistics, dialectics, etc. are also intimately connected with logic and epistemology. All of these subjects deal with elemental or root matters. Plus root theory uses the terms ‘elemental’ and ‘root’ as generic terms to refer to all studies that underlie and support surface (above root) discourse. (Root is a metaphor for elemental). Surface discourse is in the first intension and first impositon.
Root theories come in various levels of consciousness. Plus root theory puts strong emphasis on the importance of these levels. For convenience they are divided intellectually into five groups.
Intrinsic: Intrinsic refers to deep rooted guidelines of sound rational thinking that exists whether we understand them or not.
Subliminal: Subliminal pertains to thinking below workaday consciousness and critical evaluation. Subliminal includes intuitive thinking.
Liminal: Liminal designates everyday human awareness and spontaneous figuring we do during most of our waking hours. Commonsense is liminal.
Critical: Critical concerns self-conscious deliberate study in human efforts to develop knowledge.
Auxiliary: Auxiliary, a catch all term, includes everything else.
Except for intrinsic, which is what it is, one level shades into another in actual practice. There is no distinct line of demarcation in human levels of awareness that we can demonstrate.
Being able to speak about various levels is important in critical study because much of our elemental thinking occurs in sub-critical comprehension. [See Hidden Essay]
In critical studies, we should recognize the importance of intuition, commonsense, and auxiliary thinking in the field of elemental values if we wish to develop understanding of our thought processes.
A project that aims to improve society by promoting root verities and correcting root errors raises two important questions.
1. How do we tell which propositions are verities and which are mistakes?
2. How do we make corrections?
This book addresses these problem by placing emphasis on the importance of sound judgment in both major and minor premises as well as valid deduction in reasoning. Following this general plan as well as other basic guidelines of right reason, eventually the over-all picture comes into view.
It takes time to develop the broad picture. There are so many issues involved that everything cannot be said at once. Each problem must be addressed in its own way.
In discussing root values, complexity challenges us at every step.
Complex: Being numerous, mixed, interconnected, paradoxical, elusive, and split by contradictions, addressing any one root error in context soon becomes prolix and confusing.
Boring: To further complicate the issue, many people view logic and epistemology as trivial and/or boring.
Ergo: As a result few volunteer to do the work required to fix elemental mistakes. The vast majority of people allow deep devastating errors to slide along year after year, generation after generation. Being unchecked, root errors that start small grow into major problems.
This is not to say that root errors always become calamities. Often enough, they look trivial and remain trivial and cause only minor inconvenience. We have our commonsense to counteract and override elemental blunders.
Commonsense, as defined herein, is human intellectual ability to intuit basic requirements of sound rational thinking, bring theses requirements into work-a-day consciousness, use them to make sound judgments, to reason validly, and to legitimately apply conclusions to matters at hand.
Cultivated commonsense is polished, honest commonsense people develop through active cooperation with a well-formed learning program.
Many people in the world today have cultivation commonsense. Often cultivated commonsense prevents dangerous ideologies from growing into odious totalitarian regimes.
However, even when monitored by commonsense, root errors still damage our intellectual life, sometimes in unexpected ways. The more we repair root errors, the better off we will be, especially if we learn how to identify and adequately correct mistakes that are most apt to set the stage for the growth of injurious ideologies.
Theory: A theory is a collection or set of connected tenets that become themes joined with a general thesis.
Often a large number of themes, explicit and implicit, are contained in one theory. For example, plus root theory consists of hundreds of themes, many of which are expressed in this writing as plus tenets. A theme is a thought used as a continuous thread in a theory.
Ideology: An ideology is a theory of ideas about ideas. It is a collection of themes presented and often accepted as a whole package.
Because so many thoughts are involved, almost all ideologies contain one to several minus themes mixed with plus affirmations. Actual ideologies we encounter in the intellectual world are almost always a mix of affirmative and negative.
In this study, ideologies are evaluated in terms of the trends that hold sway.
Affirmative Ideology: An ideology that is dominated by affirmative root themes and is directed towards developing sound rational thinking is an affirmative ideology.
Negative or Divergent Ideology: An ideology dominated by invert themes that tend to weaken commitment to sound rational thinking is a negative divergent ideology. There are many ways of being negative.
Polar Ideology: Polar ideology is a negative oriented ideology that stresses oppositional antagonism as a primary vital force dominating both physical and intellectual forces in the universe.
Marginal Ideology: Those theories on the edge are marginal. Marginal ideologies border between affirmative and negative.
Split Ideology: Those theories that say one thing while implying, suggesting or encouraging the opposite are split ideologies.
A vast number of ideologies we encounter in modern philosophy are marginal or split or both.
Dialectic: Dialectic, in the modern sense, is a process of interchange that incorporates an ideology into a process of acquiring power. It is a combination of theory and practice interacting in specific instances and in the events of history. Various dialectical movements incorporate an assortment of ideological theories. An ideology in practice becomes a dialectical system.
Dialectic and ideology are companions.
Affirmative Dialectic: A dialectical system based on predominantly plus themes is an affirmative dialectic.
Negative or Divergent or Antithetical or Radical or Totalitarian Dialectic: A dialectic dominated by invert themes is a negative or divergent or antithetical or radical or totalitarian dialectic. Invert themes create a tendency toward excuse and totalitarian thinking.
Mix: Most dialectics we encounter in our modern world are a bewildering mixture of affirmative and negative which vacillate in varying degrees as the wind blows. These are marginal and/or split dialectics. When the interaction of affirmative and negative is added to the interaction of theory and practice, dialectic can become a masterpiece of intrigue.
A major problem in elemental theory is discovering which propositions are plus and which are minus. Knowing which is which is important because one serious root error can send an epistemological enterprise in the wrong direction.
Plus root theory aims to address this problem. The plus sorting method examines elemental propositions individually using a well-formed plus theory that has been tested in experience.
Throughout this study, plus evaluation is used to explain and defend plus root theory. The solution to the redundancies and paradoxes involved will become clearer as explanations develop. [See redundancy and paradox essays]
It is easy to make a root error but, more often than not, extremely difficult to correct it.
Fabricating root mistakes takes very little space and a blink in time.
Adequately correcting the mistakes can take thousands of hours and thousands of pages.
We can make serious root errors in seconds and quickly bury them out of sight in a labyrinth of material on other subjects.
Although correcting a root error in our own mind is often simple, correcting a root error embedded in the style of a society is a different matter.
The ease with which root errors are perpetuated verses the extreme difficulty of correcting them erects an enormous impediment that make correction difficult. The reluctance many have developed to the study of logic blocks the way of those who wish to defend the simple basic requirements of sound rational thinking. [See Impediment Essay]
The plus root method encourages an optimistic attitude.
While maintaining that absolute perfection is beyond our reach, plus philosophy holds that we have the ability to refine our rational skills enough to meet the problems at hand and that is what we really need.
Recognizing our limits is not an excuse for sloppy thinking because, to be good enough to meet the challenges of our technical society, is to be very good.
Contrariwise, it is divergent antithetical ideologies that encourage sloppy thinking. When our attempts at negotiation fail, its not because we are too reasonable. Instead we are not reasonable enough.
Plus root theory is value based. It holds the following values:
1) Affirmative elemental theory is better than bogus elemental theory.
2) Clear understanding is better than mystification
3) Truth is better than illusion
4) Sound rational thinking is better than unsound rational thinking.
5) Affirmative ideology is better than negative ideology.
6) Fair play is better than foul fighting.
7) Good will is better than hostile alienation.
8) Candid civil discourse is better than cunning antagonistic manipulation.
9) Wise priorities are better than foolish indulgence.
Plus root theory affirms and supports the above values and, at the same time avoids the pit falls of absolutism by the very simple solution of recognizing the distinction between major premise, minor premise and conclusion. [See Part C]
A plus sorting mentality assumes we humans have the ability to bring positive values into realization even if only a small step at a time. From this point of view, the plus interpretation is a value theory. It discusses what we "should" do rather than attempting to merely describe what we "do" do.
Plus root theory emphasizes that values are values because they are measured against something. The plus root version uses as a long range measuring standard "our abilities to progress in peace." This is not the only measuring rod in plus root theory, but it is one that can itself be measured. Because it can be measured, it is valuable from a technical point of view.
The plus outlook presented in this book is not original. Most plus tenets promoted herein have been supported, at least implicitly, by vast numbers of people since the beginning of philosophy.
To be up to date, many tenets have been refurbished to meet modern needs and to incorporate scientific discoveries. The discussions involving balanced realism are a case in point.
Possibly a few aspects of plus root theory as presented in this book are original but vestiges of the plus sorting style can be discovered through eons of written history. Aristotle discusses the difference between fair play and foul fighting, Cicero refers to plus value and minus value (in their own language, of course).
Often in the past, plus root ideas are there, but not explicitly acknowledged.
Reasoning based on plus tenets is what people, more often than not, mean when they speak of common sense.
Although this study is long winded, it is still only an introduction to the topics under discussion. This is because the subject of elemental theory is extraordinarily complex.
The plus sorting mentality developed herein aims to be as plain spoken as possible but, the number of issues involved is huge.
There is no short way to truthfully address today’s needs. The reason why this is so should become clear as problems unfold and answers fall in place.
Next Chapter: 01 The Big Puzzle
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