Until the development of integral logic, fallacies were considered reasoning or foundation errors. This research has demonstrated that fallacies are not errors; instead they are functional conducts or behaviors that ascertain beliefs or needs.
Fallacies respond to four elements that condition it:
– the capacity to reason
– the capacity to relate emotionally
– the capacity to elaborate frustrations
– the strategic style and stereotype from which the individual approaches reality
A fallacy is an unconscious lie. Fallacies rely on ethics based on intentions rather than on acts. That is why there are cultures, worldwide, considered less trustworthy. This happens, quite naturally, when the ethics of such culture lets intentionality supersede functionality.
Fallacies are the drivers of many human activities achieved through evasion from a reality man are unable to face. Man needs fallacies to face situations that affect his self-esteem; in turn, people gather to share fallacies.
Ordinary people are set apart by strengths and united by weaknesses. Therefore, what joins men, among other things, are the fallacies shared as “truths”.
Conceptual structure of fallacies
We have been able to discover the conceptual structure of fallacies and validate it analyzing the most significant fallacies incurred by human beings. To do so we considered the accepted bibliography on fallacies and developed their implicit logic.
Then we have validated the logic of fallacies through applications, and developed the predictions in order to validate their functionality.
Fallacies are, as described at the beginning, mental constructions in which the individual perceives apparent facts; he contextualizes them within a framework of hypothetical ideas so as to confirm a preexisting belief. It is the “negation” of scientific thought that, due to its characteristics, is eminently temporary and never confirms beliefs.
Fallacies become extreme and destroy themselves, thus becoming dysfunctional, when the facts these are based on are unreal, and require relying on a truth not to satisfy beliefs, but needs.
The difference between belief and need is based on the fact that belief is functional to an individual in his environment, whereas need is mandatory in its contribution to the individual’s survival. When need prevails, fallacy becomes what we may call a “lie” with a foundational appearance.
The difference between fallacy and lie is based on the fact that in fallacy there is at least the presence of apparent facts and foundational hypothesis. In the case of non-conscious “lies”, there are unreal facts and ideas are truths.
Diana Belohlavek