When the Seagull Talked about the Special Immunity

"For the past few days, the Moon hasn't appeared, and I've been listening to the Seagull talk," said Swara when she arrived, after saying Basmalah and Salaam. Then she sang,

Burung camar, tinggi melayang

[Seagulls, flying high]

Bersahutan, di balik awan

[Shout out, behind the clouds]

Membawa angan-anganku jauh meniti buih

[Bringing my dreams, stepping far away over the sea foam]

Lalu hilang jauh di lautan *)

[Then disappeared deep into the sea]

"Before telling you about what Seagull told me," Swara added, "listen to this story, 'The room was full of pregnant women and their partners. The Lamaze class was in full swing. The instructor was teaching the women, how to breathe properly, and informing the men how to give the support and encouragement needed.

'Ladies, exercise is good for you,' announced the teacher.

'Walking is especially benficial. And, gentlemen, it would be great for you to take the time to go walking with your partner!'

A man in the middle of the group spoke up, 'Is it all right if she carries a golf bag while we walk?'"

"Seagull said," Swara proceeded, "'Western philosophy did not really begin with Socrates, but nevertheless, we learn about a founding myth. Socrates was a gadfly. He demonstrated that the supposedly wisest people in Athens could not answer what seemed like simple questions about their areas of expertise. The pious could not explain what piety is; the just could not explain what justice is. He showed how much people took for granted and how little they could justify their basic assumptions. Of course, this kind of behavior can be dangerous. And so, the Athenians didn’t like it; they had Socrates executed. But philosophy is not just 'dangerous' for the philosopher. Philosophy brings our hidden ideas to the surface and exposes unseen contradictions. What we think is obvious is not so obvious on reflection. Philosophical inquiry often shows that our core beliefs are a jumbled mess. We sometimes make dangerous mistakes when we try to clean up that mess. Some countries today still suffer the legacy of philosophers’ past errors.

But at the same time, we do not make progress without challenging and in many cases changing our moral ideas. In general, people live far better and in far more just societies today than a thousand years ago. It matters that we now see government agents as servants appointed by the people, rather than as lords appointed by the gods. It matters that we see people everywhere as part of the same moral community rather than holding, as most early people did, that the 'barbarians' outside our borders also fall outside our moral concerns. It matters that we recognize that government leaders and civilians are fundamentally morally equal; there is not one set of rights for the high and a different set for the low. But it is true, in a far far away land, there are people who are not aware of this, and still adhere to the ideas of the the ancients. Just imagine, civil society that criticizes government agents, is considered insulting and must be brought to justice. On the other hand, if a government agent commits a dangerous act, it is considered reasonable with various justifications.

Sometimes what seemed like merely academic discussions became politically salient. In the latter half of the twentieth century, philosophers debated whether torture was always wrong, or whether it might be permissible or at least excusable to extract information from terrorists in 'ticking time bomb' cases. Then the United States declared a 'War on Terror,' and suddenly these discussions were no longer academic.

Critical thinking process like philosophers, often deals with dangerous questions and subjects, when it's critically examine our most basic assumptions and see if these beliefs withstand scrutiny. Doing so, is almost guaranteed to offend. Well, here it is.

Jason Brennan wrote that in the real world, almost every day, the people who hold power in democratic societies— including presidents, bureaucrats, judges, police officers, Central Intelligence Agency agents, and even democratic voters— use their power in deeply unjust and irresponsible ways. Thus, one pressing question for political philosophy is what ordinary citizens are licensed to do in the face of injustice.

In the famous book Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, political economist Albert Hirschman analyzed three major ways that a firm’s customers or an organization’s members might react to bad behavior on the part of the firm or organization. They might 'exit,' meaning that customers might stop buying their products or members of the organization (such as employees) might leave. They might exercise 'voice,' meaning that they might complain to people in the organization itself, such as people who hold power over the organization, or the public at large. Finally, they might be loyal— that is, they might have a tendency to stick with the firm or organization despite their flaws. Hirschman does not say that loyalty is always an alternative to voice or exit. Instead, loyal behavior can augment one’s voice or threat of exit.

Many philosophers and laypeople seem to believe that when we react to political oppression and injustice, our options are limited to voice, exit, or loyalty. Some think that we have obligations to participate in politics, protest, engage in political campaigns, and push for social change through political channels. Others think that such actions are merely praiseworthy. Most think that we have the option of keeping quiet or emigrating to another country. In general, they tend to assume or conclude that when a government issues an unjust command, behaves unjustly, or passes an unjust law, we may only comply, complain, or quit. Usually, we should obey that law, or if we break the law in protest, we should be prepared to bear the consequences of doing so, including accepting punishment. They typically tend to agree that we may not fight back against government agents, especially agents of a democratic regime.

Consider the question of defensive assassination or defensive killing, Andrew Altman and Christopher Wellman say, 'Surely, it would have been permissible for somebody to assassinate [Joseph] Stalin in the 1930s.' But if so, is it not also permissible to take similar action against a government official if it is the only way to stop them from harming the innocent? If you may assassinate Adolf Hitler to stop him from invading Poland, are you also permitted to do the same to a president in order to stop him from invading the Philippines, or ordering the genocidal slaughter and forced relocation of an ethnic group? If you may kill a Gestapo agent to stop him from murdering innocent people, may you do the same to a police officer who uses excessive violence?

Philosophers and laypeople often assume or argue not. They assume or argue that in liberal democracies, only nonviolent resistance to state injustice is permissible. They assume that we must defer to democratic government agents, even when these agents act in deeply unjust, harmful, and destructive ways. This view is puzzling. The prevailing view is that when it comes to government agents, defensive violence, deception, destruction, and subterfuge are governed by different moral principles from those that govern defensive violence and subterfuge in other contexts. This presupposes that it makes a difference to the permissibility of lying to, deceiving, sabotaging, or killing an aggressor in selfdefense or the defense of others that the aggressor is wearing a uniform, holds an office, or was appointed by someone who was in turn elected by my neighbors. According to the prevailing view, my neighbors can eliminate my right of self- defense or the defense of others by granting someone an office. This is especially puzzling because almost everyone today recognizes that the law and justice are not the same thing; laws can be deeply unjust.Instead of the three options, exit, voice, or loyalty, probably wold bring up the fourth option: resistance. The terim 'Resistance,' maybe take in a wide range of behaviors. It includes passive behaviors such as noncompliance—that is, strategically breaking the law or ignoring the state’s commands whenever you can get away with it. It also includes more active forms of resistance, such as blocking police cars, damaging or destroying government property, deceiving and lying to government agents, or combating government agents. Such forms of resistance are often justified, even in response to injustice within modern democratic nation- states, most of which have relatively just governments overall.

The standard view, which almost everyone of every ideology seems to accept, is that government agents are surrounded by a kind of magic moral force field. They enjoy a special or privileged status when they commit unjust actions. The standard view holds both that government agents have a special permission to perform unjust actions—actions that we would judge evil and impermissible were a non-government agent to perform them—and that these agents enjoy a special right against being stopped when they commit injustice. Government agents somehow may perform unjust acts, and we’re supposed to stand by and let them.

Maybe 'let them' is a bit strong. Most people believe we may complain when government agents act badly. We may demand that other government agents punish their colleagues for their colleagues’ bad behavior. Some philosophers go further: they think that when government acts badly, we are morally obligated to protest, write letters to newspaper editors and senators, and vote for better candidates. But, they think, we’re not supposed to stop injustice ourselves. But we don’t think that way about private injustice. If an attacker tries to harm you, no one would say that you have no right to fight back. You aren’t required to lie down and take it, and then hope the police will later capture the attacker and bring them to justice.

Some political philosophers and laypeople would scoff. They claim that they have a far more constrained and reasonable version of the 'government agents are magic' view. They deny that all governments, government agents, or political actors, enjoy special permission to perform unjust actions. They deny that we must stand back and let government actors behave unjustly. Rather, they say, 'In our modest view, only democratic governments, agents, and actors are surrounded by a magic moral force field that both removes their normal moral obligations and at the same time requires the rest of us to let them act unjustly. Of course, nondemocratic governments and their agents enjoy no such privilege.

Thus, many people subscribe to, what is called, the Special Immunity thesis. The special immunity thesis holds that there is a special burden to justify interfering with, trying to stop, or fighting back against government agents who, acting ex officio, commit injustice. Government agents—or at least the agents of democratic governments—enjoy a special immunity against being deceived, lied to, sabotaged, attacked, or killed in selfdefense or the defense of others. Government property enjoys a special immunity against being damaged, sabotaged, or destroyed. The set of conditions under which it is permissible, in self- defense or the defense of others, to deceive, lie to, sabotage, or use force against a government agent (acting ex officio), or destroy government property, is much more stringent as well as tightly constrained than the set of conditions under which it is permissible to deceive, lie to, sabotage, attack, or kill a private civilian, or destroy private property.

As an opponent or rejection of this Special Immunity Thesis, Brennan offers the Moral Parity Thesis. The moral parity thesis holds that justifying self-defense or the defense of others against government agents is on par with justifying self-defense or the defense of others against civilians. That government officials (including the officials of democratic governments, acting ex officio) do not enjoy a special moral status that immunizes them from defensive actions. When government officials commit injustices of any sort, it is morally permissible for us, as private individuals, to treat them the same way we would treat private individuals committing those same injustices. Whatever we may do to private individuals, we may do to government officials. We may respond to governmental injustice however we may respond to private injustice. Government agents are due no greater moral deference when they act unjustly than private agents are due.

The moral parity thesis holds that democratic government agents, property, and agencies are as much legitimate targets of defensive deception, sabotage, or violence as civilians are. The principles explaining how we may use defensive violence and subterfuge against civilians, and the principles explaining how we may use defensive violence and subterfuge against government agents, are one and the same. Government agents (including citizens when they vote) who commit injustice are on par with civilians who commit the same injustices.

"Probably," Swara was about to end the discussion, "we'd all frown at Brennan's suggestion, but it is true. If Moral Hazard for government agents who act unfairly, are no longer heard, the only way, is to say no to the Special Immunity, and executing the Moral Parity.

And lastly, listen to this, ''Look at that speed!' said one hawk to another as a jet-fighter plane zoomed over their heads.

'Hmph!' snorted the other. 'You would ɻy fast, too, if your tail was on fire!'

And Allah knows best."

Before her voice faded away, Swara then sang,

Tiba-tiba 'ku tertegun, lubuk hatiku tersentuh

[Suddenly, I'm stuned, my subconscious is touched]

Perahu kecil terayun, nelayan tua di sana

[The small boat is swinging, the old fisherman is there]

Tiga malam, bulan t'lah menghilang

[Three nights, the Moon has been disapeared]

Langit sepi, walau tak bermega

The sky is quiet, though there are no clouds]

Tiba-tiba kusadari, lagu burung camar tadi

[I suddenly realized, the seagull song earlier]

Cuma kisah sedih, nada duka hati yang terluka

[Just a sad story, a tone of sorrow for a wounded heart]

Tiada teman berbagi derita

[No friends to share affliction]

Bahkan untuk berbagi cerita

[Even to share stories]

Burung camar, tinggi melayang

[Seagulls, flying high]

Bersahutan, di balik awan

[Shout out, behind the clouds]

Kini membawa anganku yang tadi melayang

[Now carrying my dream had floated earlier]

Jatuh dia, dekat di kakiku *)

[It falls, close to my legs]

Citations & References:
- Jason Brennan, When Else False - The Ethics of Resistance to State Injustice, Princeton University Press
- Mark Osiel, The Right To Do Wrong - Morality and the Limits of Law, Harvard University Press

- Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty - Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Harvard University Press
*) "Burung Camar" written by Ridwan Armansjah Abdulrachman

Bahasa

Thinking : Islamic Perspective

"Thinking, in Islamic perspective, is considered as ‘Ibadah’ or a form of worshipping Allah, which, shall be rewarded as long as it is done with sincerity or ‘ikhlas’, good intention and for a good purpose, " said Swara when she arrived after saying Basmalah and Salaam.

"In the Qur’an, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala mentions clearly,

كِتٰبٌ اَنْزَلْنٰهُ اِلَيْكَ مُبٰرَكٌ لِّيَدَّبَّرُوْٓا اٰيٰتِهٖ وَلِيَتَذَكَّرَ اُولُوا الْاَلْبَابِ

'[This is] a blessed Book which We have revealed to you, [O Muḥammad], that they might reflect upon its verses and that those of understanding would be reminded.' [QS. Sad (38):29]

Al-Qur’an mentions the requirement of ‘ulul al-bab’ that leads to thinking. Thinking is an integral part of the Islamic tradition. Allah created man to think by using reasoning (afala ya’qilun), think creatively (afala tatafaqqarun) and also to ponder, to inquire and to investigate things (afala ya tadabbarun). The tradition of thinking in the past led to tremendous achievements of the Muslims in the fields of philosophy and science such as astrophysics, mathematics, mechanics, music and many others.

In Arabic, the word 'think' refers to the word 'tafakkur,' the same word is 'al-fikr.' So, tafakkur literally means to think on a subject deeply, systematically, and in great detail. In other word, tafakkur is intellectually contemplate or reflection. Reflection is a vital step in becoming aware of what is going on around us and of drawing conclusions from it. It is a key for a man to differentiate between good and bad, vice and virtue, and so on. One can use reflection in every scientific field. However, the rational and experimental sciences are only a first step or a means to reach the final target of reflection, which is knowledge of Allah, provided that one’s mind has not been filled with wrong conceptions and premises. Reflection must be based on and start with belief in Allah as the Originator of creation. Allah says,

وَهُوَ الَّذِيْ مَدَّ الْاَرْضَ وَجَعَلَ فِيْهَا رَوَاسِيَ وَاَنْهٰرًا ۗوَمِنْ كُلِّ الثَّمَرٰتِ جَعَلَ فِيْهَا زَوْجَيْنِ اثْنَيْنِ يُغْشِى الَّيْلَ النَّهَارَۗ اِنَّ فِيْ ذٰلِكَ لَاٰيٰتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَّتَفَكَّرُوْنَ

'And it is He who spread the earth and placed therein firmly set mountains and rivers; and from all of the fruits He made therein two mates; He causes the night to cover the day. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought.' [QS. Ar-Ra'ad (13):3]

There are three phases of Tafakkur, first, give the concept of an idea or thinking or Critical Thinking; second, concentrating or forming new ideas of information or Creative Thinking, and third, bring to think of Allah as the Creator of the Supreme. Tafakkur is such an important concept that Imam Shafi'i, one of the greatest Imam in history, said that Tafakkur sharpens one's intelligence.

In the Quran, Allah asks Muslim to think critically, among them are: Tafakkur (as I have mentioned earlier); Tadhakkur; Ta'qil; Tafqih; and Tadabbur.

About Tadhakkur, Allah says,

اِنَّ فِيْ خَلْقِ السَّمٰوٰتِ وَالْاَرْضِ وَاخْتِلَافِ الَّيْلِ وَالنَّهَارِ لَاٰيٰتٍ لِّاُولِى الْاَلْبَابِۙ

الَّذِيْنَ يَذْكُرُوْنَ اللّٰهَ قِيَامًا وَّقُعُوْدًا وَّعَلٰى جُنُوْبِهِمْ وَيَتَفَكَّرُوْنَ فِيْ خَلْقِ السَّمٰوٰتِ وَالْاَرْضِۚ رَبَّنَا مَا خَلَقْتَ هٰذَا بَاطِلًاۚ سُبْحٰنَكَ فَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ

'Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day are signs for those of understanding - who remember Allah while standing or sitting or [lying] on their sides and give thought to the creation of the heavens and the earth, [saying], "Our Rabb, You did not create this aimlessly; exalted are You [above such a thing]; then protect us from the punishment of the Fire.' [QS. Ali 'Imran (3):190-191]

This ayah illustrates that thinking people will ponder the creations of Allah (the sky and the earth, the night and the day) by using their inner view (basirah). Therefore, people will see the Great of Allah and grateful to Allah every time. Sultan of the Theologians, Fakhruddin Ar-Razi—an influential Muslim polymath and one of the pioneers of inductive logic—claimed that those who are remember and believe in Oneness of God use their aql (think) will achieve al-falah (success). To achieve the level of tadhakkur, man needs to put something into summarization in order to help him understand it wisely. Therefore, man may have an idea towards something in a simple diagram or picture. The application of tadhakkur is applicable on subjects such as Al-Quran and al-Hadith.

About Ta’qil, Allah says,

اَتَأْمُرُوْنَ النَّاسَ بِالْبِرِّ وَتَنْسَوْنَ اَنْفُسَكُمْ وَاَنْتُمْ تَتْلُوْنَ الْكِتٰبَ ۗ اَفَلَا تَعْقِلُوْنَ

'Do you order righteousness of the people and forget1 yourselves while you recite the Scripture? Then will you not reason?' [QS. Al-Baqarah (2):44]

This show that the Allah emphasizes on a few mankind those who are asked others to follow the Law of Allah, but he himself refuse to do so. Some mufassirun stated that this kind of people refer to Bani Israel and Hypocrites. Allah condemned these kinds of people by saying 'Will you not reason?' which bring us the word 'do not think' refer to 'do not understand the truth.' In order to understand the truth, man need to synthesize the information at the first place before jumping into the conclusion.

About Tafqih, Allah says,

وَلَقَدْ ذَرَأْنَا لِجَهَنَّمَ كَثِيْرًا مِّنَ الْجِنِّ وَالْاِنْسِۖ لَهُمْ قُلُوْبٌ لَّا يَفْقَهُوْنَ بِهَاۖ وَلَهُمْ اَعْيُنٌ لَّا يُبْصِرُوْنَ بِهَاۖ وَلَهُمْ اٰذَانٌ لَّا يَسْمَعُوْنَ بِهَاۗ اُولٰۤىِٕكَ كَالْاَنْعَامِ بَلْ هُمْ اَضَلُّ ۗ اُولٰۤىِٕكَ هُمُ الْغٰفِلُوْنَ

'And We have certainly created for Hell many of the jinn and mankind. They have hearts with which they do not understand, they have eyes with which they do not see, and they have ears with which they do not hear. Those are like livestock; rather, they are more astray. It is they who are the heedless.' [QS. Al-A'raf (7):179]

Based on this ayah, we know that there is a relationship between heart and mind. According to Imam al-Ghazali, al-qalb (heart) depends on al- ‘aqal (mind). He claimed that once man would like to do right thing, he will ask his mind to see the Great of Allah. At this level, man need to analyze the information after identifying two difference entities. Man will identify the right and wrong, advantage and disadvantage, positive and negative element that reflect to something.

The Quran mention that every human being is seen to have a body, an individual soul (which has an ego and a conscience) and a spirit (which Allah first blew into Adam, alaihissalam). We said that the soul has certain obvious faculties such as intelligence, will, sentiment (scholars like Ghazali sometimes equate these three with the ‘capacities’ for ‘intelligence’, ‘anger’ and ‘desire’ respectively), speech, imagination and memory. The body is clear enough, and its faculties obviously include the five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch). It is mortal, death being the separation of the soul from the body. The soul is the individual personal core of the human being, and it is immortal. In the Qur’an, the soul is seen to have three major parts—or perhaps three ‘modes’ (since the soul remains one). These are: ‘the soul which incites to evil’ (QS. Yusuf 12:53); ‘the self-reproaching soul’ (QS. Al-Qiyamah, 75:2); and ‘the soul at peace’ (QS. Al-Fajr, 89:27). In other words, the soul has an ego, a conscience and a state which is beyond the ego. The spirit is beyond the whole individual personality, and so little can be said about it in words. Allah says,

وَيَسْـَٔلُوْنَكَ عَنِ الرُّوْحِۗ قُلِ الرُّوْحُ مِنْ اَمْرِ رَبِّيْ وَمَآ اُوْتِيْتُمْ مِّنَ الْعِلْمِ اِلَّا قَلِيْلًا

'They ask you ˹O Prophet˺ about the spirit. Say, “Its nature is known only to my Rabb, and you ˹O humanity˺ have been given but little knowledge.' [QS. Al-Isra' (17):85]

The soul is said to be the individual ‘inner witness’ of the body, and ‘the captain of its ship’. The spirit is said to be the supra-individual ‘inner witness’ of the body and the soul taken together, and the wind and life in their sails. In the Qur’an there are two paradises for each of the blessed, Allah says,

وَلِمَنْ خَافَ مَقَامَ رَبِّهٖ جَنَّتٰنِۚ

'But for he who has feared the position of his Lord1 are two gardens.' [QS. Ar-Rahman (55):46)]

Some mufassirs take this as the paradises of the soul and spirit respectively. In other words, there is a state of perfect happiness for each of the human subjectivities: the soul and the spirit.

In addition to the physical heart that pumps blood around the body, human beings also have a non-physical, spiritual’ heart that corresponds to the physical heart, but on a higher level of reality. This ‘spiritual heart’ is actually the ‘doorway’ or ‘bridge’ between the soul and the spirit. In the Qur’an, it has four ‘degrees’: (in ‘ascending’ order) the ‘breast’ (‘sadr’); the ‘heart’ (‘qalb’); the ‘inner heart’ (‘fuad’), and the ‘core’ (‘lubb’—sometimes thought of as the inner heart and intellect together). The ‘breast’ is identiϧed with the soul, and the ‘core’ is identiϧed with the spirit.

Consequently, this is the heart that Allah ‘looks at’. The Prophet (ﷺ) said,

إِنَّ اللَّهَ لاَ يَنْظُرُ إِلَى صُوَرِكُمْ وَأَمْوَالِكُمْ وَلَكِنْ يَنْظُرُ إِلَى قُلُوبِكُمْ وَأَعْمَالِكُمْ

'Verily, Allah does not look to your faces and your wealth, but He looks to your heart and to your deeds.' [Sahih Muslim]

It is therefore the part people need to get right! This is even more true of the ‘inner heart’, for whereas the heart ‘comprehends’ (or, conversely, turns ‘blind’), the ‘inner heart’, actually sees (‘spiritually’). Allah says, referring to the Prophet (ﷺ), in the Qur’an,

مَا كَذَبَ الْفُؤَادُ مَا رَاٰى

‘The inner heart did not distort what it saw.’ [QS. An-Najm (53):11]. 

Throughout history, innumerable Muslim scholars and mystics have also attested to the reality of the ‘spiritual heart’. This ‘spiritual heart’ is the seat of both spiritual knowledge and love.

Ever since the German philosopher Immanuel Kant published his Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, this kind of ‘metaphysical knowledge’ has not been taken seriously by Western philosophers and academia. Before that, however, spiritual or ‘inner’ vision was a well-known religious doctrine. For example, in Plato’s Republic, Socrates said, 'By pursuing [certain philosophical studies] a certain organ in every student’s soul is cleansed and rekindled, which has been blinded and destroyed by his other pursuits. Yet it is more worth saving than a thousand eyes, for by this organ alone is the truth perceived.’

It should be noted also that the heart’s vision is as much self-knowledge as it is knowledge of ‘external’ spiritual truths and realities. Allah created men to know Him, and the Qur’an helps them to know themselves. It remains to be said that it is precisely self-knowledge that leads to knowledge of Allah and of spiritual realities. In fact, Allah created the spirit with deep innate knowledge of Him as a testimony against their own souls. Allah says,

وَاِذْ اَخَذَ رَبُّكَ مِنْۢ بَنِيْٓ اٰدَمَ مِنْ ظُهُوْرِهِمْ ذُرِّيَّتَهُمْ وَاَشْهَدَهُمْ عَلٰٓى اَنْفُسِهِمْۚ اَلَسْتُ بِرَبِّكُمْۗ قَالُوْا بَلٰىۛ شَهِدْنَا ۛاَنْ تَقُوْلُوْا يَوْمَ الْقِيٰمَةِ اِنَّا كُنَّا عَنْ هٰذَا غٰفِلِيْنَۙ

'And [mention] when your Rabb took from the children of Adam - from their loins - their descendants and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], 'Am I not your Rabb?' They said, 'Yes, we have testified.' [This] - lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, 'Indeed, we were of this unaware.' [QS. Al-A'raf (7):172]

And Allah requires souls to not forget Him and maintain this testimony and self-knowledge in this life. Perhaps this is why And Allah requires souls to not forget Him and maintain this testimony and self-knowledge in this life. Perhaps that's why the Ancient Greek aphorism 'nosce te ipsum' or 'temet nosce' [know thyself] is the first of three Delphic maxims inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi according to the Greek writer Pausanias. The two maxims that follow 'know thyself' were 'nothing to excess' and 'certainty brings insanity.'

The maxim, or aphorism, 'know thyself' has had a variety of meanings attributed to it in literature, and over time, as in early ancient Greek the phrase means 'know thy measure.'

Not every heart ‘sees’. The heart’s ability to ‘see’ depends on a person’s deeds. The Prophet (ﷺ) said,

إِنَّ الْعَبْدَ إِذَا أَخْطَأَ خَطِيئَةً نُكِتَتْ فِي قَلْبِهِ نُكْتَةٌ سَوْدَاءُ فَإِذَا هُوَ نَزَعَ وَاسْتَغْفَرَ وَتَابَ سُقِلَ قَلْبُهُ وَإِنْ عَادَ زِيدَ فِيهَا حَتَّى تَعْلُوَ قَلْبَهُ وَهُوَ الرَّانُ الَّذِي ذَكَرَ اللَّهُ ‏:‏ ‏(‏ كلاَّ بَلْ رَانَ عَلَى قُلُوبِهِمْ مَا كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونَ ‏)‏ ‏"‏ ‏.‏ قَالَ هَذَا حَدِيثٌ حَسَنٌ صَحِيحٌ ‏

'Verily, when the servant commits a sin, a black mark appears upon his heart. If he abandons the sin, seeks forgiveness, and repents, then his heart will be polished. If he returns to the sin, the blackness will be increased until it overcomes his heart. It is the covering that Allah has mentioned: No, rather a covering is over their hearts from what they have earned.' [Jami' at-Tirmidhi; Hasan (fair) according to Al-Albani]

In other words, the heart only ‘sees’ when it is sufficiently pure. Spiritual vision, then, is a matter of virtue and constant repentance. Conversely spiritual blindness is the result of sin and egotism, or at least complacence, like a total eclipse of the sun. And since the heart is also the seat of faith, spiritual knowledge increases faith and vice versa.So, how can a person polish his or her heart to remove the rust that accumulates over the course of life? The Prophet’s Companion, Abu Darda,’ radhiyallahu 'anhu, said, ‘There is for everything a polish that takes away rust; and the polish for the heart is the remembrance of Allah.'

Remembering Allah often: essentially, as much as one can, with love. Indeed, the cardinal spiritual commandment in the Qur’an seems to be to remember or glorify Allah in some way (with the right intention), including through reciting the Qur’an itself. Equally, most of the sunnah itself consists of either invocations or supplications to be said before or after almost every imaginable legitimate and necessary action or vital function. These include everything from the moment of birth to the moment of death; from marking the beginning of each day of the week to marking its end; from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night; from hearing a rooster crow in the morning to seeing the moon at night; from putting on one’s clothes to taking them on; from eating and drinking to going to the bathroom; from (against) being angry to making love; from coughing to sneezing to laughing to yawning; from leaving one’s home to entering it; from greeting someone to saying goodbye to them; from before starting one’s prayers to after ϧnishing them; from before starting a conversation to after ϧnishing one, and so on.

Remembering Allah at all times (or as often as possible) with love, even outside of the formal prayers, means worshipping Allah as if one saw Him necessarily, and this is called Ihsan. Hence, Ihsan or excellence means to invoke Allah as much as possible (if not constantly), and this is precisely the sunnah.

Remembering Allah is a relief. When there is no remembrance in the soul, the ego is always there whispering nasty thoughts. Allah says,

وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْاِنْسَانَ وَنَعْلَمُ مَا تُوَسْوِسُ بِهٖ نَفْسُهٗ ۖوَنَحْنُ اَقْرَبُ اِلَيْهِ مِنْ حَبْلِ الْوَرِيْدِ

'And We have already created man and know what his soul whispers to him, and We are closer1 to him than [his] jugular vein.' [QS. Qaf (50):16]

It whispers evil things about other people—or even about Allah Himself—and tries to get you to do foul things, hence its name, the soul that incites to evil [ QS. Yusuf, 12:53]. Failing that, it selfishly whines about itself: about how unjustly it has been treated; how great it really is, puffing itself up like a toad —though toads are nicer than egos, or maybe, is it the same?—and gloating over its little ‘victories.’ Anyone who watches his or her thoughts with detachment for long enough will witness this. So. Allah warns,

وَمَنْ يَّعْشُ عَنْ ذِكْرِ الرَّحْمٰنِ نُقَيِّضْ لَهٗ شَيْطٰنًا فَهُوَ لَهٗ قَرِيْنٌ

'And whoever is blinded from remembrance of the Most Merciful - We appoint for him a devil, and he is to him a companion.' [QS, Az-Zukhruf (43):36].

But when there is remembrance present in the heart, the flow of internal chatter—the ego’s ‘stream of consciousness’—dries up, and the heart finally gets some peace and rest. Allah says,

الَّذِيْنَ اٰمَنُوْا وَتَطْمَىِٕنُّ قُلُوْبُهُمْ بِذِكْرِ اللّٰهِ ۗ اَلَا بِذِكْرِ اللّٰهِ تَطْمَىِٕنُّ الْقُلُوْبُ

'Those who have believed and whose hearts are assured by the remembrance of Allāh. Unquestionably, by the remembrance of Allāh hearts are assured.' [QS. Ar-Ra‘d (13):28].

Instead of being with your own petty self, you are with Allah, at least in thought. Allah says,

فَاذْكُرُوْنِيْٓ اَذْكُرْكُمْ وَاشْكُرُوْا لِيْ وَلَا تَكْفُرُوْنِ

'So remember Me; I will remember you. And be grateful to Me and do not deny Me.' [QS. Al-Baqarah (2):152].

And over time, frequent remembrance heals the heart and makes it sound. For most people, this is what really counts in the end, when they leave their bodies and world behind. Allah says,

يَوْمَ لَا يَنْفَعُ مَالٌ وَّلَا بَنُوْنَ ۙ

اِلَّا مَنْ اَتَى اللّٰهَ بِقَلْبٍ سَلِيْمٍ ۗ

'The Day when there will not benefit [anyone] wealth or children. Only those who come before Allah with a pure heart ˹will be saved.'' [QS. Ash-Shu‘ara (26):88–89].

But beyond that, for some people, constant remembrance can lead to true spiritual vision and inspiration. Allah says in a ‘holy hadith’ (‘hadith qudsi’),

مَنْ عَادَى لِي وَلِيًّا، فَقَدْ آذَنْتُهُ بِالْحَرْبِ، وَمَا تَقَرَّبَ إِلَيَّ عَبْدِي بِشَيْءٍ أَحَبَّ إِلَيَّ مِمَّا افْتَرَضْتُ عَلَيْهِ، وَمَا يَزَالُ عَبْدِي يَتَقَرَّبُ إِلَيَّ بِالنَّوَافِلِ حَتَّى أُحِبَّهُ، فَإِذَا أَحْبَبْتُهُ، كُنْتُ سَمْعَهُ الَّذِي يَسْمَعُ بِهِ، وَبَصَرَهُ الَّذِي يُبْصِرُ بِهِ، وَيَدَهُ الَّتِي يَبْطِشُ بِهَا، وَرِجْلَهُ الَّتِي يَمْشِي بِهَا، وَإِنْ سَأَلَنِي لَأُعْطِيَنَّهُ، وَلَئِنْ اسْتَعَاذَنِي لَأُعِيذَنَّهُ، وَمَا تَرَدَّدْتُ عَنْ شَيْءٍ أَنَا فَاعِلُهُ تَرَدُّدِي عَنْ نَفْسِ عَبْدِي الْمُؤْمِنِ، يَكْرَهُ الْمَوْتَ وَأَنَا أَكْرَهُ مَسَاءَتَهُ

' Whosoever shows enmity to someone devoted to Me, I shall be at war with him. My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works so that I shall love him. When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks. Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him, and were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant him it. I do not hesitate about anything as much as I hesitate about [seizing] the soul of My faithful servant: he hates death and I hate hurting him.' [Related by Al-Bukhari]

You may ask, 'Why is it important to know this?' The answer is, it is important to know about the heart for a number of reasons. First, it is because it allows human beings to understand that they must purify their souls (tazkiyat al-nafs), and overcome their own egos and their pettiness. It is in the heart that human greatness really lies—and everything that human beings do they do first in the heart (through having the right intention). The heart is the most sublime aspect of human beings. And it requires constant spiritual work, particularly invocation.

Second, because it explains the apparent paradoxes of faith and intelligence, and of faith and evil. The first paradox is that there are geniuses with no faith, and apparently unintelligent people with a lot of faith. The second paradox is that there are good people who do good works and have no faith, and, conversely, very evil people who have faith, or who are apparently very religious. Knowing about the heart makes it clear first that faith is not a matter of mental genius—and does not depend on mental ‘intelligence’—but rather on active goodness. So being very clever—or not very clever—has little bearing on faith.

Second, it makes it clear that those people who do evil and have faith are, in fact, gradually losing it, through their actions. Conversely, people who do good—for altruistic and not merely egotistical reasons—are gradually gaining it. They are polishing their own hearts. The Prophet (ﷺ) said,

الْبِرُّ حُسْنُ الْخُلُقِ، وَالإِثْمُ مَا حَكَّ فِي نَفْسِكَ وَكَرِهْتَ أَنْ يَطَّلِعَ عَلَيْهِ النَّاسُ

'Al-Birru (Righteousness) is good character and sin is what gnaws at your conscience and that which you dislike for other people to become aware of.' [Al-Adab Al-Mufrad; Sahih according to Al-Albani]

Third, more mundanely, it is important to know about the heart because most people today are educated to believe that they are essentially only their own ‘mind’ with a body attached to it. The ‘mind’ is thought of as merely ‘programming’ plus ‘cumulative experiences’. These are believed to be physically inside neural pathways in their physical brains within their skulls, just as a computer is essentially comprised of a microchip within a PC or a mobile phone. So when the ‘computer’ is permanently turned off or broken, you die. This seems to have the weight of medical evidence behind it, since all body parts except the brain (including the physical heart) seem to be surgically replaceable, and since brain damage is associated with memory loss. So basically, whether we say so or not, we tend to subconsciously believe that we are moving, organic computers. This means that our whole interaction with objective ‘reality’ is conϧned by our bodies and mediated by our five senses.

And yet all of us—or perhaps many of us—have experiences that do not fit into this model of ourselves. For example, many people often seem to know in advance who is calling them on the phone, even if they do not ever call at that time, or were not expected to call then. And many times, the person receiving the call says, ‘Oh I was just thinking about you.’ This seems particularly true for people with genuine aϱection for each other. Often also, one will have a ‘feeling’ about something and then it happens or proves to be true.

A lot of times the feeling turns out to be wrong or wishful thinking, but often it is correct. And it is astounding how even pets seem to develop a ‘sixth sense’ about their owners to the extent of knowing when they are returning home: scientiϧc studies have actually been done on this.

Then there are ‘déjà vus’ and, more powerfully, premonition dreams or visions: sometimes you see the thing that is going to happen in a dream; sometimes you see a symbol of it. Most often perhaps, you feel misgivings or ominous unease about something for no apparent reason. Sometimes you sense a danger coming. Now psychologists and statisticians have some very good ‘scientific’ explanations for a lot of these phenomena, but not all of them. And many people begin to recognize from their own trials-and-errors which of their different kinds of intuitions they should take seriously, and which should be ignored.

So, knowing about the heart is important because it gives you a model that helps look at intuitions more openly and objectively. This is particularly important with strong intuitions about impending danger. In short, knowing about the heart helps you to use your own ‘gut feeling’. Indeed, the Prophet (ﷺ) said to Wabisah ibn Ma’bad, radiyallahu ‘anhu, three times, combined three of his fingers and started to poke him with them in his chest and said, ‘O Wabisah, ask your heart, ask yourself.’ [HR Imam Ahmad; Hasan by Al-Mundhiri]

About Tadabbur, Allah says,

اَفَلَا يَتَدَبَّرُوْنَ الْقُرْاٰنَ ۗ وَلَوْ كَانَ مِنْ عِنْدِ غَيْرِ اللّٰهِ لَوَجَدُوْا فِيْهِ اخْتِلَافًا كَثِيْرًا

'Then do they not reflect upon the Qur’ān?1 If it had been from [any] other than Allah, they would have found within it much contradiction.' [QS. An-Nisa (4):82]

The development of tadabbur understanding is essential to, what we called, Critical Thinking, because critical thinking by definition involves reflecting on what is known and how that knowledge is justified. They know what they think and can justify why. The word of tadabbur means learn and understand al-Quran completely which is knows the law of Islam and believes all the contents. Allah emphasizes al-Quran is a complete book because it came from Allah. This is the higher level where man judges the idea.

The Qur’an was revealed to those who recite it or listen to its verses, will contemplate and reflect upon its messages. This reflection leads to appreciation of Allah’s creation, self-tranquility, remembrance of Allah, reminding the thinker of his ‘obligations’ and the requirements to fulfill them and observations study and exploration of the universe. This leads to the discovery of the governing of the universe, which has been made subservient to mankind for cultivation of earth and establishment of civilization.

So, what are the characteristics of thinking? They are: asking questions; defining a problem; examining evidence; analysis assumption and biases; avoiding emotional reasoning; considering other interpretations; avoiding over simplification; and tolerating ambiguity.

One of the conception dari Critical Thinking is Ijtihad. Ijtihad means to make an effort either physically or mentally on a particular issue, to the ability of independent reasoning, where after thoroughly examining an argument and comparing it with previous parallel arguments, one comes to a solution.

Similar to Ijtihad, is the concept of the Qiyas, which denotes analogical reasoning and it's mainly used on Islamic legal matters. A layman can do qiyas on their own yet on smaller matters such as determining which direction one faces when praying, when they don't have an officoal guide to help them out. Qiyas, and so too for Ijtihad, allow for jurists to create new laws based on the changing times of the world as culture of daily life changes, though these new laws based previosly settled analogous claims."

"So, as the conclusion," said Swara that there many verses in the Quran encourage men to think. Many of Western thinking are based on customary law only, but Islam sets out to think on the basis of customary of law, mind law, and sharia law.

And the most important that Islam encourages its followers to think, but it restrict them, and of course, for all of us, from thinking about the substance of Allah. Allah always commanded men to think about His creation, i.e. men and universe, in order to know Him. And Allah knows best."

Time to go, slowly, Swara's echo faded, and she hummed,

َيَا نَبِى سَلَامْ عَلَيْك

[Ya nabi salam alayka]

Oh Prophet, peace be upon you

َيَارَسُولْ سَلَامْ عَلَيْك

[Ya rassool salam alayka]

Oh Messenger, peace be upon you

َيَا حَبِيبْ سَلَامْ عَلَيْك

[Ya habeeb salam alayka]

Oh beloved, peace be upon you

َصَلَوَاتُ اللهْ عَلَيْك

[Salawatollah alayka] *)

May Allah send blessing upon you

Citations & References:
- H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, A Thinking Person's Guide to Islam, Turath Publishing
- Muhammad Mumtaz Ali, Critical Thinking : An Islamic Perspective, Amazon

- Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated and edited by Paul Guyer  & Allen W. Wood, Cambridge University Press

- B. Jowett, M.A., The Republic of Plato - Translated into English with Introduction, Analysis, Marginal Analysis and Index, Clarendon Press

*) "Ya Nabi Salam Alayka" written by Salah Galal, Maher Zain & Hamza Namira

Bahasa

The Thinkers : Thinking

"One day," Swara began the talk, when she came after greeting with Basmalah and Salaam. "The King of Eagles, in front of thousands of journalists, quoting John Gray's eponymous metaphor, he anounced, 'Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. So, in the next few weeks, we will land on Venus.'

Hearing the announcement, the Duck King immediately reacted. And in front of thousands of journalists, he, accompanied by a minister and a governor, announced, 'In one and a half months, we have completed the runway of a spaceship with astronauts, will land into the Sun!' The audience had mixed responses, some said, 'That's a great idea!' But a journalist commented, 'Pardon me sir, how do you do that? Isn't the Sun very hot, and perhaps the spaceship will catch fire before it even gets closer?'

The minister and the governor whispered to the Duck King, he nodded and without even thinking, then said, 'Don't worry, based on the data we have collected and an exact calculations, we're going to land the spaceship on the Sun, at midnight!'

For a moment, Swara stopped, then said, 'The French philosopher René Descartes famously declared, 'Cogito, ergo sum [I think, therefore I am].' Every fully functioning human adult, shares a sense that the ability to think, to reason, is a part of one’s fundamental identity. A person may be struck blind or deaf, yet still recognize his or her core cognitive capacities as intact. Even loss of language, the gift often claimed as the sine qua non of Homo sapiens, does not take away a person’s essential humanness. Perhaps thinking, not language, lies closest to both the core of our individual identity and to what is special about our species.

A person who loses language but can still make intelligent decisions, as demonstrated by actions, is viewed as mentally competent. In contrast, the kinds of brain damage that rob an individual of the capacity to think and reason are considered the harshest blows that can be struck against a sense of personhood, 'Cogito, ergo sum.'

We can start to answer a question, 'What is Thinking?' by looking at the various ways the word thinking is used in everyday language. 'I think that water is necessary for life,' and 'Keith and Bob think George was a fascist'; both express beliefs (of varying degrees of apparent plausibility)—explicit claims of what someone takes to be a truth about the world. 'Ann is sure to think of a solution' carries us into the realm of problem solving, the mental construction of an action plan to achieve a goal. The complaint, 'Why didn’t you think before you went ahead with your half-baked scheme?' emphasizes that thinking can be a kind of foresight, a way of 'seeing' the possible future. 'What do you think about it?' calls for a judgment, an assessment of the desirability of an option. 'Genocide is evil' takes judgment into the moral domain. And then there’s 'Albert is lost in thought,' where thinking becomes some sort of mental meadow through which a person might meander on a rainy afternoon, oblivious to the world outside.

Rips and Conrad elicited judgments from college students about how various mentalistic terms relate to one another. Using statistical techniques, the investigators were able to summarize these relationships. Roughly, people think planning is a kind of deciding, which is a kind of reasoning, which is a kind of conceptualizing, which is a kind of thinking. People also think (that verb again!) that thinking is part of conceptualizing, which is part of remembering, which is part of reasoning, and so on. The kinds ordering and the parts ordering are quite similar; most strikingly, thinking is the most general term in both orderings—the grand superordinate of mental activities, which permeates all the others.

It is not easy to make the move from the free flow of everyday speech to scientific definitions of mental terms, but let us nonetheless offer a preliminary definition of thinking, 'Thinking is the systematic transformation of mental representations of knowledge to characterize actual or possible states of the world, often in service of goals.'

The study of thinking includes several interrelated subfields, which reflect slightly different perspectives on thinking. Reasoning, which has a long tradition that springs from philosophy and logic, places emphasis on the process of drawing inferences (conclusions) from some initial information (premises). In standard logic, an inference is deductive if the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion by virtue of the argument form.

If the truth of the premises renders the truth of the conclusion more credible, but does not bestow certainty, the inference is called inductive. Judgment and decision making involve assessment of the value of an option or the probability that it will yield a certain payoff (judgment), coupled with choice among alternatives (decision making). Problem solving involves the construction of a course of action that can achieve a goal.

Although these distinct perspectives on thinking are useful in organizing the field, these aspects of thinking overlap in every conceivable way. To solve a problem, one is likely to reason about the consequences of possible actions and to make decisions to select among alternative actions.

A logic problem, as the name implies, is a problem to be solved (with the goal of deriving or evaluating a possible conclusion). Making a decision is often a problem that requires reasoning. And so on. These subdivisions of the field, like our preliminary definition of thinking, should be treated as guideposts, not destinations.

Thinking and reasoning, long the academic province of philosophy, have over the past century emerged as core topics of empirical investigation and theoretical analysis in the modern fields known as cognitive psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience. Before psychology was founded, the 18th-century philosophers Immanuel Kant (in Germany) and David Hume (in Scotland) laid the foundations for all subsequent work on the origins of causal knowledge, perhaps the most central problem in the study of thinking. And if we were to choose one phrase to set the stage for modern views of thinking, it would be an observation of the British philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who in 1651 in his treatise Leviathan proposed 'Reasoning is but reckoning.' Reckoning is an odd term today, but in the 17th century it meant 'computation,' as in arithmetic calculations.

It was not until the 20th century that the psychology of thinking became a scientific endeavor. The first half of the century gave rise to many important pioneers who in very different ways laid the foundations for the emergence of the modern field of thinking and reasoning. Foremost were the Gestalt psychologists of Germany, who provided deep insights into the nature of problem solving. Most notable of the Gestaltists were Karl Duncker and Max Wertheimer, students of human problem solving, and Wolfgang Köhler, a keen observer of problem solving by great apes.

The pioneers of the early 20th century also include Sigmund Freud, whose complex and evercontroversial legacy includes the notions that forms of thought can be unconscious, and that 'cold' cognition is tangled up with 'hot' emotion. As the founder of clinical psychology, Freud’s legacy also includes the ongoing integration of research on 'normal' thinking with studies of thought disorders, such as schizophrenia.

Other early pioneers in the early and mid-century contributed to various fields of study that are now embraced within thinking and reasoning. Cognitive development continues to be influenced by the early theories developed by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget and the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. In the United States, Charles Spearman was a leader in the systematic study of individual differences in intelligence. In the middle of the century, the Russian neurologist Alexander Luria made immense contributions to our understanding of how thinking depends on specific areas of the brain, anticipating the modern field of cognitive neuroscience. Around the same time in the United States, Herbert Simon argued that the traditional rational model of economic theory should be replaced with a framework that accounted for a variety of human resource constraints, such as bounded attention and memory capacity and limited time. This was one of the contributions that in 1978 earned Simon the Nobel Prize in Economics.

In 1943, the British psychologist Kenneth Craik sketched the fundamental notion that a mental representation provides a kind of model of the world that can be 'run' to make predictions (much like an engineer might use a physical scale model of a bridge to anticipate the effects of stress on the actual bridge intended to span a river). In the 1960s and 1970s, modern work on the psychology of reasoning began in Britain with the contributions of Peter Wason and his collaborator Philip Johnson-Laird.

The modern conception of thinking as computation became prominent in the 1970s. In their classic treatment of human problem solving, Allen Newell and Herbert Simon showed that the computational analysis of thinking (anticipated by Alan Turing, the father of computer science) could yield important empirical and theoretical results. Like a program running on a digital computer, a person thinking through a problem can be viewed as taking an input that represents initial conditions and a goal, and applying a sequence of operations to reduce the difference between the initial conditions and the goal. The work of Newell and Simon established computer simulation as a standard method for analyzing human thinking. It also highlighted the potential of production systems, which were subsequently developed extensively as cognitive models by John Anderson and his colleagues.

The 1970s saw a wide range of major developments that continue to shape the field. Eleanor Rosch, building on earlier work by Jerome Bruner, addressed the fundamental question of why people have the categories they do, and not other logically possible groupings of objects. Rosch argued that natural categories often have fuzzy boundaries (a whale is an odd mammal), but nonetheless have clear central tendencies, or prototypes (people by and large agree that a bear makes a fine mammal). The psychology of human judgment was reshaped by the insights of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, who identified simple cognitive strategies, or heuristics, that people use to make judgments of frequency and probability. Often quick and accurate, these strategies can in some circumstances lead to nonnormative judgments. After Tversky’s death in 1996, this line of work was continued by Kahneman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. The current view of judgment that has emerged from 30 years of research is summarized by Griffin et al. Goldstone and Son review Tversky’s influential theory of similarity judgments.

In 1982 David Marr, a young vision scientist, laid out a vision of how the science of mind should proceed. Marr distinguished three levels of analysis, which he termed the levels of computation, representation and algorithm, and implementation. Each level, according to Marr, addresses different questions, which he illustrated with the example of a physical device, the cash register. At Marr’s most abstract level, computation (not to be confused with computation of an algorithm on a computer), the basic questions are 'What is the goal that the cognitive process is meant to accomplish?' and ' What is the logic of the mapping from the input to the output that distinguishes this mapping from other inputoutput mappings?' A cash register, viewed at this level, is used to achieve the goal of calculating how much is owed for a purchase. This task maps precisely onto the axioms of addition (e.g., the amount owed shouldn’t vary with the order in which items are presented to the sales clerk, a constraint that precisely matches the commutativity property of addition). It follows that without knowing anything else about the workings of a particular cash register, we can be sure that (if it is working properly) it will be doing addition (not division).

The level of representation and algorithm, as the name implies, deals with the questions, 'What is the representation of the input and output?' and 'What is the algorithm for transforming the former into the latter?' Within a cash register, addition might be performed using numbers in either decimal or binary code, starting with either the leftmost or rightmost digit. Finally, the level of implementation addresses the question, 'How are the representation and algorithm realized physically? The cash register could be implemented as an electronic calculator, or a mechanical adding machine, or even a mental abacus in the mind of the clerk.

In his book, Marr stressed the importance of the computational level of analysis, arguing that it could be seriously misleading to focus prematurely on the more concrete levels of analysis for a cognitive task without understanding the goal or nature of the mental computation. Sadly, Marr died of leukemia before his book was published, so we do not know how his thinking about levels of analysis might have evolved.

There are two kinds of thinking we call 'scientific.' The first, and most obvious, is thinking about the content of science. People are engaged in scientific thinking when they are reasoning about such entities and processes as force, mass, energy, equilibrium, magnetism, atoms, photosynthesis, radiation, geology, or astrophysics (and, of course, cognitive psychology!). The second kind of scientific thinking includes the set of reasoning processes that permeate the field of science: induction, deduction, experimental design, causal reasoning, concept formation, hypothesis testing, and so on. However, these reasoning processes are not unique to scientific thinking: They are the very same processes involved in everyday thinking. As Einstein put it: 'The scientific way of forming concepts differs from that which we use in our daily life, not basically, but merely in the more precise definition of concepts and conclusions; more painstaking and systematic choice of experimental material, and greater logicaleconomy.'

One of the primary goals of accounts of scientific thinking has been to provide an overarching framework to understand the scientific mind. One framework that has had a great influence in cognitive science is that scientific thinking and scientific discovery can be conceived as a form of problem solving. Simon argued that both scientific thinking in general and problem solving in particular could be thought of as a search in a problem space.

Many researchers have also regarded testing specific hypotheses predicted by theories as one of the key attributes of scientific thinking. Hypothesis testing is the process of evaluating a proposition by collecting evidence regarding its truth. Experimental cognitive research on scientific thinking that specifically examines this issue has tended to fall into two broad classes of investigations. The first class is concerned with the types of reasoning that lead scientists astray, thus blocking scientific ingenuity. A large amount of research has been conducted on the potentially faulty reasoning strategies that both participants in experiments and scientists use, such as considering only one favored hypothesis at a time and how this prevents the scientists from making discoveries.

The second class is concerned with uncovering the mental processes underlying the generation of new scientific hypotheses and concepts. This research has tended to focus on the use of analogy and imagery in science, as well as the use of specific types of problem-solving heuristics.

One of the most basic characteristics of science is that scientists assume that the universe that we live in follows predictable rules. Scientists reason using a variety of different strategies to make new scientific discoveries. Three frequently used types of reasoning strategies that scientists use are inductive, abductive, and deductive reasoning. In the case of inductive reasoning, a scientist may observe a series of events and try to discover a rule that governs the event. Once a rule is discovered, scientists can extrapolate from the rule to formulate theories of observed and yet-to-beobserved phenomena. Example of induction: Daisy is swan and white. Danny is a swan and white. Dante is a swan and white [and so on]. Therefore, all swans are white.

One example is the discovery using inductive reasoning that a certain type of bacterium is a cause of many ulcers. Example of abduction: All swans are white. Daisy is white. Therefore, Daisy is a swan.

While less commonly mentioned than inductive reasoning, abductive reasoning is an important form of reasoning that scientists use when they are seeking to propose explanations for events such as unexpected findings.

Turning now to deductive thinking, many thinking processes that scientists adhere to follow traditional rules of deductive logic. These processes correspond to those conditions in which a hypothesis may lead to, or is deducible to, a conclusion. Example of deductive : All swans are white. Daisy is swan. Therefore, Daisy is white.

Though they are not always phrased in syllogistic form, deductive arguments can be phrased as 'syllogisms,' or as brief, mathematical statements in which the premises lead to the conclusion. Deductive reasoning is an extremely important aspect of scientific thinking because it underlies a large component of how scientists conduct their research. By looking at many scientific discoveries, we can often see that deductive reasoning is at work. Deductive reasoning statements all contain information or rules that state an assumption about how the world works, as well as a conclusion that would necessarily follow from the rule. Numerous discoveries in physics such as the discovery of dark matter by Vera Rubin are based on deductions.

One of the most widely mentioned reasoning processes used in science is analogy. Scientists use analogies to form a bridge between what they already know and what they are trying to explain, understand, or discover. In fact, many scientists have claimed that the making of certain analogies was instrumental in their making a scientific discovery, and almost all scientific autobiographies and biographies feature one particular analogy that is discussed in depth. Coupled with the fact that there has been an enormous research program on analogical thinking and reasoning, we now have a number of models and theories of analogical reasoning that suggest how analogy can play a role in scientific discovery. By analyzing several major discoveries in the history of science, Thagard and Croft, Nersessian, and Gentner and Jeziorski have all shown that analogical reasoning is a key aspect of scientific discovery.

The similarities between children’s thinking and scientists’ thinking have an inherent allure and an internal contradiction. Before their first birthday, children appear to know several fundamental facts about the physical world. For example, studies with infants show that they behave as if they understand that solid objects endure over time (e.g., they don’t just disappear and reappear, they cannot move through each other, and they move as a result of collisions with other solid objects or the force of gravity. And even 6-month-olds are able to predict the future location of a moving object that they are attempting to grasp. In addition, they appear to be able to make nontrivial inferences about causes and their effects.

Computational approaches have provided a more complete account of the scientific mind. Computational models provide specific detailed accounts of the cognitive processes underlying scientific thinking. Early computational work consisted of taking a scientific discovery and building computational models of the reasoning processes involved in the discovery.

The legal profession has long claimed that there are process-based differences between legal reasoning—that is, the thinking and reasoning of lawyers and judges—and the reasoning of those without legal training. Whether those claims are sound, however, is a subject of considerable debate.

The practice of medicine requires art as well as science. The latter argues for a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying disease processes and use of scientific evidence in making patient care decisions. The study of medical reasoning and thinking underlies much of medical cognition and has been the focus of research in cognitive science and artificial intelligence in medicine. Expertise and medical knowledge organization, the directionality of reasoning, and the nature of medical errors are intricately tied to thinking and decision-making processes in medicine. With the recent advancement of technology in medicine, technology-mediated reasoning and reasoning support systems will be a focus for future research.

Thinking and reasoning enter into the practice of business in limitless ways. The practice of business is enormously variable. The marketer influencing a customer’s purchase, the executive negotiating a deal, the manager coordinating the production of goods, the analyst reviewing company performance, and the accountant trying to make the numbers add up are all engaging in aspects of the practice of business.

Businesses need to sell their products and services, so a major concern of business is shaping how consumers make purchases, use products, and think about brands. Consumer behavior researchers study these questions and generate more psychological research on individual thinking and reasoning than researchers in any other area of business academia. As a simple indication of the role of cognition research in consumer behavior, the Handbook of Consumer Psychology dedicates about half of its 1,200 pages to reviewing information processing and social cognition research. Most consumer behavior research on thinking and reasoning is experimental. There is also mathematical and computational modeling, field survey research, observations of consumer activity, examinations of archival measures of consumer activity, and some qualitative research.

Consumer purchasing is a decision-making activity. For example, one prominent feature of the consumer decision-making context (as any walk through a grocery store or time spent shopping online will make apparent) is a concern for how people make decisions hen confronted by large numbers of options. More generally, decision making is an activity, and the many goals decision makers have as they engage in that activity guide the choices that result.

Listening to music entails processes in which auditory input is automatically analyzed and classified, and conscious processes in which listeners interpret and evaluate the music. Performing music involves engaging in rehearsed movements that reflect procedural (embodied) knowledge of music, along with conscious efforts to guide and refine these movements through online monitoring of the sounded output. Composing music balances the use of intuition that reflects implicit knowledge of music with conscious and deliberate efforts to invent musical textures and devices that are innovative and consistent with individual aesthetic goals. Listeners and musicians also interact with one another in ways that blur the boundary between them: Listeners tap or clap in time with music, monitor the facial expressions and gestures of performers, and empathize emotionally with musicians; musicians, in turn, attend to their audience and perform differently depending on the perceived energy and attitude of their listeners.

Musicians and listeners are roped together through shared cognitive, emotional, and motor experiences, exhibiting remarkable synchrony in behavior and thought.

Learning to think is about transfer. 'Learning to think' is different from 'learning' in that it implies that a learner achieves an increase in more general intellectual capability, rather than just in more specific domain content. Learning to think implies more than learning English, learning math, learning history, or learning science. In other words, learning to think implies transfer.

One way to learn to think is learning languages with which to think more powerfully. The obvious case is learning a natural language, like English. It seems uncontroversial that a good part of what makes human thinking so powerful is our capability for language. The spoken form of natural language not only facilitates communication and collaborative thinking but also provides a medium for reasoning and logical thinking. The written form further facilitates collaborative endeavors over wide stretches of time and space and is also arguably a vehicle for improving thought. Anyone who has written a manuscript, is likely to have had the experience that the writing process changes one’s thinking and yields a better product than spontaneous speech would have. Clearly, language-learning activities are a huge part of learning to think and a major responsibility of our educational systems.'"

"And lastly, before I go, " Swara was going to end her discussion, 'liston to this story, 'In November, the Indian chief began to think it was going to be a cold winter. 'Winter is coming!' said he. So he instructed his tribe to collect firewood. To double-check his prediction, the chief called the National Weather Service and asked a meteorologist if the winter was going to be a cold one. The man responded, 'According to our indicators, we think it just might be.'

Following the phone call, the chief told his people to find extra wood, just in case. A week later he called the National Weather Service again, and they conɹrmed that a harsh winter was indeed headed their way.

The chief ordered all of the villagers to scavenge every scrap of wood they could. Two weeks later, he called the National Weather Service again and asked, 'Are you absolutely certain this winter is going to be very cold?'

'Oh, we sure are,' the man replied, 'the Indians are collecting wood like crazy.'

And Allah knows best."

Citations & References:
- Keith J. Holyoak & Robert G. Morrison (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning, Oxford University Press
- D.Q. McInerny, Being Logical - A Guide to Good Thinking, Random House

[Session 5]

[Session 3]

Bahasa

Toad's Rhetorical Fallacy

"Why Argument is different from Opinion?" Swara started a talk with a question when she came, after greeting with Basmalah and Salaam.

"Many people have difficulty understanding the difference between an argument and the expression of a personal belief or opinion. They use the words 'argument' and 'opinion' interchangeably. Sometimes, when you ask others for an argument for their belief or position on an issue, they will give you their opinion about that issue rather than an argument. In other words, they simply tell you what they believe.

An argument is a group of statements, one or more of which, the premises, support or provide evidence for another, the conclusion. The premises of an argument are those statements that together constitute the reasons for believing the conclusion to be true. Some premises are conclusions of previous arguments, while others may be statements of fact, personal observations, expert testimony, or expressions of common knowledge. Premises may also be found in the form of definitions, principles, or rules, which, together with other premises, are used in an attempt to support the truth of the conclusion.

An argument is aimed at the goal of demonstrating the truth or falsity of a particular claim by presenting evidence that may persuade others to accept that claim. If a claim or position is being asserted in a piece of written or spoken material and no other explicit or implicit statement is used to support it, then the material in question is not an argument. It may express an opinion or take a position on an issue, but it is not an argument unless that opinion or position is defended with at least one other piece of evidence or statement of support.

An argument is constituted by two or more explicit and/or implicit claims, one or more of which supports or provides evidence for the truth or merit of another claim, the conclusion.

One of the most difficult tasks in evaluating arguments is that of identifying which of several statements in a piece of argumentative writing or discourse is the conclusion. The conclusion of an argument should not be confused with the main point in the material being examined. Most editorials and letters to the editor, for example, have a point to make, but many of them are not arguments. If no reasons are given for the position taken, there is nothing to conclude. The letter or editorial, in such a case, is simply a series of unsupported claims or points. The conclusion of an argument should be the statement or claim that has at least one other statement in support of it. If you are uncertain about whether there is a conclusion lurking about, look for a statement that seems to give some reason to believe that some other statement in the material is true. That other statement is likely to be the conclusion.

Sometimes, but not usually, conclusions follow words like 'therefore,' 'consequently,' 'hence,' 'so,' 'then,' or 'it follows that.' Sometimes, but not usually, premises follow words like 'since,' 'because,' 'if' or 'assuming that.' In real-life arguments, however, the parts of the argument are not so easily identified. One is usually called upon to interpret the structure of the argument without the help of these identifiers.

In some arguments, there may be several statements, each of which is supported by others. These other supported statements may be the argument’s premises, which may themselves be seen as conclusions supported by so-called subpremises. To determine which supported statement is not a premise but the conclusion of the main argument, try to determine which supported statement also seems to be the primary thesis being defended in the passage. It is possible, of course, and is very often the case, that more than one argument is being presented, particularly in speeches and informal discussions. If you suspect there are multiple arguments in the passage, try to guide the discussion so that it deals with one argument at a time.

A belief should be the conclusion of an argument. The very word 'conclusion' suggests that it is an opinion or judgment resulting from some process of rational reflection on the evidence. While it is true that all of our claims are opinions, the important question is whether our opinions are supported or unsupported. An argument is a supported opinion. When one criticize an argument by saying of its conclusion something like, 'Well, that’s just his or her opinion,' I remind them that an opinion expressed as the conclusion of an argument is not 'just an opinion'; it is a supported opinion, and any criticism of that opinion should be aimed at the quality of the argument supporting it.

The expression of personal opinion is one of the most common forms of verbal exchange, and since reasons for our opinions are often not requested, we are unaccustomed to defending them and are even lulled into thinking that reasons are not required. 'Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion,' it is often said. This is true, but the question here is not whether one has the right to express an opinion; it is a question of which opinions deserve our acceptance. If an opinion is not accompanied by reasons to support it, it is not possible to determine whether it merits our acceptance.

Most of us enjoy exchanging our opinions with others, but rarely do our opinions change unless arguments for another position are presented. And there is reason to believe that some of our opinions need to change, because some of them conflict with each other and therefore cannot all be true. Since some of our opinions also conflict with the opinions of others, we know that some of us are now holding false opinions; for if there are two opposing or different opinions about some matter, at least one of them is false. But which is it? That question can be answered only by evaluating the quality of the argument presented on behalf of each view.

No argument, however, may be regarded as permanently successful. There is always the possibility that new evidence will come to light that will raise new doubts about a position held on what were thought to be good grounds. Under these conditions, further examination is always appropriate. Pride in holding a position defended by a good argument in the past should not become an obstacle to reopening the issue in the present if conditions warrant it. The principles of fallibility and truth-seeking are as important at this point as they were in the original inquiry.

There is a very clear difference between an argument and a good argument. A person who makes a claim that is supported by at least one other claim has created an argument, but it may not be a very good one. There are five criteria of a good argument. It must have: a well-formed structure, premises that are relevant to the truth of the conclusion, premises that are acceptable to a reasonable person, premises that together constitute sufficient grounds for the truth of the conclusion, and premises that provide an effective rebuttal to all anticipated criticisms of the argument.

A fallacy is a violation of one of the criteria of a good argument. Fallacies, then, stem from one or more of the following:

• A structural flaw in the argument
• A premise that is irrelevant to the conclusion
• A premise that fails to meets the standards of acceptability
• A set of premises that together are insufficient to establish the argument’s conclusion
• A failure to give an effective rebuttal to the anticipated criticisms of the argument
• Any argument that fails to satisfy one or more of these criteria is a fallacious one. A fallacy is a mistake in an argument that violates one or more of the five criteria of a good argument, but it may violate a criterion in a number of different ways, all of which share some common features with other violations of that same criterion.

The original Greek idea of a fallacy, found in Aristotle's practical manual on the art of argumentation, the De sophisticis elenchis (On Sophistical Refutations), viewed a fallacy (or sophistical refutation) as a deliberate deceptive tactic of argumentation used to trick and get the best of a speech partner in dialogue unfairly. But this idea afterward fell into disuse and along with it the background framework of practical logic as a dialectical art of conversation between two parties who reason together. In its place, Aristotle's syllogistic logic, and with it the idea of deductive logic as a system for testing inferences for validity, took over as the dominant point of view in logic. The view of fallacy that evolved into the modern logic textbooks took on this dominant point of view, seeing a fallacy as an erroneous inferencea kind of error of reasoning that was a faulty inference from a premise to a conclusion. This viewpoint abstracted away the concept of argument as an exchange in dialogue between two parties.

According to the new theory, a fallacy is—first and foremost—an argumentation scheme used wrongly. The types of arguments corresponding to the traditional so-called fallacies have underlying argumentation schemes. If an argument of one of these types is advanced in the format of the appropriate type of dialogue and is backed up sufficiently in that context by the support of its distinctive premises, it can be a reasonable argument as used in that context of dialogue. To say that such an argument is reasonable, however, is not generally to say only that it has a certain structure of constants and variables in its premises and conclusion similar to that which one finds in a deductively valid argument. Instead, it is to say that the argument is a sequence of argumentation that contributes to the realization of a proper goal of dialogue for the context in which it was advanced.

The idea of fallacy arises through the possibility that argumentation schemes and themes can be used wrongly, as calculated mechanisms of preventing appropriate critical questions from arising at all, by impeding the dialogue in certain characteristic ways. This new concept of a fallacy is premised on argumentation schemes that are inherently presumptive in nature, that is, that come into play as arguments where knowledge is insufficient to derive a conclusion with certainty or even with probability. Such cases of balance-of-considerations argumentation are settled on the basis of burden of proof in a dialogue. Traditionally, however, the reputation of this type of argumentation for subjectivity has led mainstream logic to be very suspicious of it as a respectable kind of reasoning at all. But this suspicion must be dealt with, and overcome, if we are to have a logical theory useful for identifying, analyzing, and evaluating fallacies."

Swara silenced for a moment, then she said, "One day, Frog and Toad were watching tv. But everytime Toad was switching the channel, he exclaimed, 'That's the Father of Identity,'; 'That's Governour Pharaoh'—even if Pharaoh would objected because he was equated with the Governor while he was a king; 'That's American's Golden Boy'; and so on. Frog was curioused and said, 'Who told you that?' While kept on watching happily, Toad replied, 'They told me so!'

And when the tv showed someone Toad adored so much, Frog exclaimed, "That's 'China's Rotten Boy!' Instantly, Toad's face scowled. Frog said, 'Frog, don't sulk, I'm just talking like what you're saying.' Frog said, 'How could you say like that, who told you?' Frog replied, 'They told me so!' Still cranky, Toad nodded.

'Toad listen!' said Frog, then Toad turned to him. 'Have you ever engaged in an argument where the person opposite you tries to present their position through a series of statements that didn't relate to the actual discussion? Or perhaps they tried to scare you into agreeing with their stance on the subject, rather than using a logical argument?'

'I don't understand, tell me, please!' replied Toad. Frog said, 'These are types of rhetorical fallacies, and they feel so frustrating because they are rooted in faulty reasoning and often deceptive intentions.

The word 'fallacy' comes from the Latin word 'fallere,' which means 'to deceive.' The word transformed in the late 15th century with Middle English to 'fallacia,' which means 'deception and guile.'

Rhetological Fallacies are errors and manipulations of Rhetoric and Logical Thinking. There are hundreds of different types of rhetorical fallacies. While there isn’t necessarily one that is used more often than others, many rhetorical fallacies are logical fallacies. Logic is an effective way to lead someone to agreeing with you about something, and so people frequently misuse logic in their arguments.

Good communicators know certainly how to avoid logical fallacies. Logical fallacies weaken an argument by treating a false assumption as fact, but because many speakers and writers don’t take the time to consider the basis of their arguments, logical fallacies are fairly common in politics, business and even in interpersonal communication.

To understand logical fallacies, you should consider the six main categories of fallacy types: attacks, content manipulation, faulty deduction, garbled cause and effect, emotional appeals and mental appeals. While there are dozens of different fallacies, most of them fall into these six groups.

Attacks include,

Ad hominems [of an argument or reaction, directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining] : bypassing the argument by launching an irrelevant attack on the person and not their claim. Unfortunately, this type of argument can be effective, but pointing out the attack will undermine its effectiveness.

Burden of Proof: I don't need to prove my claim—you must prove it is false.

Circumstance Ad Hominem: stating a claim isn't credible only because of the advocate's interests in their claim.

Genetic Fallacy: Attacking the cause or origin of acclaim, rather than its substance.

Guilt by Association: Discrediting an idea or claim by associating it with an undesirable person or group.

Straw Man: Creating a distorted or simplified caricature of your opponent's argument, and then arguing against that.

Manipulating Content include,

• Ad Hoc Rescue: Trying to save a cherished belief by repeatedly revising the argument to explain away problems.
• Begging the Question: A conclusion is derived from a statement based on the conclusion. Similar to circular logic, only with just one step.
• Biased Generalising: Generalising from an unrepresentative sample to increase the strength of your argument.
• Confirmation Bias: Cherry-picking evidence that supportsyour idea while ignoringcontradictingevidence.
• False Dilemma: Presenting two opposing options as the only two options while hiding alternatives.
• Lie: An outright untruthrepeated knowingly as a fact.
• Misleading Vividness: Describing an occurrence in vivid detail, even if it is a rare occurrence, to convince someone that it is a problem.
• Red Herring: Introducing irrelevant material to the argument to distract and lead towards a different conclusion.
• Slippery Slope: Assuming a relatively small first step will inevitably lead to a chain of related (negative) events.
• Suppressed Evidence: Intentionally failing to use significant and relevant information that counts against one'sown conclusion.
• Unfalsifiability: Offering a claim that cannot be proven false, because there is no way to check if it is false or not.

Faulty Deduction include,

• Anecdotal Evidence: Discounting evidence arrived at by systematic search or testing In favour of a few first hand stories.
• Composition: Assuming that characteristics or beliefs of some or all of a group apply to the entire group.
• Division: Assuming that characteristics or beliefs of a group automatically apply to any individual member.
• Design Fallacy: Assuming that because somethingis nicely designed or beautifully visualised it’s more true.
• Gambler’s Fallacy: Assuming the history future outcomes.
• Hasty Generalisation: Drawing a general conclusion from a tiny sample.
• Jumping to Conclusion: Drawing a quick conclusion without fairly considering relevant (and easy available) evidence.
• Middle Ground: Assuming because two opposing arguments have merit, the answer must lie somewhere between them.
• Perfectionist Fallacy: Assuming that the only option on the table is perfect success, then rejecting anything that will not work perfectly.
• Relativist Fallacy: Rejecting a claim because of a belief that truth is relative to a person or group.
• Sweeping Generalisation: Applying a general rule too broadly.
• Undistributed Middle: Assuming because two things share a property, that makes them the same thing.
• Spotlight: Assuming an obsorvation from a small sample size applies to entire group.

Garbled cause and effect include,

• Affirming the Consequent: Assuming there's only one explanation for the observation you're making.
• Circular Logic: A conclusion is derived from a premise based on the conclusion.
• Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc: Claiming two events that occur together must have a cause-and-effect relationship [Correlation = cause]
• Denying the Antecedent: There isn't only one explanation for an outcome, So if it's false to assume the cause based on the effect.
• Ignoring a Common Cause: Claiming one event must have caused the other when a third (unlooked-for) event is probably the cause.
• Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc: Claiming that because one event followed another, it was also caused by it.
• Two Wrongs make a Right: Assuming that if one wrong is commited, another wrong will cancel it out.

Appeal to the Emotions include,

• Appeal to Consequences of a Belief: Arguing a belief is false because it implies something you'd rather not believe.
• Appeal to Fear: An argument is made by increasing fear and prejudice towards the opposing side.
• Appeal to Flattery: Using an Irrelevant compliment to slip in an unfounded claim that is accepted along with the compliment.
• Appeal to Nature: Making your claim seemmore true by drawing a comparison with the 'good' natural world.
• Appeal to Pity: Attempt to Induce pity to swayopponents.
• Appealto Ridicule: Presenting the opponent's argument in a way that makes it appear absurd.
• Appeal to Spite: Dismissing a claim by appealing to personal bias against the claimant.
• Appeal to Wishful Thinking: Suggesting a claim is true or false just because you strongly hope it is.

Appeal to the Mind or Mental include,

• Appeal to Popular Belief: Claiming something is true because the majority of people believe it.
• Appeal to Probability: Assuming because something could happen, it will inevitably happen.
• Appeal to Anonymous Authority: Using evidence from an unnamed ‘expert' or 'study' or generalised group (like 'scientists') to claim somethingis true.
• Appeal to Authority: Claiming somethingis true because an unqualified or untrustworthy 'expert' says it is.
• Appeal to Common Practice: Claiming something is true because it's commonly practised.
• Appeal to Ignorance: A claim is true simply because it has not been proven false (or false because it has not been proven true).
• Appeal to Incredulity: Because a claim sounds unbelievable, it must not be true.
• Appeal to Money: Supposing that, if someone is rich or something is expensive, then it affects the truth of the claim.
• Appeal to Novelty: Supposing something is better because it is new or newer.

So, Rhetorical fallacies are deceptive arguments that have misleading reasoning at their foundations. People use rhetorical fallacies when the facts and evidence don't support their standpoint.'

Frog stop for a moment, and said, 'So, Rhetorical fallacies are deceptive arguments that have misleading reasoning at their foundations. People use rhetorical fallacies when the facts and evidence don't support their standpoint.

By the way, for those who learn Economics, Professor Samuelson mentioned in his 'Economics,' saying, 'Budding economists must also be alert to common fallacies in economic reasoning. Because economic relationships are often complex, involving many different variables, it is easy to become confused about the exact reason behind events or the impact of policies on the economy. The following are some of the common fallacies encountered in economic reasoning,

• The post hoc fallacy ['Post hoc' is shorthand for post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Translated from the Latin, the full expression means 'after this, therefore necessarily because of this']. The first fallacy involves the inference of causality. The post hoc fallacy occurs when we assume that, because one event occurred before another event, the first event caused the second event. An example of this syndrome occurred in the Great Depression of the 1930s in the United States. Some people had observed that periods of business expansion were preceded or accompanied by rising prices. From this, they concluded that the appropriate remedy for depression was to raise wages and prices. This idea led to a host of legislation and regulations to prop up wages and prices in an inefficient manner. Did these measures promote economic recovery? Almost surely not. Indeed, they probably slowed recovery, which did not occur until total spending began to rise as the government increased military spending in preparation for World War II.
• Failure to hold other things constant. A second pitfall is failure to hold other things constant when thinking about an issue. For example, we might want to know whether raising tax rates will raise or lower tax revenues. Some people have put forth the seductive argument that we can eat our fiscal cake and have it too. They argue that cutting tax rates will at the same time raise government revenues and lower the budget deficit. They point to the Kennedy-Johnson tax cuts of 1964, which lowered tax rates sharply and were followed by an increase in government revenues in 1965. Hence, they argue, lower tax rates produce higher revenues. Why is this reasoning fallacious? The argument assumes that other things were constant—in particular, it overlooked the growth in the overall economy from 1964 to 1965. Because people’s incomes grew during that period, total tax revenues grew even though tax rates were lower. Careful econometric studies indicate that total tax revenues would have been even higher in 1965 if tax rates had been held at the same level as in 1964. Hence, this analysis fails to hold other things constant in making the calculations. Remember to hold other things constant when you are analyzing the impact of a variable on the economic system.
• The fallacy of composition. Sometimes we assume that what holds true for part of a system also holds true for the whole. In economics, however, we often find that the whole is different from the sum of the parts. When you assume that what is true for the part is also true for the whole, you are committing the fallacy of composition. Here are some true statements that might surprise you if you ignored the fallacy of composition: (1) If one farmer has a bumper crop, she has a higher income; if all farmers produce a record crop, farm incomes will fall. (2) If one person receives a great deal more money, that person will be better off; if everyone receives a great deal more money, the society is likely to be worse off. (3) If a high tariff is put on a product such as shoes or steel, the producers in that industry are likely to profit; if high tariffs are put on all products, the economic welfare of the nation is likely to be worse off.

These examples contain no tricks or magic. Rather, they are the results of systems of interacting individuals. Often the behavior of the aggregate looks very different from the behavior of individual people.'

Toad nid-nod, 'All of these types of fallacies can quickly weaken a strong argument. In order to communicate clearly, I should remember to avoid these fallacies and know how to spot them in opposing points of view.'

Frog turned to the tv and exclaimed, 'Look Toad, your favourite artist is to sing your favourite song, let's follow her to sing the song!'

Afterwards Toad and Frog were doing karaoke,

Jika ada yang bilang kulupa kau

[If someone said I forgot you]

Jangan kau dengar

[Don't listen]

Jika ada yang bilang ku tak setia

[If someone said I was unfaithful]

Jangan kau dengar

[Don't listen]

Banyak cinta yang datang mendekat

[Lots of love coming closer]

Ku menolak

[I refused]

Semua itu kar'na kucinta kau

[All of it because I love you]

Jika ada yang bilang ku tak baik

[If someone said I was not good]

Jangan kau dengar

[Don't listen]

Jika ada yang bilang kuberubah

[If someone said I've changed]

Jangan kau dengar

[Don't listen]

Banyak cinta yang datang mendekat

[Lots of love coming closer]

Ku menolak

[I refused]

Semua itu kar'na kucinta kau *)

[All of it because I love you]

Before she disappeared, Swara said, "And Allah knows best."

Citations & References:
- Walton, Douglas N., A Pragmatic Theory of Fallacy Studies in Rhetoric and Communication, University of Alabama Press
- David McCandless, Knowledge is Beautiful, William Collins
- Paul A. Samuelson and Willian D. Nuedhause, Economics 19e, McGraw-Hill
*) "Karena Kucinta Kau" written by Parlin Burman, Nurdiansyah Syafaruddin & Cynthia Dewi Bayu Wardhani

Bahasa