People really need to understand syllogisms

People reason syllogistically, and yet nowhere in a college or high school curriculum are people taught to recognize a syllogism, let alone when it’s gerfucked.

A syllogism is a way of reasoning: if A = B, and C = B, then C = A.

If all dogs are mammals, and Chester is a dog, then Chester is a mammal.

If all dogs [A] are [=] mammals [B], and Chester [C] is [=] a dog [A], then Chester [C] is a mammal [B]. So, if A = B, and C=A, then C= B.

As Aristotle pointed out, we don’t usually show our work. We are reasoning syllogistically, but our rhetoric is an enthymeme. We say, “Of course Chester is a mammal; he’s a dog.”

An enthymeme is a compressed syllogism. Instead of saying: A = B; C= A; therefore C = B (which, if all those things are really equally, must be true), people say C = B because C = A, assuming that you believe that A =B.

That seems weird and alien, but here are examples of times that people use enthymemes:
• “She’s in favor of reducing immigration, so she must be racist.”
• “She’s in favor of state-supported medical care, so she must be a socialist.”
• “She drives a Prius, so she must support Biden.”
• “That dog is a pitbull, so it must be dangerous.”
• “Trump supports Hydroxychloroquine, so it must be good.”
• “Trump supports Hydroxychloroquine, so it must be bad.”

Those are all enthymemes. If you rewrite them as syllogisms, you can see that the reasoning in every one is bad.

• “She’s in favor of reducing immigration, so she must be racist.”
That has the form of major premise: A (anyone in favor of reducing immigration) = (is) B (racist).
The minor premise is: C (she) = (is) A (in favor of reducing immigration).
The conclusion is: C (she) = (is) B (racist).

Or, to take it out of the letters, here’s the syllogism.
Major premise: Anyone in favor of reducing immigration is racist.
Minor premise: She is in favor of reducing immigration.
Conclusion: Therefore, she is racist.

• “She’s in favor of state-supported medical care, so she must be a socialist.”

Major premise: Anyone in favor of state-supported medical care is a socialist.
Minor premise: She is in favor of state-supported medical care.
Conclusion: She is a socialist.

• “She drives a Prius, so she must support Biden.”

Major premise: Anyone who drives a Prius must support Biden.
Minor premise: She drives a Prius.
Conclusion: She supports Biden.

I won’t do the others, since you get the point. The major premises are wrong.

Reducing immigration doesn’t necessarily mean someone is racist; Eisenhower was in favor of state-supported medical care; lots of people who drive Priuses don’t support Biden; not all pitbulls are dangerous; not everything Trump recommends is good; not everything he recommends is bad.

One of the reasons that scholars of logic kicked syllogistic reasoning to the curb is that it is not actually logical. The major premises tend to be stereotypes.

But, it is how we reason. That person is good because she was nice to me. I don’t want to sit next to that person on the bus because they seem sketchy. That person is smart because she agrees with me. That person has good judgment because she said I’m really smart.

There’s nothing wrong with reasoning through enthymemes, as long as we’re aware of our major premises, and willing to think about them critically. Most of us aren’t.

Take, for instance, the enthymeme: “Americans of Japanese ethnicity are dangerous because Japan attacked us.” If you break that out into a syllogism, you get:

These people (Americans of Japanese ethnicity) [ A] are dangerous [B] because Japan [C] attacked us [B].

That’s a bad syllogism.