Name for this type of fallacy?

Factual Questions
21

How is the scenerio posited by the o.p. not “reaching a conclusion through faulty reasoning”? The Psychiatrist deduces from the patients answer that he’s obsessed with penises, regardless of what answer he gives.

This is not, however, an example of false dichotomy, which is an assertion that one must be either state A or B. The psychiatrist assumes that the patient is obsessed with penises regardless of whether he dreams of cigars and hotdogs or not. There’s no dichotomy; only a single resultant state that is predetermined by the psychiatrist’s assumption of the patient’s obsession (either consciously or unconsciously), and he rationalizes the patient’s answer to his question in terms of this conclusion. This would be an interrogative form of petitio principii (begging the question) in which the patient’s answer provides ostensible support of the question.

Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 has a wonderful example of this in the discussion between Yossarian and Maj. Sanderson (the psychiatrist), and also how to cope with it:*“This fish you dream about. Let’s talk about that. It’s always the same fish, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” Yossarian replied. “I have trouble recognizing fish.”

“What does the fish remind you of?”

“Other fish.”

“And what do other fish remind you of?”

“Other fish.”

Major Sanderson sat back disappointedly. “Do you like fish?”

“Not especially.”

“Just why do you think you have such a morbid aversion to fish?” asked Major Sanderson triumphantly.

“They’re too bland,” Yossarian answered. “And too bony.”

Major Sanderson nodded understandingly, with a smile that was agreeable and insincere. “That’s a very interesting explanation. But we’ll soon discover the true reason, I suppose. Do you like this particular fish? The one you’re holding in your hand?”

“I have no feelings about it either way.”

“Do you dislike the fish? Do you have any hostile or aggressive emotions toward it?”

“No, not at all. In fact, I rather like the fish.”

“Then you do like the fish.”

“Oh, no. I have no feelings toward it either way.”

“But you just said you liked it. And now you say you have no feelings toward it either way. I’ve just caught you in a contradiction. Don’t you see?”

“Yes, sir. I suppose you have caught me in a contradiction.”

Major Sanderson proudly lettered “Contradiction” on his pad with his thick black pencil. “Just why do you think,” he resumed when he had finished, looking up, “that you made those two statements expressing contradictory emotional responses to the fish?”

“I suppose I have an ambivalent attitude toward it.”

Major Sanderson sprang up with joy when he heard the words “ambivalent attitude”. “You do understand!” he exclaimed, wringing his hands together ecstatically. “Oh, you can’t imagine how lonely it’s been for me, talking day after day to patients who haven’t the slightest knowledge of psychiatry, trying to cure people who have no real interest in me or my work! It’s given me such a terrible feeling of inadequacy.” A shadow of anxiety crossed his face. “I can’t seem to shake it.”

“Really?” asked Yossarian, wondering what else to say. “Why do you blame yourself for gaps in the education of others?”

“It’s silly, I know,” Major Sanderson replied uneasily with a giddy, involuntary laugh. “But I’ve always depended very heavily on the good opinion of others. I reached puberty a bit later than all the other boys my age, you see, and it’s given me sort of - well, all sorts of problems. I just know I’m going to enjoy discussing them with you. I’m so eager to begin that I’m almost reluctant to digress now to your problem, but I’m afraid I must. Colonel Ferredge would be cross if he knew we were spending all our time on me. I’d like to show you some ink blots now to find out what certain shapes and colors remind you of.”

“You can save yourself the trouble, Doctor. Everything reminds me of sex.”

“Does it?” cried Major Sanderson with delight, as though unable to believe his ears. “Now we’re really getting somewhere! Do you ever have any good sex dreams?”

“My fish dream is a sex dream.”

“No, I mean real sex dreams - the kind where you grab some naked bitch by the neck and pinch her and punch her in the face until she’s all bloody and then throw yourself down to ravish her and burst into tears because you love her and hate her so much you don’t know what else to do. That’s the kind of sex dreams I like to talk about. Don’t you ever have sex dreams like that?”

Yossarian reflected a moment with a wise look. “That’s a fish dream,” he decided.*

Stranger

22

Like the old joke about how psychiatrists diagnose their patients by their punctuality for appointments.

If you show up late, you’re hostile. If you show up early, you’re anxious. If you show up exactly on time, you’re compulsive.

I would call the OP an example of an unfalsifiable hypothesis, since nothing can disprove it.

Regards,
Shodan

23

Unfalsiable theory.

24

I don’t think it’s a false dichotomy. A false dichotomy is an either or situation. Either we must suspend our constitution or the terrorists will win. This seems more like an unwarranted conclusion. The dichotomy is only that the patient is either dreaming of phallic symbols or he isn’t. The fallacy lies that the psychiatrist assumes a neurosis regardless of what the patient says.

25

:eek:

:eek:
That’s how my Professor summed up Freud,
and why we ignore him now. :smiley:

26

The pair of arguments are enthymematic, in that they attempt to hide a faulty premise, as ianzin said.

27

The reasons we ignore Freud are somewhat more complicated than his obsession with phallocentric theory (which can basically be summed up as women want and envy them and men are afraid of losing them) as this was only one in a long line of quackological phases Freud went through, including is promotion of cocaine as a fix-all wunderdrug, his misplaced interest in theraputic hypnotism, his promotion of unnecessary and useless sinus surgery for the treatment of so-called “nasal reflex neurosis”, his belief in the psychosexual stages of childhood development and the overarching belief in his “seduction theory” that childhood sexual abuse was the root cause of many if not most neuroses, and various other unsubstantiated pseudoscience. On the other hand, he did have a signficant hand in linking the emergent field of theoretical psychology to material neurology (believing essentially that all mental states and responses are a result of structures and biochemical activity in the brain) and was an accomplished neuroscientist before he entered into the field of psychiatry. That psychoanalysis is regarded as utter balderdash today is on par with many of the notable names in science who pursued equally flaky (if not ultimately as harmful) notions and researches in fields that are regarded today as the domain of charlatans.

Stranger

28

Und zo ve see, Stranger’s need to defend ze discredited Freud’s work iss a displacement mechanizm–in protecting Freud, ve can clearly zee that Stranger is protecting himzelf–to Stranger, Freud represents ze absent father zat Stranger never had.

29

But in attacking Freud, I also displace my aggression on the father I had onto an absent authority figure, thus protecting myself from direct conflict and the resulting confusion between identifying with my father’s penis and being in Oedipal competition for my mother. So it works either way.

Stranger

30

Stranger, thanks for that! That is some seriously funny stuff. I haven’t read that book in almost 40 years. It’s on to Amazon!

31

It’s a brilliant book with some great logical fallacies (“The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likeable. In three days no one could stand him.”; “Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian’s fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.”; and my favorite, “He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt, and his only mission each time he went up was to come down alive.”) And Milo’s scheme to “make a profit of three and a quarter cents an egg by selling them for four and a quarter cents an egg to the people in Malta I buy them from for seven cents an egg,” is almost as brilliant as his contracting with the Germans to bomb his own airfield, then opening up his books at threat of court marshall to demonstrate his incredible profits. Then there’s good old Arfy, the insufferable buffoon. And I think the novel gets better the older you are; I read it in junior high school and it didn’t really shine on me, but with a few years of experience of the absurdity of the larger world under my belt the repetitious, paradoxical, obtuse structure seemed less surreal and more drawn from life.

If only I could write like Joseph Heller I’d quit my job today and be twice as unhappy in order to life a better life drinking expensive whiskey and descending into a spiral of literary success to crash upon the hard tarmac of public approbation. Instead, like Major Major, I’m a self-made man who owes his lack of success to no one.

Stranger