David Churchman - Why We Fight: The Origins, Nature, and Management of Human Conflict

I have had much help in writing this book. To the extent that it is cogent, much of the credit belongs to my students, who by their questions and quizzical looks told me when I was unclear, illogical, or just plain wrong. George Clark, David Nasatir, Joseph Pendry, Millicent Wood-Harris, and Joseph Wingard provided some of the best examples in the text. Others read individual chapters, spotting errors of grammar, omission, and commission. Diana de Wolf reviewed the chapters on interpersonal and gender conflict. Edward King Alexander reviewed the chapter on intellectual conflict, Frank Stricker that on organizational conflict, and John Dolan the chapter on Just War. Oliver Richmond was particularly helpful on the contemporary ethnic conflicts that he knows first-hand from his work in Congo, Cyprus (where we worked together), East Timor, Rwanda, and Sri Lanka. Joseph Pendry provided valuable comments on the chapter on asymmetric war. Any remaining errors are my responsibility.

Contrariwise, continued Tweedle, if it was so, it might be;
and if it were so, it would be: but as it isnt, it aint. Thats logic.

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Question Framing: A well-framed question determines what facts are relevant
Baconian: Conducting research without specific questions or hypotheses
Declarative: Making an assertion instead of answering a question
False dichotomy: Implying incorrectly that only two possibilities exist
Fictional question: Answering by speculation
Many questions: Demanding one answer to complex or multiple questions
Metaphysical question: Answering a non-empirical question empirically
Semantic: Supporting a position with opinion not evidence
Shallow question: Asking a question nobody needs answered
Tautology: Asking a question so that it is true by definition

Proof: Evidence that does not prove what it claims
Circular: Assuming what is to be proved
Hypostatized: Refusing to consider contrary evidence
Insufficient: Asserting a proof rather than providing one
Irrelevant: Answering a question that was not asked
Misplaced precision: Using greater precision than warranted
Negative: Claiming something is true because its opposite is false
Outrage: Anger or injury alone never proves a person expressing it is correct.
Possible: Confusing possibility for probability
Presumptive: Demanding disproof rather than providing proof
Pseudofacts: Using false or slippery facts

Causation: Connections can be contributory, necessary, sufficient, or accidental
Cum hoc, Propter hoc: Mistaking correlation for causation
Identity: Assuming the cause must resemble the effect
Indiscriminate pluralism: Making the simple seem complicated
Mechanistic: Assuming parts of a whole work independently
Post hoc, Propter hoc: Assuming one event caused a latter event
Pro hoc, Propter hoc: Putting the effect before the cause
Reductive: Treating complex events as having a single cause

Significance: Giving facts more or less importance than deserved
Aesthetic: Placing elegance or beauty above truth
Antinomian: Treating quantification or measurement as dehumanizing
Damning the origin: Claiming a faulty source cannot be right about anything
Essences: Using an unobservable characteristic as proof
Furtive: Asserting an unlikely conspiracy based on circumstantial evidence
Holist: Selecting trivial facts to fit a theory, ignoring major exceptions
Moralistic: Judging friends and foes by different standards
Pragmatic: Selecting trivial facts to support a cause
Prodigious: Exaggerating the significance of a common event
Quantitative: Treating only quantified facts as important

Generalization: The extent to which findings may be extended to new situations
Composition: Assuming that what is true of a part must also be true of the whole
Extrapolation: Assuming a trend will continue unchanged
Gamblers: Assuming probabilities operate in the short run
Impressionism: Treating impressions as precise data
Interpolation: Assuming all data lies on a straight line.
Lonely fact: Generalizing from a single instance
Special pleading: Obscuring inconvenient data with rhetoric
Sampling: Treating sample size as more important than sampling method

Semantic Distortion: Errors originating with faulty language
Accent: Distorting by emphasis or innuendo
Amphiboly: Obscuring meaning by syntax or euphemism
Equivocation: Using a term in two ways
Quibbling: The only difference is the way the term is defined

Narration: Untenable explanations of events
Anachronism: Ascribing something to the wrong time
Archetype: Erroneously treating a primordial concept as a prototype
Didactic: Bending facts to extract a predetermined lesson or meaning
Genetic: Mistaking process for outcome
Periodization: Setting inappropriate temporal boundaries
Presentism: Interpreting the past in terms of current values
Static: Treating events as having a foreordained conclusion
Tunnel Vision: Separating related events

Analogy: Falsely inferring that something similar in one way is similar in others
Absurd: Claiming similarities that are ridiculous
False: Drawing analogy from a mistaken similarity
Literalist: Taking metaphors, myths, or figures of speech literally
Perfect: Mistaking partial for total resemblance
Prediction by analogy: Assuming that the future will be like the past

Motivation: Explanations of why people do things
Apathetic: Treating animate creatures as objects
Good reason: Offers a euphemism instead of the actual reason
Historians: Assuming participants in events knew outcomes beforehand
Man-Mass: Using one individual to represent everyone in a group
Mass Man: Treating all people in a group as being the same
One-dimensional Man: Explaining everything by one characteristic
Pathetic: Attributing animate behavior or feelings to inanimate objects
Self-righteousness: Claiming actions of the morally pure cannot be questioned
Universal Man: Ignoring cultural, historical, and individual differences
Zero-sum: economic transactions are total gain to one and total loss to the other

Substantive Distraction: Diverts attention from reasoned argument
Ad antiquitam: Assuming something is true because it is old
Ad baculum: Assuming that might makes right
Ad crumenem: Measuring truth by money
Ad hominem: Attacking the person not the argument
Ad misericordiam: Claims pitiable people deserve special consideration
Ad nauseum: Sustaining a thesis by repetition
Ad novitam: Assuming something is true because it is new
Ad temperatum: Assuming the truth lies midway between the extremes
Ad verecudiam: Appealing to (often irrelevant) authority or expertise
Reductio ad absurdum: An argument so ridiculous it refutes itself

. Adapted from D. Fisher (1970), Historians Fallacies, Harper & Row.

In a moderately long life, I have learned three important things: that it is better to be know than to be ignorant, better to tell the truth than to lie, and better to be free than be a slave.

The Gallant Hours

David Churchman is professor emeritus, California State University, where he held a dual appointment as professor in Humanities Graduate Studies and as professor and chairman of Behavioral Sciences Graduate Programs. In the latter, he taught traditional and distance courses in conflict theory and negotiation tactics; in the former he taught Ancient Near Eastern, Arab, and Byzantine history.