How to define stupidity?
I am currently reading the book "Le novel âge de la bêtise" by Pierre André Taguieff. Unfortunately, the author gives a lot of examples of this "new stupidity", but he doesn't give a definition of stupidity.
I like Kant's definition best, which he says is a "lack of judgment" (= Mangel an Urteilskraft), whereby for him judgment is the ability to subsume sensory impressions under the concepts of reason. (Kant: "intellectual concepts as such are empty, mere perceptions are blind) . This ability of judgment is therefore the "hinge" between the world outside and the world of ideas and concepts. If this hinge is defective, as in the case of stupidity, then the ideas and concepts work idly, in a void, so to speak, without any connection to reality.
This is particularly the case with all kinds of ideologies which, as the word suggests, are not about one thing (such as life in biology or the soul in psychology), but are only about ideas and their connections to one another. Ideologies are therefore always a sign of stupidity, as they lack a link to reality. Ideologies arise when ideas only have sex with each other, when they pile up into grandiose intellectual buildings (philosophies, theologies, theories....) that can be very impressive, even internally very coherent, but if they lack a connection to reality, then they are a case of stupidity.
This is also the reason why stupidity is not the opposite of intelligence, because there are very intelligent people who are also very stupid, namely when they only use their intelligence to play with ideas and theories, detached from reality (Nowadays there are whole departments at universities where very intelligent and very stupid people gather and "study". One sign is: They don't call their subjects "science", but "---- Studies".
Well, following Immanuel Kant, this is my idea of stupidity. How would you define it?
I like Kant's definition best, which he says is a "lack of judgment" (= Mangel an Urteilskraft), whereby for him judgment is the ability to subsume sensory impressions under the concepts of reason. (Kant: "intellectual concepts as such are empty, mere perceptions are blind) . This ability of judgment is therefore the "hinge" between the world outside and the world of ideas and concepts. If this hinge is defective, as in the case of stupidity, then the ideas and concepts work idly, in a void, so to speak, without any connection to reality.
This is particularly the case with all kinds of ideologies which, as the word suggests, are not about one thing (such as life in biology or the soul in psychology), but are only about ideas and their connections to one another. Ideologies are therefore always a sign of stupidity, as they lack a link to reality. Ideologies arise when ideas only have sex with each other, when they pile up into grandiose intellectual buildings (philosophies, theologies, theories....) that can be very impressive, even internally very coherent, but if they lack a connection to reality, then they are a case of stupidity.
This is also the reason why stupidity is not the opposite of intelligence, because there are very intelligent people who are also very stupid, namely when they only use their intelligence to play with ideas and theories, detached from reality (Nowadays there are whole departments at universities where very intelligent and very stupid people gather and "study". One sign is: They don't call their subjects "science", but "---- Studies".
Well, following Immanuel Kant, this is my idea of stupidity. How would you define it?
Comments (94)
This area has so many shades in its spectrum of possible mind states.
How would you connect 'stupid' to making mistakes or bad choices based on having been fed faked information or having been manipulated or indoctrinated all of your life or simply due to your own misinterpretation of accurate information?
Can you assign any blame for being 'stupid,' if you have not had a good general education?
Do folks who have some malfunctioning brain processes, ever deserve to be labeled stupid?
Is it stupid to spend a penny on scientific research or space exploration and development unless you can guarantee beneficial results?
'Stupid' is such a subjective label based on the scenario being judged. Consequences and results of actions taken or words spoken, may well be judged by many as being at source, 'stupid,' but may be found not to have been so stupid later on. Einstein's cosmological constant may prove to be such an example.
I don't think we can discover new knowledge without risking the chance of looking or being stupid.
So the question cannot be meaningfully answered outside of a specific communicative context.
That is a poor argument.
People can say horrible things and not be horrible people. Stupid people are not intelligent and vice versa. That is not the same as saying intelligent people cannot do stupid things nor that stupid people cannot do intelligent things.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/622062
Quoting 180 Proof
Kant works for me, but it comes with the burden of attributing to judgement more power than most common folk, and too few current philosophers, are prepared to grant.
Stupidity is extreme bias. Bias towards a specific thing that overtakes the ability to critically judge it in context. Bias towards emotion, bias towards an ideal, an idea, a method, practice etc.
The opposite is to be able to see past the bias, see further context, see alternatives, engage in the ability to weigh different perspectives choosing rationally rather than emotionally, or even being able to choose emotionally as opposed to cold rationality if that has a moral rationality to it.
However things gets boiled down, extreme bias is pretty much at the core of stupidity.
Quoting Christoffer
Quoting fdrake
:cool: :up:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/853027
This is why human stupidity has its benefits. Sometimes something different does happen.
I don't think it has to do with stupidity at all. It's mostly on the same level as some plaque saying "Carpe Diem", a pop culture psychology meme.
It's rather the opposite, as I said with biases. Stupidity is doing the same thing in changing circumstances and outcomes, demanding reality to fit the bias.
Quoting Matias
It strikes me that subsuming sensory impressions under concepts of reason is something that people do involuntarily, all the time. Even as part of perception. If someone was totally unable to do that, they wouldn't be able to see, hear, think etc. at all. Which is an absence of consciousness, rather than stupidity. Stupidity must be in how things are done, not in what things are done.
I'm bad at chess. Unskilled in it. I can't "see" the lines of play in a board like regular players can, and masters can with a glance. I don't have the ability to subsume the sensory impressions of a chess board state under the concepts of chess playing in that regard. I don't think that makes me an idiot, just bad at chess.
If I was bad at everything in life like that, perhaps I am simply unskilled at living, or unable to exercise my capacities to function adequately in life's typicalities. Some people are like that, and need help - children, people with disabilities. Are they stupid? No.
What if someone is able to learn, calculative, intelligent, wilful, determined, of sound mind and they still do not learn and grow? Still don't try to excise their errors and expand their strengths across many domains they are in fact able to?
That looks like stupidity to me. A pervasive refusal to try to learn.
I agree. Stupidity is typically a blameful judgement of moral culpability we level against others (or ourselves) which supposes bad intent. Related terms of blame include laziness, stubbornness, self-indulgence, negligence, thoughtlessness, selfishness, inconsiderateness, greed. The question is, when others fall short of our expectations of them in this way, is the failure in their intent or in our failure to separate their perspective from our own norms?
There are more interesting ways of defining stupidity that take into account the irrationality grounding rationality. Deleuze, for instance, defines stupidity in terms of what produces the paradoxical gap between perspectives, both between and within persons.
This song captures well what I think stupidity is:
Pretense, faking; no sense of fear, loss, danger; lying; blindly seeking adoration from others; immaturity.
Allowing for another's perspective (and first of all, learning what it actually is), surely feels like lack of confidence on one's own part (for many people, at least).
Quoting Joshs
Yes. This also seemingly exculpates the one who calls another person stupid of their own bad faith, and places the whole responsibility for the quality of the interaction on the other person, the "stupid one".
"Husband beats wife so that she ends up in the hospital with multiple fractures. Because she pervasively refused to learn what he sought to teach her."
Many teaching situations are like that: The teacher is authoritarian, the student (possibly not even considering themselves a student) is seen as completely inferior.
Often, people seem like they don't want to learn because they don't want to learn in such a teaching situation; because they cannot cope with the stark difference between what is nominally being taught and what is taught as the hidden curriculum (eg. "the tense system in English" vs. "one must unquestioningly submit to those in position of authority").
Quoting fdrake
How can you know that they are in fact able to do so??
Quoting baker
I would think the opposite is the case. The more confident one is in the usefulness and flexibility of ones approach to understanding others, the less one is threatened by strange, alien values and perspectives. Thus, the confident person, instead of frantically erecting barriers around their viewpoint reifying it as the correct position, can boldly experiment and tinker with their outlook to make it even more flexible, expansive and inclusive.
Our previous prime-minister said that democracy means that we must also tolerate lies and wrong opinions. To him, there is just one correct way of seeing things.
Most people are like this:
"You're entitled to your wrong opinion, that's fine."
:rofl: Stupidity is more contagious than Covid. Better keep your distance! :yum:
Do you think this "incapacity" is (1) either
(a) cognitive disability,
(b) an acquired, incorrigible habit,
(c) combination or
(d) something else?
(2) and
(i) the same for all / most cretins or
(ii) varies with each individual?
Anecdotally I'm inclined to (b) & (i), which makes 'stupidity" an ethical aporia (à la akrasia) as much as or more than a congenital diagnosis. :chin:
Based on my experience I look at the "stupidity" definition differently.
Namely that there are several axes that together are what lay persons determine whether someone is generically "smart".
One axis is the volume of information one has retained (learned vs ignorant).
Another is the mental dexterity to process information (intelligent vs stupid in my lexicon)
Probably the most useful is the ability to discern social cues and communicate effectively with others (savvy vs naive)
Taking (b) - which is nicely worded - what do we make of the 'acquired' aspect of such a habit? E.g., acquired through trauma or by laziness? I imagine there are some folk who are partly redeemable on the basis that their habit was initially a learned survival response. Thoughts?
"survival strategy" but in the medium to long term it's insidiously maladaptive (i.e. self-defeating). Ancient Greek philosophies of life had proposed various daily "exercises" (P. Hadot) in order to cultivate eudaimonia (+ ataraxia, aponia & eukrasia) contra each person's everyday foolery & stupidity. Those ancients are still very relevant and essentially modern, don't you think?
Indeed. Stupidity is eternal. So it seems is human nature.
Quoting 180 Proof
You bet. I'm partial to the Epicureans over the Stoics. I first got interested in Albert Ellis' RET which was the precursor to CBT. It works. Later DBT, especially for people experiencing borderline personality disorder. But it does take the person to identify that they need support with persistent, unhelpful ways of thinking and relating. That seems to be the nub of our problem when it comes to finding help: insight.
On a separate vein, some time ago I saw interviews with Trump supporters. Most of them said they would vote for him again because of his significant achievements and his great policies. Not one of them could name any. They just liked him. Is this because they are dumb, or has the American system (education/media/corporate influence) failed people, making them rubes and willing victims of a demagogue? We can't use CBT for political stupidity can we?
This brain rot is virulent in Britain, Germany, Hungary, Turkey & Poland too. :eyes:
No, we can't. We have to out-vote them (and continue to out-breed them). :mask:
:up: Good point. I was saying just this at a meeting today.
My favourite definition too. But I see it more as a lack of curiosity about the ideas and opinions of others, rather than, as you seem to describe it, a refusal to use one's learning ability to become more successful, i.e., to "excise their errors and expand their strengths across many domains they are in fact able to." Although I guess it can amount to the same thing, mutatis mutandis.
:smirk:
That reminds me of Flaubert saying:
As a philosophic remark, it puts the inquiry into stupidity in a difficult situation. Drowning in a ubiquity, if you will.
I take your point of there being a problem of judgement involved.
I see stupidity more as an activity that flows from within and without. Castigation in either direction has limited efficacy. Developing means of protection seems wise. It is worthy of philosophical effort even though that is difficult in the framing of Flaubert. The poets have more liberty.
What is stupid? Well, denying evidence, for one thing is a big deal, especially if the evidence is backed up by many studies.
Yet as you mention an otherwise smart person will do something stupid, and a stupid person can say smart things. But then it seems as if calling someone "smart" or "stupid" is relative to a subject matter or a specific act.
So, it may be inaccurate to say that a person is stupid at everything, or smart at everything.
I don't know if this is stupid per se, but, a related matter that irritates me is lack of curiosity about the world. There is so much to discover and its never been easier to find information, yet we see many people completely oblivious to most of it, focusing instead on shallow things.
Which in itself is not bad, sometimes we need a break from "serious stuff" to just relax. But if that's the whole extent of your involvement in the world, then I think you are missing out on one of the most important things of being a human being, which is to take pleasure in our capacity to think and engage with problems.
[quote=WB Yeats]Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?[/quote]
The poem declares its title and transcends itself in its self discovery. And the blank and pitiless gaze is surely the triumph of stupidity? As if wisdom must become stupidity for lack of conviction or an excess.
Probably the same thing. You think that pervasive refusal is intellectual only? I've got in mind people like athletes, who learn technique and discipline. Though it's quite difficult, if such embodied skill negates stupidity.
The creature with a lion's body and the head of a man invokes the Sphinx, an ancient fusing of man and the ultimate predator. Yeats ties the yearning for a savior from our stupidity to the return of a terrible creature who had been chilling for time out of mind before the rude awakening. We don't know what we are messing with, but cruelty is involved.
I think Auden wrote a call and response to the humility invoked in the poem:
And you take their statements at face value??
Or are you just playing games?
Have you ever tried to envision what such an interview is like for those Trump supporters? What do they think of it? Do they think of it as a conversation, a discussion, a debate? Do they perhaps consider it a rude imposition?
Because how a person replies to questions depends on who is asking those questions, who that person is to them, in what setting those questions are being asked, etc..
People usually vote for those they like anyway.
Have you considered the possibility that they actually want what they are supporting and voting for? That this is about their actual values and desires?
Are you just playing games or are you really as abrasive as your response seems?
I think the people they interviewed were clueless and just following a demagogue who had the right enemies - intellectuals, liberals, do gooders, Marxists, unAmericans, politicians - the usual shit.
Quoting baker
Yes. And on the evidence of their bereft replies, they want to support hatred and conspiracy.
Underneath that - failures of American education, industry and employment opportunities and the abandonment of the working class by the Democrats - sure. All that is also true and I named that earlier.
And you don't think the way you speak about Trump's supporters is abrasive?
Trump's supporters or not, they are still people. Yet the way you speak about them is dehumanizing.
Can't you see you're doing the same kind of thing they're doing? You're playing the same kind of game they are, by the same rules.
So? What does that mean for you?
Spare me the holier-than-thou bullshit, Baker.
Aye.
I don't think much effort is required to learn. If you even just listen to someone genuinely you learn. Curiosity alone tends to suffice I think? But there's the question of exposing one's curiosity to situations that engender learning. Curiosity as an attitude vs curiosity as a practice.
A: I have a spanner. Will that help?
Stupidity is a tendency to judge other peoples' intentions and characters with groundless delusional beliefs, and seeking attention, approval and self-pleasure with like-minded folks in group.
Do you know how do Discussions here normally work?
If you launch a discussion, you are supposed to respond to the replies you receive on your topic, esp. when you ask for their opinion.
In general, you are supposed to respond to messages addressed to you.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/853053
Hi. Just by curiosity, would you have replied to this guy if you knew that he will ignore you, like everyone else? I wouldn't. That's why I deleted my original reply and replace it with another, a personal one, expressing my utter reproval.
I believe that everyone should do the same so that this OP remains w/o replies.
I tend to forget posts as soon as I post them. Stupid, I suppose. It's like when you see a run of the mill movie at a theater, one sometime forgets what it was about by the time your get on the bus. Or the section of a cartoon bookstore: "Books you have forgotten that you read."
Btw, if you know how I can store my entire post history as (indexed?) text files, please let me know.
Yeah, respond/don't respond? That is the question! We can but decide, act/don't act, and face the consequences. At least this adds to making life interesting Alikis.
Really, Tom, really, this is what you see in my comment?
[I]He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.[/i]
What I see is someone who indulges in regular put downs of others, who is persistently cynical about people's motivations, then somewhat hypocritically likes to take a critical stance towards members for their perceived adverse perspectives.
Quoting baker
Why the Nietzsche? The only person I seem to be bickering with is you. Are you the monster? Can you really be concerned I will become as cynical as you?
Your point was an attempt to shoehorn me into a category. I am not suggesting all Trump voters are stupid (they might be, but I don't know that and I doubt it to be the case), I was commenting on the specific interviews. The connection between having a strong position yet lacking any substantive knowledge about that position, which is what this thread has been exploring.
Now, if you want to construct an entirely seperate, speculative narrative about behind the scenes at media interviews and suggest that in some way journalism misrepresented the Trump people, I'm not interested, since you cannot demonstrate this to be the case and you seem to be asserting it entirely for rhetorical effect.
I think this is a good sense of culpable stupidity. Is all stupidity culpable?
Maybe? Can you think of an example which isn't culpable? I'm imagining that "refusal" means that stupidity is a practice of avoiding learning through habits you have (and thus someone who behaves stupidly behaves incuriously @Jamal).
I'm phrasing this in terms of "behaves stupidly" rather than "is stupid" because I very much see stupidity as something you can learn, get headfucked into, and unlearn.
What do you think?
Well, I think the thread branches into those two conceptions: one where stupidity is conceived as inherently culpable and one where it is not. I think Kant's description prescinds from culpability, and hence would equally apply to people with natural mental handicaps. "Stupid" seems to be one of those words that was once used to signify an actual physiological malady, but eventually came to be used as a term of opprobium. Others would include "imbecile," "retarded," etc.
Quoting fdrake
It sort of depends on what we are intending to talk about, but in general I would say that stupidity is a consistent failure to act rationally, or to achieve the average level of mental function. More simply, it is the opposite of intelligence. Strictly speaking, I would simply say that the stupid person is prone to err. The question is interesting because eventually one is forced to give their account of intelligence, rationality, or healthy mental functioning. For Kant it is the ability to shape sensory impressions into concepts of reason, and therefore he identifies a malfunction at that juncture as stupidity.
If this is right, then you are committed to the idea that intelligence is fundamentally a willingness to try to learn.
So generally speaking I am claiming that stupidity is a negative or privative concept, and that one must therefore ultimately provide an account of proper mental functioning if they are to give an account of stupidity.
That's what the bad faith in which you tend to approach communication makes you see.
Critics of Trump & co. often become exactly like those they criticize. Don't you see the danger in that?
When Trump or someone like him wins again, it will be at least in part because his critics were playing on his terms.
I'm actually expecting you to empathize with the Trumpistas.
I don't think that in some way journalism misrepresented the Trump people, but I think you here as a critic of Trump (as well as many others critics of Trump) are being too simplistic in interpreting the words, deeds, and intentions of the Trumpistas. And being so simplistic about them doesn't help in changing them of winning against them. Even though you nominally play for the opposition against Trump, you're actually helping team Trump. This is its own kind of ... well, stupidity, with horrible prospects. This is what happens when one allows one's disgust to get the upper hand.
@universeness
Burning witches won't help you.
I don't see how that cliche applies to this example. And what does this have to do with our discussion?
Quoting baker
You have no knowledge of what I think of people who vote for Trump. For one thing I don't call them 'Trumpistas' since I don't think of them as a monolithic body, but rather a diverse group of people.
Quoting baker
Sorry are we talking about Trump or people who vote for Turmp. We seem to be swerving all over the road. Where have I interpreted deeds and intentions of Trump voters? Where is this even coming from?
Quoting baker
Nice.
There are no witches, just some people engaging in fantasy role play.
A methodology you may well be employing at times here on TPF.
*sigh*
I'm telling you my reasons for what I'm telling you. As opposed to the condescension you accuse me of.
Your words.
E.g.
Quoting Tom Storm
Quoting Tom Storm
We'll see that in about a year.
I think my positioning of those voters is not unreasonable and it was posed as a question. Do you deny that the idea of political stupidity exists? It runs from the left to the right, so I am not fixated on T voters. And no, I don't think critics become like those they criticize. They might in some circumstances, but this is not necessarily the case.
Quoting baker
Not condescension - you have been sneering and insulting. But this bickering is getting in the way of the thread and won't be resolved here.
Quoting baker
No. To me it looks like failing to make your case. What you said was this:
When Trump or someone like him wins again, it will be at least in part because his critics were playing on his terms.[/quote]
I simply asked you to connect the dots. Most people know this cliché about human behavior. I was merely asking you to demonstrate how this works in the Trump example.
Why "a year"? It's quite evident everyday, all day, even on this thread. You believe Bank/Tax Fraudster & Criminal Defendent-1 has a snowball's chance in hell to be reelected, baker? Yeah, I guess innumerates follow "the polls" they like. :rofl:
Actual elections are not always in line with the previous polls. Surprises have been known to happen.
I suppose you just have more faith in the American people than I do.
It is where I always start and what I seek to leave.
This is the worst definition (though commonly, this formulation supposedly defines insanity), followed by the reason why it is the worst definition.
It is EXACTLY 180proof's attitude that resulted in the first T election.
I see, clearly, from outside the US, this happening again. Biden has been such an absolute disaster in so many ways that It's really, REALLY hard to believe that he, or another Dem, could be re-elected. It's obviously in the realm of genuinely possibility, and almost rises to likelihood - but given that:
Biden:
Approve: 37.9%
Disapprove: 55.4%
78% of D approve.
vs
Trump:
Approve: 42.2%
Disapprove: 53.1%
85% of R approve.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump/
It's hard to understand an attitude that writes off a reelection, given the absolute paucity of candidates with anything coming close to acumen or persuasive media presence. Seems like wishful thinking on the part of someone who can't understand T's election at all.
:rofl:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/855739
Hi mate,
Suffice to say nothing there has an effect on what i've said. I think it's far more to do with your affectations than much else. Shall leave this one be :)
Addendum to
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/622062
The Five Laws of Human Stupidity
:fire:
:100: I find it is much easier to diagnose other people's stupidity than my own. That is surely stupid of me.
Well, I suppose it is harder for us to see our own selfishness/stupidity because we don't want to, of course.
:up: :up: