Ivan Pelletier shows that Aristotle’s dialectic (which is the longest, most overlooked, and most necessary part of his logic for us) treats of endoxes. The word is the antonym of “paradox”: i.e. just as a paradox is something that makes you say “there are great problems and impediments to accepting X”, an endox is something that you accept with no problem and no impediment. An exdox is what strikes us as true, precisely so far as it strikes us in this way. Some of the most familiar and powerful endoxes are cultural and social values. Americans,for example, think democracy, equal rights, owning automobiles, etc. are all perfectly obvious goods in no need of defense.
For most of my education (and I don’t think my experience is unique) endoxes were treated as false. It was assumed that if you showed that something was endoxical, that you therefore showed it was false. We all know the argument: modern Americans love X, but non-modern or non-Americans love non-X, therefore the love of X is debunked. The argument is simply false and distorts our whole intellectual life. Rather than assume that all endoxes have some truth and our job is to ferret out exactly what truth they have, we assume that our endoxes are mere irrational prejudices that should be shunned and denied. Implicit in the opinion is that culture and society, which are in fact the greatest of natural human goods, are in fact only sources of error and evil. This is a terrible, wrongheaded, and extremely destructive idea.
Just Thomism 
peeping thomist said,
June 11, 2009 at 11:35 am
So damn true.
It is strange how modern education both denigrates reason while simultaneously demanding it in a distorted, funhouse mirror sort of way. It shows modern education’s insecurity…its discomfort with itself. On the one hand, it is true that these are irrational prejudices…but common opinion received largely by osmosis through tradition is not simply irrational, regardless of the lack of understanding of its causes in any one individual, which is why Aristotle starts with it, etc. The failure you describe boils down to a failure to philosophize: they can’t carefully look for what’s true, but rather they have to throw it out because it is contradicted by someone or something else. Its all or nothing.
I mean, seriously, what would make one throw out what culture and society gives you? You must hate human nature, or distrust it radically. Yet at the same time you have to trust it a great deal if you think that by default you should just throw away what culture and society gives you–because you think that your reason, on its own, can do far better.
Ilíon said,
June 12, 2009 at 2:35 am
I agree with our host and with “peeping thomist” (whose name is a hoot!) … though, rather than saying “On the one hand, it is true that these are irrational prejudices,” I’d have said “On the one hand, it is true that these may be non-rational prejudices …“
peeping thomist said,
June 12, 2009 at 7:50 am
Yeah, I think that’s accurate–my phrasing there was shloppy. Credit for the pseudonym goes to ye ole Ralph McInerny, who coined the phrase so far as I know.
Peter said,
June 12, 2009 at 8:25 am
I thought “Peeping Thomist” was coined by Time Magazine. See here. It is great, nonetheless. Hehe.
peeping thomist said,
June 12, 2009 at 10:12 am
I stand corrected…I got it from McInerny’s book title (although I believe he uses it elsewhere):
But now the earliest reference by his own admission in the blog is to Time Magazine as said of Adler…hahahaha
We need an extreme scholarly type to perform a parody of 19th century German research methods and seek out the origins of the phrase…clearly this requires a massive tome with oceans of footnotes and the hefty summarizing of at least 4 major schools of thought
peeping thomist said,
June 12, 2009 at 10:13 am
re that blog post you link to, “Memento Mortimer” is a pretty good one as well!
Ilíon said,
June 12, 2009 at 10:22 am
Merely one tome?
David said,
June 14, 2009 at 8:04 am
Is “SuperFreudianism” the same as “Assume all endoxes are false”?