Smith's Fallacies

507 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Adult education and social changes

Sydney Smith’s review of the The Book of Fallacies by Jeremy Bentham states that he does not believe that our ancestors are wiser than today’s generations. Smith claims that the people alive today are the most ingenious because they have the most experience in what has happened in the world. This statement goes against the mainstream thought that ancestors are the wisest and should be looked up to for knowledge. I believe that Smith is correct in saying this because although our ancestors were born in an earlier time frame than us, we have knowledge of all of their experiences and our experiences combined. As Smith states in his review, yes, I believe that among the living the older are generally wiser than the young because they have more human experience. People have to reach an age to where they …show more content…

He remarks that people now are wiser than ever before. Take this into thought; he is saying that the citizens of Earth now are more knowledgeable than the citizens of Earth in 1916. This is unquestionably true considering people of today have a hundred years more knowledge of life than the people of 1916. There have been infinite new discoveries and ideas taken place over the past hundred years that were never even thought possible until now. As the years pass by, knowledge is also more easily accessible. The school curriculum is constantly changing to keep up with the amount of information that children are expected to know by adulthood. Smith’s proclamation even holds true short term. Looking back only a few decades, students were not expected to take many of the class courses required to graduate now. A large amount of adults cannot help their sixteen and seventeen year old children with their math homework because they never had to take the courses. Human knowledge is constantly expanding, therefore how is it even thought possible for our ancestors to hold as much knowledge as us

Show More
Related

  • The Heavenly City of Eighteenth Century Philosophers

    1789 Words  | 4 Pages

    While some believe that the Philosophes are a great exception that propelled civilization generations forward, most serious students of history would realize that to be impossible

    Read More

  • The Glass Castle Maturity

    334 Words  | 1 Pages

    Many people have been questioning on whether maturity depends on one’s age. I believe that maturity isn’t dependant on someone’s age because one matures based on things they’ve undergo, and how their environment can be.

    Read More

  • Adam Smith's Political Philosophies

    88 Words  | 1 Pages

    Adam Smith was a philosopher whose political philosophies was based off of economics. He believed to some extent that there should be a redistribution of wealth, but at the same time there should be a limit to government interference in economy. He wanted the state to end politics that favor industry over agriculture or vice versa, and that business should be left to the business people. He also believed that the government cannot make people virtuous with laws, and that the state should not promote religion or

    Read More

  • Smith's Views Of Human Nature By George Smith Vs. Smith

    1100 Words  | 3 Pages

    Human Nature has been debated since the beginning of modern human existence, and everybody appears to have a different opinion on what it consists of. Humans, on one hand, are usually very predictable and easy to figure out, but on the other hand, sometimes they stray from the common conception, and therefore make everybody begin the debate over again. People have to deal with other people almost everyday, and many professions actively attempt to figure out why people do what they do and how people would act and react in specific situations. Humans as a whole have come along way in figuring others out, and yet there is so much that is not known about humans. People act differently based on many different factors, and since the start of societies, people have

    Read More

  • Adam Smith Essay

    1020 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even though Adam Smith lived in a different century then us, he fully understood how wealth can be accumulated. His concepts of capitalism and free market are still the root of many nations and still bring much wealth to these nations. With all these accomplishments, we can, with no doubt, say Adam Smith is the father of economics.

    Read More

  • Columbus Howard Zinn Analysis

    147 Words  | 1 Pages

    Earlier historians believed that education in the history department would separate the social classes into two groups, the educated versus the uneducated. Knowledge of history should not be determined by society. You either know your material or you do not completely understand it due to how it is explained. What I did not know, was that our family trees provide us with an understanding of how our families contributed to our ever changing history. Predicting our futures with history can be challenging because we sometimes receive uninformative facts that our teachers or modern historians might not know. For example, Howard Zinn wrote a chapter in his book A People’s history on Christopher Columbus and why we should not celebrate Columbus

    Read More

  • Logical Fallacies

    410 Words  | 1 Pages

    In this editorial from the Citizen-times, we are considering some issues about Iran and their uranium enrichment program. The foreign minister of Iran said that it would be against the ‘ways of Islamic thinking’ to produce weapons of mass destruction. Well, it should be against anyone’s ways of thinking to produce weapons of mass destruction. There are only a few reasons to make uranium, and most of them have to do with the making of explosives and types of weapons that create havoc and mayhem. So I’d have to say that one of the logical fallacies in this passage has to do with the foreign minister of Iran tiring to get us to believe that just because it’s ’against Islamic ways of thinking’, I’d have to say he needs to give us a little more information than that. Iran keeps tiring to tell us that the nuclear activities are peaceful. If I am correct, and I believe that I am, that anything to do with nuclear ‘activities’ probably wouldn’t fall into the peaceful category. I’m not too sure about the quote, “ Foreign Minister Kamel Kharrazi told reporters. "Iran is a promoter of the elimination of nuclear weapons around the world and, based on our ideology, on our Islamic thinking, it is forbidden to produce and use nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction." I think that I’d have to label this as a logical fallacy. Some of this quote might be true, but if anything, I think that Iran is just trying to get us to believe them so we will get off their case. They have had weapons of mass destruction before, so why wouldn’t they have them again? Although Iran keeps trying to convince us of this, the state of this nation still is convinced by mister Bush that Iran is ’’the world’s primary state in sponsoring of terror’’. I don’t really know how true this statement is, but I’m pretty sure that Bush is proposing a logical fallacy here when he says this.

    Read More

  • The Circular Ruins by Jorge Luis Borges

    1690 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Chinese have a proverb about the evolution of humanity, and in particular, the nature of intellectual relationships. Although the color green is composed from the color blue, it often shines with a more brilliant luster than its predecessor does. This is a metaphor for the pupil and teacher. The pupil learns knowledge from his teacher, but will outgrow his teacher and eventually surpass him in wisdom. I believe this accurately describes the progress of human knowledge throughout time. In fact, it is quite obvious how technology and science have improved as time goes on. There are dramatic changes even in the last decade as people take the discoveries of their predecessors and expand on those principles. Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, “The Circular Ruins,” also illustrates this idea of the descendents being superior to the ancestors. However, Borges additionally uses a creation story and the theme of recursiveness, which suggest that there is no single perfect being that created all, but that there are numerous beings that create, with each successive one becoming more powerful. This also implies that, contrary to Judeo-Christian belief, the perfect being is waiting to be created in the end and is not the creator in the beginning.

    Read More

  • True Intelligence

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    In disagreement with portions of this week’s article, as provided by (Macionis, 2010, pp. 266-267), People living prosperously are not necessarily smarter than those who are less fortunate. While it is true that wealthy people have better educational opportunities, as opposed to their counterparts, many gifted individuals have come from meager beginnings. Such examples clearly bring questions to widely asserted...

    Read More

  • The Importance of Adam Smith's Work to Economic Thought

    1609 Words  | 4 Pages

    I don’t believe that without Smith, economics would not exist, but I do feel it would lack in much of its transferability between past and modern day scenarios.

    Read More

  • Adam Smith Essay

    847 Words  | 2 Pages

    Adam Smith was a man of many achievements. As a Scottish philosopher and political economist he became famous by his classical and influential books. In 1759 he wrote a book called “The Theory of Mortal Sentiments”and in 1775 he wrote another called “An Inquiry to the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”. Known as the “father of modern economics” Adam Smith has greatly influenced society. Adam Smith’s history impacted the way that our society is today. Adam’s childhood, environment, education and events throughout his life contributed to the way that we view society. With Adam’s theories and great works he molded a pathway to different stand points on the public and its society. Among his great works are the wealth of nations and inquiry to the nature and causes of the wealth of nations alongside the theory Adam named the invisible hand. Adam also thought about the public from an economic and political stand point. Due to factors that influenced Adam’s early life, he was able to learn from those before him to become the great economist, politician, and philosopher that he was. This way, even though Adam Smith lived during the time of the scientific revolution his words of wisdom in politics and the economy are still used today in the public.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

    1044 Words  | 3 Pages

    Smith's account reveals his views on the nature of the human condition, and not a single

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Intelligence

    1196 Words  | 3 Pages

    Recent information collected showing an increase to our IQs have many asking the question, are we smarting than our ancestors? Unlike our predecessors, we live in a time that poses a greater range of cognitive problems than our ancestors encountered, and as a result we've developed new cognitive skills and the kinds of brains that can deal with these problems. So in a way we are getting smarter throughout history, though it is widely debated if this is due to our environment or genes. Since IQ tests have been standardised many times over the last one hundred years, scientists have participants take a test designed for a previous age and record the results. What (Flynn, 1994) unearthed was that new test takers score much higher than those of the older generation. Flynn and his colleagues guessed that the difference in scores was due to improving modern environments. To them IQ is part heritable and part environmental- provide a child with opportunities to learn and they're likely to have a higher IQ later in

    Read More

  • Dumbest Generation Essay

    688 Words  | 2 Pages

    We all know technology has taken over us without even noticing it. Although technology has changed throughout these years, it has had its good perks in many reasons such as making our lives easier with just one single click. However, because of this, it has lacked us from actually doing some research or actually trying to educate ourselves mentally and physically. In the sources below, we will notice how technology has had somewhat of an affect on why we might be the ¨dumbest generation¨ as questioned. Each source is being said in the authors own perspective and what they think lead to us being the dumbest generation.

    Read More

  • Essay On Cultural Lag

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    They have never been as quick or energetic as young people, but societies have often valued them for their accumulated skills, knowledge, and wisdom. The same technological progress that enables our society to keep an ever-larger percentage of old folks’ bodies going has simultaneously reduced the value of the minds within those bodies. The use of new technology gadgets like computers and tabs leads to less use of human minds. Start by considering factual knowledge, an old person will certainly know more than a young person, but can any person, young or old, know as much as Google and Wikipedia? Why would a young person ask an elder the answer to a fact question that can be solved authoritatively in 10 seconds via phone or computers using Internet? Here we can quote one other example, My Dad who is a wise and educated man doesn’t know how to use an ATM card, either he enters an inappropriate pin card number or it gets stuck in the machine, and asks for my help. Another answer would be to develop obvious wisdom. Unfortunately, the young people who are most in need of an elder’s wisdom are the least likely to realize it. Only a small percentage of old people throughout history have managed to maintain high status and value purely through wisdom and due to these advancement in technology they lack behind and are unable to cope up with new

    Read More

More about Smith's Fallacies

Open Document