I have had a bone to pick with two eminent historians for quite a number of years now. The bone really sticks in my craw and tonight I'm a finnin' pick it out. As in all the fights I've picked with my betters I assert that I, the idiot blogger, is correct and that these eminences are wrong. Caveat emptor.
First, James McPherson. At the very end, pages 853-862, of Battle Cry of Freedom McPherson sifts through the various prior explanations that historians have offered for the United States victory and the Confederate States defeat and finds them all wanting. A minor shard of the bone I have to pick with McPherson is his use of the phrase "fallacy of reversibility" to dismiss one constellation of explanations. The "fallacy of reversibility"? What that is? I googled it one time: it appears ONCE--in this book--yet it sounds like it has the force of ancient law, like the fallacy of the perpetual motion machines or like it's a rule of logic. I object to the phrase.
Nine-tenths of the bone with McPherson is the explanation he offers after he finds all the others fallacious. Here is McPherson's money shot:
Most attempts to explain southern defeat or northern victory lack the dimension of contingency--the recognition that at numerous critical points during the war things might have gone altogether differently...Northern victory and southern defeat in the war cannot be understood apart from the contingency that hung over every campaign, every battle, every election, every decision during the war. (emphasis in original)
So, the South would have won the war if it had won more battles. See? That commits the fallacy of tautology.
The second historian I wish to cudgel tonight is James MacGregor Burns in Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox. In the chapter Court Packing: The Miscalculated Risk, pp 291-315, Burns describes Roosevelt's plan as "sanctioned by precedent...as previous presidents had done," "clearly constitutional," "quite moderate"(296) and "there was tremendous support in Congress and in the country for curbing the Court's excesses" (314). That's a pretty powerful combo there! So, um, why did it like fail? Because it was always going to fail.
In language strikingly similar to that used by McPherson, Burns sweeps away contending explanations for his own:
All such explanations ignored the probability that the original court plan never had a chance of passing. This was the crucial point. (313-14)
So: didn't pass...never had chance to pass...crucial point.
Holy hell.
I don't know if that commits the fallacy of reversibility but it does something bad, fallacy-wise! It contradicts Burns' previous descriptions of the plan is one damn thing it does. It is asinine. It is not an argument, it is a tautology also.
In both these instances I am not picking nits, I am picking Mammoth bones. McPherson’s tautology was his judgment on the entire Civil War! Burns’ was his “crucial point” on one of the most crucial points of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. They both struck air.
First, James McPherson. At the very end, pages 853-862, of Battle Cry of Freedom McPherson sifts through the various prior explanations that historians have offered for the United States victory and the Confederate States defeat and finds them all wanting. A minor shard of the bone I have to pick with McPherson is his use of the phrase "fallacy of reversibility" to dismiss one constellation of explanations. The "fallacy of reversibility"? What that is? I googled it one time: it appears ONCE--in this book--yet it sounds like it has the force of ancient law, like the fallacy of the perpetual motion machines or like it's a rule of logic. I object to the phrase.
Nine-tenths of the bone with McPherson is the explanation he offers after he finds all the others fallacious. Here is McPherson's money shot:
Most attempts to explain southern defeat or northern victory lack the dimension of contingency--the recognition that at numerous critical points during the war things might have gone altogether differently...Northern victory and southern defeat in the war cannot be understood apart from the contingency that hung over every campaign, every battle, every election, every decision during the war. (emphasis in original)
So, the South would have won the war if it had won more battles. See? That commits the fallacy of tautology.
The second historian I wish to cudgel tonight is James MacGregor Burns in Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox. In the chapter Court Packing: The Miscalculated Risk, pp 291-315, Burns describes Roosevelt's plan as "sanctioned by precedent...as previous presidents had done," "clearly constitutional," "quite moderate"(296) and "there was tremendous support in Congress and in the country for curbing the Court's excesses" (314). That's a pretty powerful combo there! So, um, why did it like fail? Because it was always going to fail.
In language strikingly similar to that used by McPherson, Burns sweeps away contending explanations for his own:
All such explanations ignored the probability that the original court plan never had a chance of passing. This was the crucial point. (313-14)
So: didn't pass...never had chance to pass...crucial point.
Holy hell.
I don't know if that commits the fallacy of reversibility but it does something bad, fallacy-wise! It contradicts Burns' previous descriptions of the plan is one damn thing it does. It is asinine. It is not an argument, it is a tautology also.
In both these instances I am not picking nits, I am picking Mammoth bones. McPherson’s tautology was his judgment on the entire Civil War! Burns’ was his “crucial point” on one of the most crucial points of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. They both struck air.
