Traversal problems : on the imposing of will as ideas traverse and die in humanistic space, the integrity-violation inherent in 'group-self-regulation' within meta-pedagogy, the use of invalid logic in meta-pedagogical argumentation, and the invalidity of the influx of statistics-rhetoric in logic

Abstract

This thesis seeks to clarify a narrow set of particular academic phenomena that share essential properties, and therefore need to be dealt with as one. As the thesis will show, not only are the phenomena related, but they also affect one another – necessarily and directly – feeding back onto one another, re-enforcing one another; operating specific principles which are universally held to be adverse to scientific activity and denounced, even by the same voices who hail and vigorously defend the institutionally scaffolded specific methods that enact these principles. Three main discoveries will be accounted for. The first discovery, which lies in the field of cognitive science, relates to a famous theory that I contend is not understood and therefore, as of presently, is effectively lost to humanity. All the 16 textbooks I have found that refer to this particular theory, are, I shall suggest, mistaken, and most are mistaken in identical ways. They make more or less the same mistake, and what is surprising is that none of them quote or refer to what definitely appears to be the original source of the theory, but instead seem to use each other as sources when they account for that theory in, as I shall contend, their mistaken way. The evidence for this is in chapter 3 of my thesis. The second main discovery is a case of an actual attempt, within higher education, by authors of a particular academic article, to base their theory of education on a logical argument for its founding principle. Upon my investigation of it, however, it turns out the attempted logical argumentation for this widely known theory-supporting principle of education, by the criteria of “logic” itself, as alleged by all so-called “logicians”, is what is called an “invalid” line of reasoning, an “irrational” argument form, which means that some researchers within one discipline of the humanistic sciences have unsuccessfully interacted with the discipline of “Logic”. They have argued for an instance of theory-making by using rhetoric that claims the theory is justified by principles of “logic”, but patently unsuccessfully so, as my investigation reveals. There is, in other words, a desire within humanistic disciplines to have the tools of “logical reasoning” within reach, and use them to both identify valid conclusions and argue for principles and theories, but fatal mistakes happen, mistakes that might be avoided in the future. Researchers within the sciences of education, hence, have a need to use “logic”, even though the field of “logic” is widely viewed as quite separate from the fields currently viewed as “belonging to” the faculties of “Education”. The unsuccessful attempt – undiscovered, it seems, during all the years that have passed since being professed – is an indication of a lapse of judgment and quality within higher education itself. The evidence for this is in chapter 7 of my thesis. The third main discovery of my research is that the unsuccessful application of “logic” within a certain field of the sciences of “education” coincides with a major malfunction in the definition of “logical validity” itself, within the field of “logic” itself, which might explain the unsuccessful attempts to use “logic” outside the field of “logic”, especially beyond the faculties of “Philosophy”. This is the most surprising of my three main discoveries. The evidence for it is presented in chapter 8 of the thesis. The faulty definition of ‘validity’ in turn coincides with a faulty method of ‘testing’ that, in accordance with its design, ‘finds’ certain patently invalid arguments to be inexplicably ‘valid’, the truth of which is demonstrated in chapter 9.