Argument analysis of Psychical Phenomena and the Physical World by Charles McCreery

Argument analysis of Psychical Phenomena and the Physical World by Charles McCreery

Methodology of analysis: In analyzing this work I began by skimming the book in it’s entirety ,as it is a relatively short work, and marked down the pages that seemed to stand out as particularly far fetched or logically dubious. The first half of the book is where the bulk of my analysis rests because the second half is largely case studies intended to support the arguments made in the first half. The second half is still noteworthy, but it serves the purpose of supporting the author’s claims with “science” rather than making any major claims on their own, the exceptions to this being the chapter on birth order and the final chapter, though they are both predominantly “evidance” focused sections .   

Table of Fallacies

Fallacy	Definition	Dr. Vrooman’s Example	Example from the Text	Comments and Explanations
Appeal to Ignorance	Something is true because there is no evidence for it.	“If I were adopted, then I would know about it by now. I don't know that I'm adopted. Therefore, I wasn't adopted.”Fallacy Files	“How do you know that all the experiences you seem to remember having since waking up this morning have not all been part of a dream. You may find this impossible to believe, but can you prove to yourself it is not true?” (page 20) “So long as we all have mutually consistent hallucinatory perceptions, and they all correspond to the real world, we will never discover that what we are having is not the real thing. How then can we say that the subject of the out-of-the-body experience is having hallucinatory perceptions but we are not?” (page 41)	These are just two of the most glaring examples of this fallacy, though there are many more instances. It seems to be the author’s final conclusion for each one of his major points. These same arguments may also be considered begging the question as the conclusion is often part of the chapter’s central premise. I am afraid to say that some people may fall into this trap since much of the logic that precedes it is scientific sounding.
Begging the Question	A circular argument. The conclusion is part of a premise.	“Bill: "God must exist." Jill: "How do you know." Bill: "Because the Bible says so." Jill: "Why should I believe the Bible?" Bill: "Because the Bible was written by God." Nizkor Project
Appeal to Misleading Authority (w/ Appeal to Celebrity & Appeal to Tradition)	Using an authority to affirm a conclusion when the authority is not expert enough, in the context, to assure the conclusion.	“The moon is covered with dust because the president of our neighborhood association said so.” IEP	The author mentions Freud (page viii), Descartes (page 13), and Kant (page 75) as well as various societies and institutes in both the acknowledgements and foreword.	Those mentioned that do have academic credibility like Kant, Descartes, and Freud are largely tangential to the author’s point, only offering very minor additions to his theories. He is essentially “name dropping” credible sources in hopes of gaining the reader’s attention and belief. The societies and universities mentioned are dubious “psychical research” societies.
Wishful Thinking	Something is true because I want it to be.	“There's got to be an error here in the history book. It says Thomas Jefferson had slaves. I don't believe it. He was our best president, and a good president would never do such a thing. That would be awful.” IEP	Most people want there to be something supernatural in the world. It is simply more interesting that way. The author preys on this desire, offering dubious research and fallacious arguments to give the reader “proof” that the world is indeed supernatural and amazing and “psychical phenomena” exist.
Anecdotal Fallacy/ Misleading Vividness	A Hasty Generalization that relies on the availability heuristic (we generalize from vivid stories more readily).	"There's abundant proof that God exists and is still performing miracles today. Just last week I read about a girl who was dying of cancer. Her whole family went to church and prayed for her, and she was cured." SecularWeb	The second half of the book is filled with this.  The experiences of the Marquis d’Hervey de Saint-Denys in chapter 7, the account of “Subject E” in chapter 8, the cases of out of body experiences in chapter 9 and the birth order experiments in chapter 6.	These are all very vivid accounts of “psychical phenomena” though they are mostly single cases. This could also be considered part of the unrepresentative sample fallacy as well as these few cases are not representative of the entire human race.
Redefinition/ No True Scotsman	A term’s meaning is purposefully and creatively changed.	“And this is apparent, if we consider that every head of a family must look upon himself as obliged to act in three capacities—as a prophet, to instruct: as a priest, to pray for and with; as a king, to govern, direct, and provide for them.” Under Much Grace; example from Whitfield	“But when we say that something is hallucinatory we also mean that we think it is ‘not really there’ in the outside world.… Now the typical out-of-the-body experience is not hallucinatory in this sense at all.” (page 30) “If you define seeing as something that you do with your eyes, then clearly the out-of-the-body subject is not seeing the world around him. And we can of course arbitrarily decide to call seeing with one’s eyes ‘seeing’ and anything else ‘not really seeing’; but this decision is purely verbal and does not advance our knowledge or understanding of the situation.” (page 32)	This is another common fallacy used in this book. It is extremely common for the author to redefine a term like “seeing” or “real” to suit his argument. Once again I fear this may be an effective tactic, as it is not blaringly obvious to most what the author is doing, at least initially.

Table of Rhetorical Devices

Parts of the Argument	Specific Rhetorical Device Used	Definition	Example and Comments
Premises	Observed facts/truths	Concrete data.	The case studies in chapters 6 through 10 are the only observable truth or supporting data that is presented. While these cases are vivid they are far from reliable or representative of the entire population. Overall, these may be effective means of convincing some readers though the bulk of the author’s points are based on philosophical reasonings and the redefinition of words to suit his main arguments.
	Quality Loci	The rare and unique is better.	The author makes the argument that, because these “psychical phenomena” are rare they are more valuable than normal experiences, often seeing to belittle reality as “familiar” and claims that these phenomena are not accepted because they are not as common. (page 74)
Premise Modifiers	Presence in time	Making it feel urgent.	The foreword creates the sense that this is the cutting edge of science in using word like “significant contribution”, “great importance”, and “valuable” among others. This creates a sense of urgency and importance and also adds to the seemingly “scientific”-ness of the book. It is easy to tell that this book is intended for armchair psychologists and philosophers with a desire to believe in strange psychical phenomena
	Specific Choices of Interpretation	Choose between alternatives.	The author seems to outline a choice between believing and not believing, as well as a choice between the “common” view that asserts that psychical phenomena are not real and the “scientific” view that asserts that psychical phenomena are real. According to the author, if you believe in science then you should believe this book.
Quasi-logical arguments	Normative definition	Prescriptive: what it should mean.	The author constantly redefines words to suit his argument (see the no true scotsman fallacy above). The majority of the author’s arguments rest on such redefinitions and if one buys into his definitions then they will certainly believe most of this book. This is largely the crux of the entire book.