Temeritas (Rashness): Two Flaws In Thinking That Mess Up Our View Of Ethics, History, Politics, & Everything Else.

 

One of the most helpful categories for understanding how we go wrong in our thinking is Augustine's idea of temeritas (rashness), which he defines as the TENDENCY TO ASSERT AS CERTAIN WHAT IS UNCERTAIN and WHAT IS UNCERTAIN AS CERTAIN. To "assert the certain as uncertain" is to refuse, or be unable to, be appropriately moved by evidence. To assert the "uncertain as certain" is to achieve certainty ahead of the evidence, i.e., prematurely. Often those who have very bad case of the first (asserting the certain as uncertain), tend to accuse others of being guilty of the second (asserting the uncertain as certain), and vice-versa. Termeritas is the sin which apologists of all sorts tend to be prone.

Vaclav Havel is often quoted as saying, "Education is the ability to perceive the hidden connections between phenomena.” I have no idea if Havel actually said this or where, but he is often quoted as saying it. Whatever the case, my experience would tend to lead me to the opposite conclusion, namely that "education is the ability to avoid perceiving what seem to be hidden connections too quickly." And thus, potentially at least, of having the ability to avoid temeritas. 

INSISTING THAT UNLIKE THINGS ARE LIKE and THAT LIKE THINGS ARE UNLIKE, usually turns on featuring one or more points of similarity while suppressing differences or featuring one difference while suppressing similarities. This is illustrated by the current tendency of the political Left to equate any leanings toward the Right (no matter how small) as advocacy of full-blown Hitlerian Fascism and on the political Right any leanings toward the Left as advocacy of full-blown Stalinist Communism.