Paralogic thinking refers to those cases when it is erroneous in its premises, evidence and causal relationships. People with a paralogous type of thought process are distinguished by an incomprehensible other logic, defective judiciousness and analysis in relation to the most common phenomena.
Paralogisms
The tendency at the pathological level to paralogisms is false reasoning, logical errors that are made unintentionally, sincerely upheld and are a violation of the laws and rules of logic. Do not confuse this concept with sophism, when mistakes are made intentionally, in order to mislead others.
Types of paralogisms
This topic was explored by Aristotle. The philosopher identified three types of paralogisms:
- incorrect judgments in connection with the substitution of a proven thesis;
- errors in the basis of evidence;
- errors in the process and method of evidence.
Usually all of these types can be observed in people with mental disorders.
How do paralogisms appear?
For example, a person who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia will confidently prove that his companion is in love with the alleged rival only because he wears black trousers, and his lover loves this color. In this situation, part of the object is identified with the whole. Regarding the process and method of evidence, one can cite the following example: a person who suffers from paranoid delirium due to jealousy will prove with foam at the mouth that his wife is in love with a neighbor who lives on the floor below only because hanging clothes on the balcony after washing, his wife absolutely intentionally dropped, for example, a bra on the balcony of the apartment, which is located on the floor below. For her husband, such an accident is one hundred percent proof, but in reality it is nothing more than paralogism, which is based on an unproven basis. As for errors in the basis of evidence, the following example can be given: take a woman with a mental disorder named Rose. She confidently declares that she is none other than the queen, because a rose is a queen of flowers. Of course, such a typology is conditional, and each of them is interconnected, has common points. First of all, each type of reasoning is inherent in a type of reasoning that bypasses normal logic.
Paraphonetic paralogic thinking
Among patients with schizophrenia, it is often found that paralogisms are based on the phonetic similarity of some words. An example is a person suffering from schizophrenia, who, from his doctor, heard something about circular psychosis. He will begin to prove that they are going to kill him with a circular saw. Paralogisms can also be accompanied by a fragmentation of thinking - this is a replacement of concepts by the type of associations. They are based on the similarity of some definitions and in most cases are completely meaningless. It turns out that paralogic thinking is characterized by everything, excluding virtually the correct premises and evidence. In fact, reasoning and decisions that are fundamental for healthy thinking are replaced by considerations that have no connection with the original data. At first glance, such thinking may even seem creative, unconventional, and correct, but the slightest analysis immediately raises many questions about logical defects, erroneous proofs, strange arguments, and so on. Sometimes this behavior is difficult to distinguish from normal, especially in the early stages. Paralogical thinking is characterized by all of the above, excluding the normal expression of thoughts. The individual begins to use phrases and expressions that are absolutely not appropriate in meaning, and does not try to correlate the fact that his sayings have no meaning and meaning. There is completely no judiciousness, the ability to analyze, criticism, and so on.
Paralogic thinking is characterized by everything but the following
This type of thinking is inherent in most people with a mental personality disorder, especially in a paranoid form. Paralogical thinking is characteristic of persons of a certain constitutional structure in a mild form, as well as with schizophrenia and other serious mental disorders. It is not necessary to say that this type of thinking is characteristic only of psychopaths, such behavior is observed even in the most common neurotic conditions, when a person tries to bypass any manifestation of logical thinking in an adequate form in any way. They perceive their invented, unproven judgments as the most significant, relevant information, while logical reasoning is considered nonsense.
What are the varieties?
To determine the types of paralogical thinking, one can turn to the works of E. Shevalev, who singled out the following options:
- resonant paralogic;
- autistic paralogic;
- symbolically paralogical.
It is quite difficult to distinguish between these types among themselves, especially with serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia. This is because they reflect not only the way thought processes go, but also general personality traits.
Resonance-paralogical thought processes
This form involves the use of template expressions, ready-made schemes, stamps, which are completely devoid of practical value. This is expressed in the desire to cover all that is possible and impossible, in an attempt to determine the phenomena of everyday life in paralogical reasoning. The whole point is the unjustified complexity of the simplest and most obvious things - such behavior is characteristic of a resonant thought process.
Autistic paralogic and symbolic thinking
If resonant and autistic thinking has many similar factors, symbolic thought processes are based on the tendency to draw analogies between abstract concepts and certain images that replace them. An example of paralogical thinking in its symbolic manifestation can be given as follows: a person who is suffering from depression was brought a burnt loaf of bread, because of this he firmly decided that he was suspected of setting up an arson. In his mind, a burnt crust was identified with a fire. It is possible to determine the elements of this type of thinking in the course of a normal dialogue, but it is most effective to do this with a pathopsychological analysis. The most commonplace way is to ask a person to compare the beginning of a proverb with its end and ask to justify their choice. Paralogical thinking is characterized by the idea of its own exclusiveness. A person suffering from such a disorder is firmly convinced that his personality is at the epicenter of all events, general attention, and each of his words has serious weight for everyone, and the opinion is the only correct one.
Examples
Psychologists often give the following example to describe paralogical thinking. The patient could not find a job for a long time, he did this only with the help of his father. Work is prestigious, with a good income, by profession - he is a programmer. He always dealt with his tasks with high quality and on time, he was appreciated at work. By the way, everything is working out perfectly, but time passes and our patient notices that the colleagues do not miss the opportunity to throw a thing in his direction, meaningly hinting that it is time to find a wife and start a family. These may be words that with such a good salary you can start a family, at 30 o’clock already ticking, and it’s time to find a life partner and so on. The colleagues did not stop there and tried to “match up” to him an unmarried employee from the neighboring department. As a result, the patient realized that his colleagues were trying to force him to marry while he was currently not interested in the issue of marriage. What does our patient do? He goes and writes a letter of resignation. The leadership is shocked, because he does not respond to requests to stay, he is firmly on his own. As a result, for the next three years he again did not work. Father had to fuss again, and the guy again went to work as a programmer with a decent salary. Everything would be fine, but no! Now it seemed to him very strange the behavior of one of his colleagues, who was always late for work or tried to leave it ahead of schedule, didn’t hand in reports on time, was rude and refused to fulfill requests. Over time, the patient himself convinced himself that such a colleague’s behavior was no coincidence, namely, aimed at forcing our patient to quit his job. He himself inspired this, stayed on the spot only a couple of months, and then quit with the firm conviction that he simply had no other choice. He was forced! Regular requests to stay, even promises to raise his salary did not convince him. That sounds crazy, doesn't it? But there is an explanation for such behavior of our ward - these are at least two clearly expressed attacks of the disease with paranoiac delirium of persecution in the initial stage.