Fifty Thousand!

 

I was pleased to discover yesterday that my Sidewise Thinking blog has now hit the 50,000 pageview mark. Last month, there were over 4,300 views, or well over 150 per day.

My first post, "What's SideWise Thinking?", appeared on April 11, 2009. It was an excerpt from the book I was currently working on, Creative Project Management (with Ted Leemann). I've generally put a new post up every Tuesday (with a big gap between July and November 2010), with topics ranging from project and risk management to my two big series on cognitive biases and decision-making disorders.

The most popular piece so far has been "You're Not Being Reasonable," on the rules of reasonable arguing. First published on March 2, 2010, it's gotten over 3,400 page views, helped primarily by a plug from the blog "LessWrong" and a StumbleUpon link.

I don't quite understand why the second most popular post is the 23rd part of my Red Herrings series, "Hume's Guillotine." First published January 24, 2012, it's gotten over 2,200 hits, but I can't find any specific factor driving traffic to that article and that one alone. Next comes "Triage for Project Managers (Part Two)" (February 8, 2011, over 1,700 hits), and "Eyewitness to Murder" (April 13, 2010, with over 1,300). Red herrings strike again with "A Cute Angle (Part 19)" (December 27, 2011, over 1,000 hits).

By comparison, my new blog, Dobson's Improbable History, which has only a little more than a month under its belt, is already exceeding 100 hits per day, with over 3,200 pageviews last month — a much better start.

This is the 149th post I've made to the blog. I made 29 entries in 2009, 31 in 2010, 52 in 2011, and 43 so far this year.

Thanks very much for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy it.

Hume’s Guillotine (Red Herrings Part 23)

Part 23 of Red Herrings covers still more responses to arguments that distract from the argument rather than address it directly. This week, the is-ought problem.

Is-Ought Problem

The “is-ought problem” is also known as Hume’s Law or Hume’s Guillotine, first articulated by Scottish philosopher David Hume in his 1739 work A Treatise of Human Nature.

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

As in the case of many logical fallacies, it’s not necessarily the case that “is” precludes “ought,” but rather that “is” doesn’t constitute a sufficient proof by itself. To reach a conclusion of “ought” requires additional argument.

The problem is easier in goal-setting than in morality. For example, if you want to win a race, then you ought to run quickly. However, whether you ought to want to win in the first place is a different question.