Alright, I am going to make this quick. Easy to follow. And hopefully informative. Below we will go through definitions of “generalizing” and “fallacious” and then dive into the difference between “positivism” and “praxeology”. Enjoy!
Terms
Generalizing – make general or broad statement by inferring from specific cases
Fallacious – based on a mistaken belief
We have our first two terms. Coincidentally(?) these are the same terms as the title.
Therefore, generalizing is fallacious means making a general statement by inferring something is a mistaken belief.
Economics Lesson (More Here)
Positivism – a philosophical system that holds that every rationally justifiable assertion can be scientifically verified or is capable of logical or mathematical proof, and that therefore rejects metaphysics and theism
Praxeology – the deductive study of human action, based on the notion that humans engage in purposeful behavior, as opposed to reflexive behavior like sneezing and inanimate behavior
If you want to think of it in other terms think of positivism as macro, it’s taking a lot of numbers and simplifying them into a pretty graph. Praxeology is micro, imagine following one person around for an entire day and jotting down everything they do, then building a tidy graph for that person’s day.
Combining Terms With Economics Lesson
Generalizing is taking a positivism approach. Instead of looking at each individual’s actions, we infer something based on macro data. If we were to dig deep into each data point, each person’s individual actions, we may come away with a completely different conclusion. Most likely we would agree with the person if we saw their micro, but we rarely see it.
The only time we see someone’s micro is when we are involved in their everyday life. Social media friends (who we’re actually friends with), friends in our city/town, family (who we actually interact with), mentors, employers/co-workers (who we open up with), and acquaintances (who we speak regularly with). These are the people who see our individual actions.
Stop Generalizing and Start Meeting Individuals
Anytime we look on the macro level we are taking the individual person out of the equation. It becomes a bunch of numbers and doesn’t describe individual actions. If we want to improve ourselves, and others around us, we need to start thinking on the micro level, the individual level. We need to think about the next person we have a conversation with. Generalizing closes us off from new people, so stop it.