Chapter 62 <Three call minimum and maximum>

In the "Resolution Concerning Some Historical Issues Concerning the Party Since the Founding of the People's Republic of China", based on a large amount of factual materials, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made such a definitional judgment on the Cultural Revolution: The Cultural Revolution was initiated by the leaders and used by counter-revolutionary groups. Civil strife that has brought serious disasters to the party, the country and the people of all ethnic groups.However, Lin Biao, a counter-revolutionary careerist, shouted hoarsely during the Cultural Revolution: The Cultural Revolution lost the least and the least, and the achievements were the greatest and the greatest.

How to logically analyze Lin Biao's fallacy?The law of sufficient reason requires that, to determine that a thought is true, not only must there be reasons, but the reasons must be true and comprehensive.Any assertion without any reason is arbitrary or groundless nonsense, thus violating the minimum requirement of the law of sufficient reason (there must be a reason). One of the sophistry techniques is the so-called repeated assertion method, that is, without any argument for a certain point of view or proposition, but repeatedly stated in a firm tone.For example, there is no argument for things, but repeated assertions that they are good, they are good, or they are bad, they are bad.Sophists believe in the philosophy that nothing great can be achieved without telling a lie, and that a lie repeated a thousand times will become the truth.

Sophists take advantage of the psychological habit of people, that when the speaker repeats a certain point of view over and over again with unusual firmness and conviction, the listener has a psychological tendency to completely ignore the correctness of the point of view itself, and to ignore the truth of the speech. People tend to believe this view if they have presented strong arguments to prove it to be true.Especially when the speaker is an authoritative person with high reputation (politician, university scholar, and successful person in a certain career), the audience is more likely to accept his repeated views.

Lin Biao took advantage of this point. Regarding the Cultural Revolution, he thought that if he said that the three losses were the smallest in a row, the loss would really become the smallest.The purpose of Lin Biao's repeated repetition of this fallacy is to serve his attempt to usurp the supreme leadership of the party and the country.Logically, his assertion is groundless. Finally, it should be pointed out that the law of sufficient reason only requires sufficient reasons when proving a certain point of view.As to whether some specific reasons put forward in the argument are true, correct and comprehensive, the law of sufficient reason itself cannot answer.Such questions must be settled by practice and by the individual sciences.