According to the structure of emotional reasoning indicated at the beginning of the course, emotions are triggered by both a report and a rating under the guidance of a rooted belief. Therefore, self-defeating emotions may be caused by either an erroneous rating or an ungrounded report. The fallacy of “over-simplification” is such a sort of ungrounded report, and there are three forms of it identified by the practitioners of philosophical therapy:

Firstly, Over-generalization, which is to categorize realities in a scope broader than what evidences can corroborate. I once had a client who believed that all marketing strategies are to sell things that customers do not want, which is wicked! Hence, he refused to learn any marketing skill which is actually crucial to his business. Here, this client clearly over-generalizes the marketing industry, which created a bunch of problems to have complicated his life.

Secondly, Pigeonholing, which is to squeeze realities into rigidly dualistic categories, such as right or wrong, good or evil, friends or enemies, success or failure, etc. For instance, one of the most deleterious thinking habits of humanity both in history and today is still to fit individuals into nationalistic terms, and then, to characterize nations either as friends or enemies. Nowadays, because some of Chinese-Americans oppose the Chinese Communist party and see it as an enemy, they would accept any American politician as their friend who seemingly dares to confront certain immoral deeds of the party, with a pigeonholing idea that the enemy of one’s enemy is a friend. However, while doing so, they may remain blind to how the policies proposed by the politicians could do harm to their own life, and as a result, they may vote for whomsoever will govern in a way contrary to their own interest.

And thirdly, Stereotyping, which is to stick to pre-established categories regardless of exceptional realities. Since it has been a while for me to write and publish academic articles, I am very cautious to use broad categories to characterize phenomena which are of interest in my field, precisely in order to avoid stereotyping. For instance, whenever I mention the term “Confucianism,” or write the phrase “according to Confucian philosophy,” I try to give my reference to pin down what philosopher in what place at what period of time thinks so, since the term may mean vastly different things across different places and times. For the same reason, for a long time, I have felt uncomfortable to be introduced as a “Chinese philosopher” or a scholar with an expertise in “Chinese philosophy” in varying events, since, as I anticipated, there are prevalent stereotypes about what “Chinese philosophy” means among the audience, and those stereotypes could by no means fit my own approach to the study of Chinese thought.

These three forms of over-simplification are clearly inter-connected. All cases of stereotyping are over-generalization, and once we overgeneralize, dualistic categories such as friend and enemy will be pit against each other so as to pigeonhole their corresponding realities.

Furthermore, all these forms of over-simplification are about the misuse of the basic units of human language, category. According to Aristotle, categories are born from the inductive reasoning, viz., the process to distill generic traits from the observation of samples in groups. Once established, these categories can be put into use in the deductive reasoning through which varying relationships among categories infer different generic traits of those observed samples in groups. Clearly, the soundness of human reasoning according to this categorical method of Aristotelian logic crucially depends upon whether we can reach the exact degree of generality for the exact amount of samples. This would imply that whenever we generalize more than samples can indicate, no matter how consistent our reasoning is, it is not sound. For instance, the deductive reasoning “all swans are white, this is a swan, and hence, this is white” is not a sound one because the generalization “all swans are white” cannot cover all samples of “swans.” When one uses the over-generalized category of “swan as white” to perceive all swans in the world, they are clearly stereotyping swans, and pigeonholing them as either “being swan as white” or “not being a swan at all.” In the latter case, I do not think those black swans would be happy. Therefore, to confront all forms of over-simplification which over-generalize and misuse human categories, philosophical therapists recommend the virtue of “objectivity,” namely, to perceive realities exactly as they are, and thus, to be ready to revise pre-established categories for exceptional and changing realities.

This virtue of “objectivity” in terms of seeing the things as they are is also advocated by Confucian philosophers. For instance, Xunzi’s ethics relies upon the intelligence of exemplary humans to accurately perceive the value of things in the world, and hence, to achieve a state of mind called “vacuity, single-mindedness and quietude”:

“How do people know their Way? I say: with the heartmind. How does the heartmind know the Way? The heartmind is always holding something. Yet, there is what is called being ‘vacuous’. The heartmind is always two-fold. Yet, there is what is called being ‘single-minded.’ The heartmind is always moving. Yet, there is what is called being ‘quiet.’ Humans are born and have awareness. With awareness, they have focus. To focus is to be holding something. Yet, there is some state called being ‘vacuous.’ Not to let what one is already holding harm what one is about to receive is called being ‘vacuous.’ The heartmind is born and has awareness. With awareness, there comes awareness of different things. These differences are perceived at the same time, and when they are perceived at the same time, this mental state could be to be two-fold. Yet, there is what is called being ‘single-minded.’ Not to let one perception harm another perception is called being ‘single-minded.’ When the heartmind sleeps, then it dreams. When it relaxes, then it goes about on its own. When one puts it to use, then it forms plans. Thus, the heartmind is always moving. Yet, there is what is called being ‘quite.’ Not to let dreams and worries disorder one’s understanding is called being ‘quiet’.” (Xunzi, chapter 21, translation adapted from Eric Hutton)

Here, Xunzi urges one’s emotions not to interfere our awareness of the world so that what we already know not bring harm to what we are about to, and what we know one thing not perturb what we know about another. Clearly, this is a Ruist call not to over-generalize, pigeonhole or stereotype.

In an ultimate term, if we admit freedom and autonomy is a fundamental principle for good human living, and accept that each human individual is unique, non-replicable, and cannot be put exclusively in any “category,” then, we need to acknowledge that the difference between any two individuals can be bigger than any two races, ethnicities, genders, societies, economies, countries, and even cultures, because all the latter can be treated as merely categories, but individuals cannot. Precisely because of the essentially non-deterministic traits of human living, we need to continually construct, deconstruct, and refine our categories to adapt ourselves to changing realities in society.

It is because change is a fundamental feature of the reality we humans are trying to deal with, the Confucian tradition also contributed another way to our looking on the function of “categories.” Categories are not only formulaic terms to carry over generic traits of a group of items from one corner of our mind to another. Actually, if whenever we mention a category that is of ethical concern to us, we can simultaneously point out how we practice it in real situations of human life, these categories can be instead treated as performing examples so that we can emulate these examples to find appropriate reactions to our own unique situations.

For instance, in the Analects, when Confucius was asked by students how to understand the cardinal human virtue of humaneness, Ren, Confucius once gave a universal definition of it as “loving people.” (Analects 12:22) However, most often, Confucius’s strategy to explain the concept is to use practical words targeting students’ different situations. For people who are glib and fast to talk, he will say humaneness means reserving a solemn tone of one’s rare speeches (Analects 13:27); for people who traveled a lot and were extremely sociable, he would recommend to find the right friends in order to keep humane. (Analects 15.10) An advantage of this individualized pedagogy is that whenever the category of “humaneness” is mentioned, students will grasp it may mean different things for different people, and thus, they would truly pay attention to specificities before they apply the universal ethical teaching of humaneness.

Similarly, Mencius also thinks of the virtue of humaneness as what distinguishes human beings from non-human beings, and thus, being a category in its own right. However, more importantly, Mencius indicated through a thought experiment that ordinary humans will spontaneously have the feeling of alarm and fright whenever they see a baby about to fall into a well. In this way, Mencius argued that every human has their incipient sprout of humaneness to work on, and the process of being humanized depends upon whether one is dedicated to creating a social environment beneficial for the natural growth of the moral sprout. Again, the good thing for Mencius’s argument on the virtue of humaneness is that after we take the feeling of alarm and fright triggered by that concrete situation as a performing example of the category of humaneness, firstly, we understand it not only intellectually but also in an embodied way; and secondly, we can remain sensitive to our own situations so as to emulate the virtue of humaneness discussed by Mencius while not entirely photocopying it, which means, the feeling of commiseration rooted in the virtue of humaneness may be acted out in diverse ways.

In my view, for human transactions that are of ethical concern, if we can consistently practice this Confucian sensitivity towards the practical implication of categories, and hence, treat categories as imitable examples with no need of photocopying it, it will greatly contribute to avoiding the thinking fallacy of over-simplification.

To continue the instances I gave above, if by mentioning the term “friends” we always bear in mind cases of exemplary friendship in human history, we will hold on to the fact that while using “friends” to categorize humans, what we deal with are still concrete human persons., rather than a lump of abstract generic traits which can be easily pigeonholed or stereotyped by categories.

In a Confucian term, this mindset to categorize while exemplifying realities is once depicted by one very popular slogan in the period of neo-Confucianism: “the principle is one, while its manifestations are many.” Also, in Aristotle’s virtue ethics, Aristotle admonishes us to form the “practical wisdom” so as to apply universal ethical principles to concrete and changing situations. Here, different from the misuse of categories by the thinking fallacy of oversimplification which demands the uniformity of traits of realities in order to put these traits into established, neatly bounded categories, we are called upon to pay attention to how realities within a category can merely bear an analogical resemblance to each other. Hence, evolving situations would continually urge us to refine our understanding of those categories, and modify our reifiable emotional and behavioral patterns.

In my view, for the sake of good human living, we definitely need to make use of categories in this enriched and enriching way.