3 2 9se l f -se a l e r sthe prediction is going to be true, and this is just what is wrong with it. The
prediction is empty or vacuous.
People do not, of course, go around making predictions of this kind, but
they do sometimes hold positions that are empty or vacuous in much the
same way. A clairvoyant claims to be able to predict the future, but every
time a prediction fails, she says that this just proves that someone set up bad
vibrations that interfered with her visions. So, if the prediction turns out to
be true, she claims that this shows her clairvoyance; if it turns out to be false,
she cites this as evidence of interference. No matter what happens, then, the
clairvoyant’s claim to be clairvoyant cannot be refuted. Her claim to clair-
voyance is as empty and vacuous as the Perfect Sage’s prediction.
Positions that are set up in this way so that nothing can possibly refute
them are called self-sealers. A self-sealing position is one that is so con-
structed that no evidence can possibly be brought against it no matter what
happens. This shows its vacuity, and it is precisely for this reason that we
reject it.
People do not usually hold self-sealing positions in a blatant way; they
tend to back into them. A person who holds that the American economy is
controlled by an international Jewish conspiracy will point out people of
Jewish extraction (or with Jewish names) who occupy important positions
in financial institutions. This at least counts as evidence, though very weak
evidence. And there seems to be much stronger evidence on the other side:
There are a great many people in these institutions who are not Jews. To
counter this claim, the person now argues that many of these other people
are secretly Jews or are tools of the Jewish conspiracy. The Jews have al-
lowed some non-Jews to hold important positions in order to conceal their
conspiracy. What evidence is there for this? Well, none really, but that only
helps prove how sneaky the Jewish conspiracy is. At this point, the position
has become self-sealing, for all evidence cited against the existence of the
conspiracy will be converted into evidence for its cleverness.
Ideologies and worldviews tend to be self-sealing. The Marxist ideology
sometimes has this quality. If you fail to see the truth of the Marxist ideol-
ogy, that just shows that your social consciousness has not been raised. The
very fact that you reject the Marxist ideology shows that you are not yet
capable of understanding it and that you are in need of reeducation. This is
perfect self-sealing. Sometimes psychoanalytic theory gets involved in this
same kind of self-sealing. People who vigorously disagree with certain psy-
choanalytic claims can be accused of repressing these facts. If a boy denies
that he wants to murder his father and sleep with his mother, this itself can
be taken as evidence of the strength of these desires and of his unwillingness
to acknowledge them. If this kind of reasoning gets out of hand, then psy-
choanalytic theory also becomes self-sealing and empty. Freud was aware of
this danger and warned against it.
So far, we have seen two ways in which an argument can be self-sealing:
(1) It can invent an ad hoc or arbitrary way of dismissing every possible
criticism. The clairvoyant can always point to interfering conditions without97364_ch16_ptg01_323-332.indd 329 15/11/13 11:07 AM
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