Comments on: Classical Rhetoric 101: Logical Fallacies

By: Hermann

Hermann — Wed, 29 May 2013 16:15:07 +0000

A true scotsman wears kilt.
I wear kilt.
Therefore I am a true scotsman!

Slainte!

Hermann the German

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:05:28 +0000

Thank you so much for this series! I’m preparing to audition for a production of Julius Caesar, and these articles have been tremendously helpful to me in my analysis of the various speeches/monologues.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 21:04:40 +0000

Some of my faves, though they might not all be arguments in the classical sense.

If you fought (speak out, argue) against the communists, you must be pro-nazi.

Every time they send one of those rockets into space, it rains the next day. Therefore, launching rockets causes it to rain.

I don’t even know if this qualifies as a fallacy, or just an outright falsehood, but… Head of Agency X requests a 25% increase in his budget from the legislature, legislature increases funding for Agency X by 10%, Head of Agency complains to media that his budget has been “slashed” by 15%.

I think we’re also seeing more of what could only be called something like the “double counter fallacy.” That occurs when a person whose own poor logic, sketchy data, and extreme use of fallacious argument is exposed or proven wrong, and in response proclaims himself as the victim of an ad-hominem attack.

By: Sullivan Ballou

Sullivan Ballou — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:31:27 +0000

Nathan:
Many who apply the “No True Scotsman” fallacy put the subject that they are trying to trap with logic (in this case, a member of a certain religion) in a box, often by using a simple dictionary definition to define what a “true [whatever]” DOES do, and excluding everything that the basic definition leaves out for the sake of conciseness. For example, to defend Christianity from the “atrocities” of Christians in the past, one might say “No true Christian would torture and kill people,” since these actions are the most prominent atrocity by all human understanding. However, because Christians can be assumed, usually by definition, to regard what the Bible says (among this, “Love one another” and “Thou shalt not kill”), it is NOT an example of the “No True Scotsman” fallacy to state, “No true Christian” would have committed the past atrocities mentioned, simply because it CAN be logically stated that no “true Christian” would intentionally disregard what the Bible says. No one needs to rush forward to rationalize “Christian atrocities” AFTER the fact (Crusades, Inquisition, etc), because the religious laws forbidding these atrocities existed BEFORE the fact.

By: Nicholas

Nicholas — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 04:16:55 +0000

God is Love.
Love is Blind.
Ray Charles is Blind.
Therefore, Ray Charles is God.

By: Justin Powers

Justin Powers — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 22:05:23 +0000

“You know who else was a vegetarian? Hitler. Therefore, vegetarianism is bad.”

Sounds reasonable enough to me.

By: Max

Max — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:04:41 +0000

Thanks, one of the best series on AoM, will it be in the next book or is it already included in the AoM book?

By: Joshua Krohse

Joshua Krohse — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 15:39:50 +0000

Shouldn’t this line “Therefore, no gods have beards” in the example for a negative conclusion from affirmative premises be “Therefore, no mortals have beards”?

By: Jason Taylor

Jason Taylor — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 02:51:25 +0000

“You see this one all the time from religious moderates. Take Muslims as an example. They say they have a religion of peace, but when one of their more radical believers does exactly the kind of thing the Koran tells them to by running a plane into a building, the moderates say that person couldn’t have been a real Muslim…or they just condone the action with silence. This is also used to justify Christian atrocities of the past.”

That is a matter of wording. The speaker could mean by religion X,”Someone who claims membership of religion x would not do such and such”(untrue) or “someone who does such and such has indicated in so doing that his claim is theologically unsound to the point of rendering his claim meaningless.”(debateable in a given situation). Usually it is the second claim that is made, not the first.

“Scotsman” by contrast is a matter of chance, not of choice, except for immigrants. Someone could behave in any manner whatsoever and believe anything whatsoever and not cease to be a Scotsman unless his citizenship is formally revoked. Even if he is executed for murder he has not ceased to be a Scotsman-he has simply become a dead Scotsman.
Even here the speaker could simply mean, “The given person has not behaved in a manner appropriate to the ideals peculiar to Scotland.” Which begs the question of whether in fact Scotland has ideals peculiar to itself and if so what are they? But that is another story.

By: Tae McNeelege

Tae McNeelege — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 21:28:06 +0000

All rhetorics fail when you keep asking why. Keep asking why and the speaker will shoot himself in the foot with his own logic.