Category: Informal Fallacies
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The Difference between Posing and Begging a Question
I found the nifty graphic below over at Flood's place. It is a pithy and pictorial presentation of a point I have been hammering away at online for the last twenty years. Here is a Substack hammer-job. Some say we should give up the fight and let the forces of linguistic decadence obliterate the distinction…
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On the Correct Use of ‘Begging the Question’
Substack latest.
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About Whataboutism
Here at Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical.
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About Whataboutism
What's with all the contemporary noise about 'whataboutism'? Example 1. A lefty complains, "Trump is a liar!" A conservative responds, "What about Hillary and Bill and Obama? They are not liars?" Example 2. A pro-lifer argues that killing the prenatal is immoral and meets with the response, "What about all of the 'pro-lifers' who bomb…
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Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc?
"Donald Trump is the first president in history whose campaign has come under F. B. I.-initiated investigation for collusion with a hostile foreign power. And the person heading that investigation, the F. B. I. director, has been fired." (Timothy Egan, NYT Op-Ed, 11 May 2017) It might help if you read Rosenstein's Comey memorandum and…
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Argumentum ad Lapidem?
According to Wikipedia, the argumentum ad lapidem, or appeal to the stone, "consists in dismissing a statement as absurd without giving a proof of its absurdity." This supposed fallacy takes its name from the following incident reported in Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson: 57. Refutation of Bishop Berkeley After we came out of the church,…
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Ad Ignorantiam and the Law
The day before yesterday I wrote, In a criminal case the probative bar is set very high: the accused has to be shown guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Here too there seems to be a legitimate appeal to ignorance: if it has not been shown that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the…