A Freeper's Introduction to Rhetoric (Part 7, False Cause and Begging the Question)

Introduction to Logic | Irving M. Copi & Carl Cohen

[general_re]

Previous installments:

Part 1 - Introduction and the Argument From Ignorance
Part 2 - the Appeal to Inappropriate Authority
Part 3 - the Argument Ad Hominem
Part 4 - the Appeal to Force and the Appeal to Emotion
Part 5 - the Irrelevant Conclusion
Part 6 - Fallacies of Presumption and the Complex Question

[general_re]

Part 7.

Apologies for the delays, lack of interaction, et cetera. Part 8 will, tomorrow, close the discussion of fallacies of presumption with the fallacies of Accident and Converse Accident. Part 9 will then begin the discussion of the fallacies of ambiguity.

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[Entropy Squared]

Thank you for posting these.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[PatrickHenry]

To beg the question is to assume the truth of what one seeks to prove, in the effort to prove it.

1. Everything has a cause.
2. Therefore the universe has a cause.
3. Therefore God.

My apologies to Aquinas for the gross over-simplification of his second proof. For more detailed information:
Thomas Aquinas: Reasons in Proof of the Existence of God.

[general_re]

My pleasure.

[general_re]

More or less. Essentially, the name of the game in much of Aquinas's "proofs" is to define God as existing, via the circular route of defining God as being equivalent to some thing already known to exist, or to some thing that is thought must inevitably exist. The fact that such a definition becomes a one-off when done in such a manner only serves to obscure the fact that one is simply defining God as existing - like all petitio arguments, it is, at its core, a tautology. Ignoring the other holes in the First Cause argument - and there are several - one can readily illustrate the absurdity by preserving the logic, such as it is, but changing the particulars:

P1: God is an apple tree in my back yard.
P2: The apple tree in my back yard exists.
C1: Therefore, God exists.

And so forth. Tomorrow, the fallacy of accident will be the topic - the First Cause argument also serves as a reasonable illustration of that fallacy as well.

[longshadow]

when do we get the "no True Scotsman"?

[Doctor Stochastic]

Also called "Assuming the Consequent."

[PatrickHenry]

Agreed. Mostly taugologies. His third proof is a bit different -- I consider it argumentum ex anno (pardon the vulgarity). Greatly simplified: there could never have been nothing, because if that were so, then there would still be nothing, because only nothing comes from nothing. So something was always existing, therefore God.

Everything makes sense to me until the conclusion, which simply doesn't follow. It's just as reasonable (more, really, considering Occham's razor) to conclude that there was always a universe. (I ain't gonna get into stuff popping out of nowhere, because QM gives me indigestion.)

[CobaltBlue]

Ping for later. Off topic: I never really understood "begging the question," seems like people use it to mean that "your response makes me think of this question, which I will pretend that you are just begging me to ask."

But end-of-year tax planning still calls. All I have left to do is configure one laptop and try to negotiate a settlement on my Yellow Pages ad bill. Verizon put a photo of someone other than me in the ad and I've refused to pay for it, and we've been going round and round for a few years, actually. If I get it resolved tomorrow, that's a nice reduction in my overhead (looking on the bright side).

Re: laptop. Half of me wants a cute little Vaio type with Centrino processor (lighter, cooler) weighing in total less than 5 pounds that I can easily shlep to court to type out orders and calculate things using spreadsheets and so forth, and use for research in the law library, and so forth, which is eminently tax deductible. And half of me wants an all-the-bells-and-whistles 17 inch Toshiba satellite type with P4 technology and hyperthreading and Harmon Kardon speakers that I can use to play DVDs in bed or on the treadmill, which is NOT tax deductible, unless its primary use is for the office and making money, which is why I don't want or need two.

Decisions, decisions.

[general_re]

Go light, is my advice - your back and shoulders will thank you later ;)

I don't know how the Yellow Pages people work, but way back when, when I was working in a print shop, the way it usually worked was if you signed off on an incorrect proof, you were pretty much SOL. Typos, wrong graphics, wrong colors, whatever - we made a good effort to catch as much as we could, and usually we caught just about everything, but ultimately, it was the customer's responsibility to do the final proofreading. I assume that you either didn't get a proof copy, or what was printed differed from the proof, since presumably you would have noticed a trivial error like someone else's face on your ad. In which case, I don't see what the phone book people could possibly argue about - they fouled up, and it should be up to them to fix it. Tell 'em you'll take free ad space as compensation, if you want - they might go for that rather than a straight refund, particularly if it was a big ad, and consequently, a big refund...

[CobaltBlue]

The salesman for the Yellow Pages never sent me the final copy to sign off on, so they can't pin that on me.

It's a very bad violation of legal ethics to use an actor in a lawyer's ad without clearly indicating that it's an actor, so as soon as I saw the damn thing I went through the roof due to fear of tangling with the Legal Ethics section of the Bar Association, and have had a clear paper trail to that effect.

Funny thing is that my own photo, although older and less attractive than the model, has done better for me. I don't think people are looking for lawyers based on looks.

I used to work with a male lawyer who said that every grey hair on his head was worth money.

[balrog666]

Funny thing is that my own photo, although older and less attractive than the model, has done better for me. I don't think people are looking for lawyers based on looks.

Hey, show me your picture! And how are you on business law, insurance bankrupcy defaults, and 3rd party contingent liability? Oh, did I tell you I need lawyer? Something about hot coffee spilt in a lap when someone fell asleep driving to work ...

[CobaltBlue]

I hope you don't need a lawyer, but if you do, I am only licensed to practice in VA, I could maybe help you find one through networking.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The Fallacy of the Ultimate Turtle?

[PatrickHenry]

Yes. Earth sitting atop a long, almost infinite stack of green turtles, and finally -- way, waaaaaaay down -- you get to one that's electric blue, much bigger then the rest, that's where the stack suddenly stops.

Or ... maybe that's the First Cause argument.

[general_re]

Everyone's so impatient for their favorites, but I actually think that one's not in here....

[general_re]

Also called "Assuming the Consequent."

IIRC, "consequent" describes and is applicable only to conditional premises. There is the fallacy of affirming the consequent, which isn't on the list for discussion, as it's a formal error, rather than an informal one - that fallacy arises when you use the truth of the consequent to infer the truth of the antecedent in a conditional premise, e.g.:

P1: If Doctor Stochastic discovered the theory of relativity, then he is a smart man.
P2: Doctor Stochastic is a smart man.
C1: Therefore, Doctor Stochastic discovered the theory of relativity.

Or more generally:

If p, then q.
q.
Therefore, p.