they are not "gay" , they're hobbits
let's rob fake jews and make a miniseries
paper dragons
have paper castles
The existential fallacy, or existential instantiation, is a formal fallacy. In the existential fallacy, one presupposes that a class has members when one is not supposed to do so; i.e., when one should not assume existential import. Not to be confused with the 'Affirming the consequent', which states "A causes B; B, therefore A".
One example would be: "Every unicorn definitely has a horn on its forehead". It does not imply that there are any unicorns at all in the world, and thus it cannot be assumed that, if the statement were true, somewhere there is a unicorn in the world (with a horn on its forehead). The statement, if assumed true, implies only that if there were any unicorns, each would definitely have a horn on its forehead.
>paper dragons
>have paper castles
>paper dragons
>have paper castles
An existential fallacy is committed in a medieval categorical syllogism because it has two universal premises and a particular conclusion with no assumption that at least one member of the class exists, an assumption which is not established by the premises.
In modern logic, the presupposition that a class has members is seen as unacceptable. In 1905, Bertrand Russell wrote an essay entitled "The Existential Import of Proposition", in which he called this Boolean approach "Peano's interpretation".
The fallacy does not occur in enthymemes, where hidden premises required to make the syllogism valid assume the existence of at least one member of the class.
Affirming the consequent, sometimes called converse error, fallacy of the converse, or confusion of necessity and sufficiency, is a formal fallacy of taking a true conditional statement (e.g., "If the lamp were broken, then the room would be dark,") and invalidly inferring its converse ("The room is dark, so the lamp is broken,") even though the converse may not be true. This arises when a consequent ("the room would be dark") has more than one other possible antecedents (for example, "the lamp is not plugged in" or "the lamp is in working order, but is switched off").
Converse errors are common in everyday thinking and communication and can result from, among other causes, communication issues, misconceptions about logic, and failure to consider other causes.
The opposite statement, denying the consequent, is a valid form of argument.>>8506251
>>paper dragons
>>have paper castles
italian rice farmers figured it all out
Other non-classical logics, such as relevance logic, may attempt to avoid vacuous truths, by using alternative conditionals (such as the case of the counterfactual conditional).
A double-barreled question (sometimes, double-direct question[1]) is an informal fallacy. It is committed when someone asks a question that touches upon more than one issue, yet allows only for one answer.[2][3][4] This may result in inaccuracies in the attitudes being measured for the question, as the respondent can answer only one of the two questions, and cannot indicate which one is being answered.[5]
Many double-barreled questions can be detected by the existence of the grammatical conjunction "and" in them.[2][3] This is not a foolproof test, as the word "and" can exist in properly constructed questions.
A question asking about three items is known as "trible (triple, treble)-barreled".[4] In legal proceedings, a double-barreled question is called a compound question.[6]
An example of a double-barreled question would be the following: "do you think that students should have more classes about history and culture?" This question asks about two different issues: "do you think that students should have more classes about history" and "do you think that students should have more classes about culture?" Combining both questions into one makes it unclear what exactly is being measured, and as each question may elicit a different response if asked separately there is an increased likelihood of confusing the respondents.[2] In other words, while some respondents would answer "yes" to both and some "no" to both, some would like to answer both "yes and no".[4]
Other examples of double-barreled questions:
"Please agree or disagree with the following statement: Cars should be faster and safer."[3]
"How satisfied are you with your pay and job conditions?"[4]
"How often and how much time do you spend on each visit to a hospital?"[5]
"Does your department have a special recruitment policy for men and women?"[5]
"Do you think that there is a good market for the product and that it will sell well?"
"Should the government spend less money on the military and more on education?"
"Is this tool interesting and useful?"
The same considerations apply to questions with fixed choice answers, as an answer can also be double-barreled. For example, if a question asks, "What motivates you to work?" an answer "Pleasant work and nice co-workers" is double-barreled.[4]
Buttering-up is a type of a double-barreled question. It happens when one of the questions is a question that the questioned person will want to answer "yes" to, and another that the questioner hopes will be answered with the same "yes". For example, "Would you be a nice guy and lend me five bucks?"
Some questions may not be double-barreled but confusingly similar enough to a double-barreled question to result in similar issues. For example, the question "Should the organization reduce paperwork required of employees by hiring more administrators?" can be interpreted as composed of two questions: "Should the organization reduce paperwork required of employees?" and "Should the organization hire more administrators?"
Double-barreled questions have been asked by professionals, resulting in notable skewed media reports and research pieces. For example, Harris Poll used double-barreled questions in the 1980s, investigating the US public opinion on LibyaβUnited States relations, and American attitudes toward Mikhail Gorbachev.[7]
In a legal trial, a compound question may raise an objection,[8] as the witness may be unable to provide a clear answer to the inquiry.
One guide to trial practice offers the following example of a compound question:[9]
Cross-examiner: As you approached the intersection, did you look down, change the radio station, and then look up and for the first time notice the oncoming car?
Opponent: Objection, compound question.
An example in practice has been cited in the case of Weise v. Rainville (1959) 173 CA2d 496, 506, where the objection to such a question was sustained because such a question "raises the danger that the witness does not intend to reply to both questions" when answering "yes" to the compound question.[10] It may also be unclear to the court, jurors, or appellate bodies, what the witness intended in answering the question; and such a question may combine a request for relevant information with a request for information that is irrelevant or inadmissible.[10] If the question is one for which the answer will not be harmful to the opposing attorney's case, then the attorney need not object at all; alternatively, the opposing attorney may object, and specify when objecting that he would not object to a rephrasing of the question into separate, non-compound parts.[10]
Compound questions are most frequently asked during cross-examination.[11]
One way to demonstrate the invalidity of this argument form is with a counterexample with true premises but an obviously false conclusion. For example:
If Bill Gates owns Fort Knox, then Bill Gates is rich.
Bill Gates is rich.
Therefore, Bill Gates owns Fort Knox.
Owning Fort Knox is not the only way to be rich. Any number of other ways to be rich exist.
However, one can affirm with certainty that "if someone is not rich" (non-Q), then "this person does not own Fort Knox" (non-P). This is the contrapositive of the first statement, and it must be true if and only if the original statement is true.
Example 2
Here is another useful, obviously-fallacious example, but one that does not require familiarity with who Bill Gates is and what Fort Knox is:
If an animal is a dog, then it has four legs.
My cat has four legs.
Therefore, my cat is a dog.
Here, it is immediately intuitive that any number of other antecedents ("If an animal is a deerβ¦", "If an animal is an elephantβ¦", "If an animal is a mooseβ¦", etc.) can give rise to the consequent ("then it has four legs"), and that it is preposterous to suppose that having four legs must imply that the animal is a dog and nothing else. This is useful as a teaching example since most people can immediately recognize that the conclusion reached must be wrong (intuitively, a cat cannot be a dog), and that the method by which it was reached must therefore be fallacious.
Example 3
Arguments of the same form can sometimes seem superficially convincing, as in the following example:
If Brian had been thrown off the top of the Eiffel Tower, then he would be dead.
Brian is dead.
Therefore, Brian was thrown off the top of the Eiffel Tower.
Being thrown off the top of the Eiffel Tower is not the only cause of death, since there exist numerous different causes of death.
Affirming the consequent is commonly used in rationalization, and thus appears as a coping mechanism in some people.
Example 4
In Catch-22,[3] the chaplain is interrogated for supposedly being "Washington Irving"/"Irving Washington", who has been blocking out large portions of soldiers' letters home. The colonel has found such a letter, but with the Chaplain's name signed.
"You can read, though, can't you?" the colonel persevered sarcastically. "The author signed his name."
"That's my name there."
"Then you wrote it. Q.E.D."
P in this case is 'The chaplain signs his own name', and Q 'The chaplain's name is written'. The chaplain's name may be written, but he did not necessarily write it, as the colonel falsely concludes.[3]