Posted on 01/12/2004 1:22:14 PM PST by general_re
This wasn't really true by 1581. Ptolemaic models had to assume "epicycles," orbits within orbits, to account for the motion of the planets other than Earth. That is, their motions weren't "proper" either. They wheeled about invisible foci for reasons utterly unknown. Thus, the Ptolemaic system was the one unnecessarily multiplying conjectural elements, in Occam's Razor terms. So you can add the fallacy of "false premise."
1. Which is more useful, the Sun or the Moon? The Moon is more useful since it gives us light during the night, when it is dark, whereas the Sun shines only in the daytime, when it is light anyway.Although Gamow was -- presumably -- saying this as a joke, it's entirely in accord with Genesis:
— GEORGE GAMOW (inscribed in the entry hall of the Hayden Planetarium, New York City)
1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.So I'd say that Gamow's statement is logical in form. It is, however, based upon the premise that the Genesis model is a scientifically accurate description of day and night and the function of the sun and moon.
1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
[Thus, there was light before the sun, as Gamow assumes.]
1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
I agree. Points for creativity to PH, though ;)
That's quite an assumption on your part, evolution-boy! Prove to me in the lab that without the sun there would be no daylight. You can't, can you? Nya, nya, nyaaaaaaah!
4. Revelation is a communication of something which the person to whom that thing is revealed did not know before. [Keep that definition in mind.] For if I have done a thing or seen it done, it needs no revelation to tell me I have done it or seen it, or to enable me to tell it or to write it. Revelation, therefore, cannot be applied to anything done upon earth, of which man himself is the actor or the witness; and consequently, all the historical and anecdotal parts of the Bible, which is almost the whole of it, is not within the meaning and compass of the word revelation, and therefore is not the word of God. [Ding, ding, ding!]]This is interesting. Paine starts out defining revelation as "a communication of something which the person to whom that thing is revealed did not know before." Fair enough. At the end, however, he makes the all-new assumption that the word of God (not previously defined) consists only of "revelation" as previously defined. This conclusion is unwarranted by his premise.
— THOMAS PAINE, The Age of Reason, part I, p. 13
And therefore, this is an example of the fallacy of....?
...if there is a fallacy, analyze it, give its kind (whether relevance, or presumption, or ambiguity) and its specific name.
If the premises do not establish the conclusion - which is another way of saying that the conclusion does not follow from the premises - then what is the relationship between premises and conclusion?
There is no relationship. The conclusion is irrelevant. More precisly, the conclusion is a non sequitur. In your essays, it is a fallacy of relevance, or in the terminology of the series, an ignoratio elenchi.
Sheesh, what a grouch!
7. Mysticism is one of the great forces of the world's history. For religion is nearly the most important thing in the world, and religion never remains for long altogether untouched by mysticism.Another subtle one. To restate it:
— JOHN MCTAGGART ELLIS MCTAGGART, "Mysticism," Philosophical Studies
1. Mysticism is one of the great forces of the world's history, because:So, McTaggert says that because mysticism is usually (but not always) associated with religion, and because we know (it's presumably a given) that religion is important, therefore mysticism too is important. Hmmmmm. The assumption here is that a frequent (but not constant) component of religion is important because religion itself is important. A characteristic of the whole (importance) is being attributed to a portion of the whole.
2. Religion is nearly the most important thing, and
3. religion never remains for long altogether untouched by mysticism.
This is the fallacy of division, arguing fallaciously that what is true of a whole must also be true of its parts.
The key, to my mind, is when McTaggart essentially defines religion and mysticism as equivalent. It goes like this:
P: Mysticism is religion, and;
Q: Religion is important, therefore;
R: Mysticism is important.
The trick is that "mysticism is important" and "religion is important" are logically equivalent once you define religion as equivalent to mysticism - If "religion=mysticism", then one proposition is what you might call a suitable paraphrase of the other. In a more bare-bones form, the argument is:
P: X
Q: X=Y
R: Therefore, Y.
But if X and Y are really equivalent, then X and Y have, effectively, the same propositional content - they are, in a real sense, the same identical proposition in both cases. And if X and Y are the same proposition, then saying "X=Y" is really the same as saying "X=X", and the argument is revealed as:
P: X
Q: X=X
R: Therefore, X.
So what you're doing when you define religion as important, then say that religion is equivalent to mysticism, and derive from that the conclusion that mysticism is important, your conclusion is logically equivalent to your first proposition - the conclusion is simply a clever restatement of one of the premises. And that's begging the question - you cannot assume the truth of the conclusion in your premises.
This is one of my favorite examples - we tend to be presented with trivial examples of petitio, where the circle is blatant and obvious. But most people are smart enough to avoid blatantly coming out and saying "X=Y=X", and this is a good example of how damned subtle the fallacy of begging the question can be.
P: Religion is important, and;
Q: Mysticism is religion, therefore;
R: Mysticism is important.
That way, the X's and Y's are more coherent in the following form:
P: X
Q: X=Y (or "Y=X", to be consistent)
R: Therefore, Y.
Close. But he never comes out and directly says that mysticism equals religion. If he did, you'd be right, but the example would be too trivial to concern us. So maybe it's a quibble, but I don't think this example involves begging the question. At least it doesn't seem to be a particularly clear example of this.
On the other hand, my analysis isn't entirely justified by the text either; because McTaggert never specifically says that mysticism is a component of religion (which it almost certainly is, at least in the West). Instead, he ambiguously says "religion never remains for long altogether untouched by mysticism." Whatever that means.
This example may ultimately involve the fallacy of amphiboly, because of the lack of clarity in the argument. It really is terrible writing.
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