This Rant was brought about
my great & dispiriting disappointment with this book : An Illustrated Book
of Bad Arguments —
Which provided ‘another’
springboard for me to rant about my long held & exhaustively considered pet
contention that ‘Logic is Bunk’.
Unfortunately; This Missive,
like all previous Expositions on this Topic quickly becomes hopelessly Muddled
as i am unable to constrain my compulsive habit to digress into tangental
insights.
sigh.
Also; My Writing Style has
been Criticized by many patient Readers as nearly incomprehensible for a
variety of reasons.
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A Review With Extensive Critical Analysis of :
An Illustrated Book of Bad
Arguments
Learn The Lost Art of Making
Sense
by : Ali Almossawi /
CopyLeft 2013
Illustrations by : Alejandro
Giraldo
[ This review may actually be longer than The Book Itself ( ! ) ? ]
Contents :
Who is this Book For ?
Preface
Introductory Hierarchy
All Fallacies are Broken
down into Either Informals, Red Herrings, or Formal Reasoning.
Informals are Questionable
Paths to Reasonable Conclusions
- No True Scotsman / Ambiguity
- Equivocation / Ambiguity
- Slippery Slope / Casual or Careless Thinking
- Not A Cause for A Cause / Casual or Careless
Thinking
- False Dilemma / UnWarranted Assumption
- Composition & Division / UnWarranted
Assumption
- Circular Reasoning / Begging The Question
- Hasty Generalization / UnRepresentative
Sample or Weak Analogy
- Appeal to Ignorance / Missing or Suppressed
Evidence
Red Herrings are simply
Distractions from The Momentum of The Argument
- Appeal to The Bandwagon / Peer Pressure or
Cultural Expectations
- Appeal to Fear / Emotional Presumptions
- Argument from Consequences / Precognitive
Assumption
- Guilt by Association / Gratuitous
Assumptions pertaining to Alliances
- Straw Man / Innocent or Devious
Summarization of A Position
- Genetic Fallacy / Chronological or Regional
Bias
- Ad Hominem / Character Assassination
- Appeal to Hypocrisy / Ad Hominem
- Appeal to Irrelevant Authority / Fallacy of
An Assumed Authority
- & Pertaining to Formal Reasoning /
Affirming The Consequent
Considered Fallacies :
Argument from Consequences
Straw Man
Appeal to Irrelevant
Authority
Equivocation
False Dilemma
Not a Cause for A Cause
Appeal to Fear
Hasty Generalization
Appeal to Ignorance
No True Scotsman
Generic Fallacy
Guilt by Association
Affirming The Consequent
Appeal to Hypocrisy
Slippery Slope
Appeal to The Bandwagon
Ad Hominem
Circular Reasoning
Composition & Division
Final Remarks
Notes
Bibliography
About The Author &
Illustrator
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It should be noted that this
is an Infinitesimally Tiny Sampling of Both Unique, Generic and Subtle
Variations from The Gigantic Warehouse of Enumerated Fallacies.
It’s a Popular Pastime of
idle Philosophers, Logicians & Epistemologists to Create New Lists of
Cleverly Contrived Fallacies & Providing them with Esoteric Labels; That
are Derived from A New Fad, Movie, Popular Children’s Literature or Political
Conspiracy.
The Following Analysis of Each of The Fallacies that The Book Considered was Added here to show that ( or Suggest that ) Every Fallacy has a Dark Twin, Its Opposite, which is also a Fallacy !
The Correct Approach would be to Find the Middle Ground, The Peach Pit, The Clean White Sheet under The Soiled Quilt, which may itself be A Fallacy of Some Sort, If Attacked by a Clever Enough Logician or Epistemologist ! ( ! )
Argument from Consequences /
or : What is The Functionality of If: Then.
This is Apparently A Fallacy
that Ali Invented or Discovered himself. The Nearest Cataloged Fallacy is:
Affirming The Consequent, which is very different from Ali’s Argument from
Consequences, Which is very odd. He seems to be arguing that if an Assertion is
Accurate & The Following Consequences do indeed conform to The Causality of
The Assertion; But given that These Consequences are UnFavorable; Then The
Original Assertion may be Either True or False ( ? ) Although The Consequences
of An Assertion are Accurately Portrayed; It is; According to this ‘Fallacy’;
Irrelevant.
Obviously; If A Consequence
of An Assertion does Not Follow from it, Then this is an Entirely Different
Fallacy— So i’m Not sure what Ali’s Argument from Consequences is itself
Asserting.
It seems to defy The
Elemental Function of IFT ( If : Then ) Which is A Foundational Building Block
of Propositional Logic.
It seems to be saying that
if you don’t like where an Argument is headed, you can simply dismiss The
Argument ( or Not )— Which is Apparently The Fallacy that he’s asserting.
This First ‘Chapter’
Illustrates The Weakness of this Book in which A Subtle Idea would be Greatly
Amplified by The Addition of Numerous Humorous & Well Drawn Illustrations;
As The Title Promises, But Fails to Deliver !
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Straw Man / Or : Doing your Opponent’s Job
It’s been suggested that The
Difference Between an Adequate Teacher & A Good Teacher is that The Adequate
Teacher will Accurately Answer all of her Student’s Questions; While The
Superior Teacher will Answer The Questions that Their Student’s Intended to Ask
!
A Strawmyn Argument may be
an innocent or devious summarization or encapsulation of your Opponent’s
Argument & then Finding Flaws in this Faux Submission.
Alternatively; Your
ReStatement of your Opponents Already Sloppy Argument may be a Stronger One
than The One Presented; With The Intent that you wish to Draw Attention to The
Truly Fallacious Reasoning in this Strongest Advocation for your Opponents
Agenda ( ! )
Such that A Strawmyn
Argument may be either Weaker or Stronger than your Opponent’s Stated Argument.
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Appeal to Irrelevant Authority /
or : The Fallacy of an Appeal to Any Authority
The Idea is very Straight
forward; If you ask an Imminent Authority of North African Camel Mating Habits
what their Learned Opinion is on The Topic of What is The Best Orange Juice to
Buy at The Supermarket; Their Response may be no better than anyone else’s.
The Anti-Thesis of This
Fallacy is that it seems to Imply that The Learned Opinions of An Imminent
Authority on The Topic of Goat Dander will provide you with The Best Answers to
Questions of Goat Dander.
This is Not Entirely
Accurate. While you may reasonably Seek out someone that is an Authority on
Goat Dander to finds your Answers to Questions concerning Goat Dander; You may
be allowing yourself to Fall into The Trap of Confusing Learned Opinion with
Topical Accuracy. That is; Experts will invariably have their own pet theories
& opinions within their own disciplines, which are Not founded on rigorous
‘scientific’ or Epistemological principles.
It is ‘Wiser’ to Seek out
your Answers to any Given Question from a Variety of ‘Interested’ Parties,
& Asking The Simple Followup Question; Why do you think that?
This Approach is based on my
own observations that Amateurs or Hobbyists often have a much greater &
-Enthusiastic- Understanding of some Area of Expertise, Than The Overpaid
Institutionalized Professors at A Given University or Questionable Pedigree.
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Equivocation / or : The Subtle Fallacy of Consistency ( ! )
Equivocation is The
Ambiguous Use of Language; Something that Everyone & Poets do Routinely
with Complete Innocence; As it is usually apparent what The Underlying Meaning
or Intent is—
But Devious Logicians may
use a Word or Phrase Several Times in An Argument with The Tacit Understanding
that The Meaning of The Word or Phrase Remains Constant; While it is actually
used in Different ‘Senses’.
Which has more Legs, a Horse or No Horse?
A Horse usually has Four Legs
No Horse has Six Legs
No Horse has More Legs.
Alternatively; When A
Logician Uses all of their Words Accurately & Consistently; They may still
construct a DisIngenuous Argument by Contextually Misplacing A Word that Should
mean Something Else, But The Audience Assumes that It is Being Used
Consistently. ( ! )
[ Example Required ]
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False Dilemma / or : Understanding The Spirit of The Argument
Formalized Propositional
Logic is all About The Antecedent (p & The Succedent (q, being either True
or False, with no allowances for Fractional Truth Values which may reflect
Uncertainty or A Fluctuating Set of Circumstances.
Fractional Propositional
Logic Allows for this; But is Sorely Neglected for Some Reason ( ! )
Still— Ordinary Language may
be used to Assert that there are only Two or A Insincerely Small Number of
Choices in A Spectral Continuum of Alternatives.
You’re Either With Us or
Against Us— Disallows The Option of Neutrality or Indifference; But The
Underlying Truth of The Assertion is That in a Crisis Situation; Neutrality will
allow The Crisis to Overwhelm Those that Oppose It & The Disinterested
Bystanders alike, Such as Allowing Radical Environmentalists to Save The
Forests; Forcing us all to live in houses made from Discarded Pepsi Bottles.
By calling this Form of
Argument A Fallacy, you have Committed The Fallacy of Pimple Picking; Which
fails to Comprehend The Intention of The Assertion.
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Not a Cause for A Cause /
or : Grasping The Holistic Relationships of An Argument
Very often; A Fallacy will
have a Latin or Clever Appellation when A Simpler one will Do Much Better;
The Groundless Casualty
Fallacy may be a more obvious Title for this,
or Not ( ? )
This Intended Confusion or
Obscurity of Meaning is Intended to Differentiate The Inskies from The
Outskies, Which may relate to Job Security, or they may simply be marking their
Territories by pissing on your lawn.
This Fallacy is intended to
denote a form of very bad reasoning in which The Causality of Something is
Wholly Unjustified. This normally Occurs when you see something unfailingly
preceding something else, Causing you to believe that The Preceding Article
Somehow Caused The Latter Event. This may be entirely reasonable, or Not. It is
better to understand The underlying principles before making a Final Judgement
on such matters.
Falling Snowflakes do Not cause Faux Santas to appear in Shopping
Malls.
The Sun does Not chase The Moon from The Night Sky.
Hamburgers left out on The BackPorch Do Not Generate Spontaneous Fly
Larva To Appear.
Alternatively; Getting all
The Causal Relationships Correct may lead to Fallacious Thinking in that The
Argument Uses The Wrong Agencies as The Significant Ones for The Desired
Outcome or Conclusion. There is always some nearly insignificant detail that
may be misunderstood, misplaced or neglected when trying to understand a
complex issue. As Well as allowing Clever Anthropologists, Sociologists or
dweebish Philosophers to provide lengthy expositions on how unrelated
circumstances & cultural practices influence & induce or suppress one
another.
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Appeal to Fear / or : Can Credible Consequences be Predicted?
The Importance of The Appeal
to Fear as Relevant to A Fallacy is that The Orator is Promoting An Unrealistic
Fear; & in Many Cases, It’s Deeply Questionable whether or Not that Fear is
Excessively Pessimistic or Not ( ! ) ( ? )
Very often; The Orator will
lose their Opportunity to Sway The Damp Masses, Allowing their Worst Fears to
Become Actualized, & their prognostications of The End Times will Not be
Realized, Strongly Suggesting that they were Full of BeanDip The Whole Time—
But This : Is another
Fallacy.
Maybe The Reason that World
Famine & Plagues of Weevils came to naught was because The Relevant Agencies
that had The Power to Prevent these things, Took heed to his warnings &
Stepped in behind The Scenes & Saved The World. ( ? )
How would you, how could you
determine with reasonable, logical certainty that a given Dire Warning of A
Coming Holocaust is The Hysterical Ranting of A Louisianan Senator or The
Measured Concerns of A Well Read Clairvoyant? If it were ‘Obvious’ then The
Ominous Premonitions of National Ruination would fail to Turn The Heads of The
Nearly Illiterate Damp Masses.
Very Often; The Razor’s Edge
Between Sound Horse Sense & Declaring that A Common Fallacy is Being
Perpetrated; Is nothing more than A Mother’s Intuition.
A Surly Logician may insist
that Any Attempts to Predict The Future has no Place in a Cautiously Assembled
Logical Argument; But Predicting & Planning for The Future is a
Foundational Feature of Any Progressive Civilization.
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Hasty Generalization / or : How Permissible are Mindful Deductions
“One Uses Inductive Reasoning to Prove that Flying Saucers are Real,
And Deductive Reasoning to Prove that They’re Nonsense.”
Inductive Reasoning : Considers The Grand Mountain of Anecdotal Evidence.
There is a Common Refrain
used by DeBunkers; Which Claims that Anecdotes are Not Data; But The Historical
Quote that they are Citing actually Says —
“The Plural of Anecdote is Data.”
Raymond Wolfinger
The
Dismissal of Data by ‘Outskies’ is A Common Fallacy which claims that only
’True Scientists’ can Collect Data for Analysis. This is a Slight Variation on
The True Scotsmyn Fallacy.
Deductive Reasoning : Considers The Oddness of Each Anecdote as Compared with Established
Facts & Consistent Logical Assumptions.
A Well Understood Foundation
of Knowledge is Used to make predictions about a newly discovered Event or
Observation.
A Dog is observed with it’s
leg raised in The vicinity of a fire hydrant;
Deductive Reasoning predicts
that The Dog will begin Urinating in short order.
This may be Wrong; The Dog
may only be stretching his leg & The Proximity of The Fire Hydrant is
Irrelevant.
Inductive Reasoning
Particular Cases, Which may
be Anecdotal in Nature, are Noted & Filed away, Then General Principles are
Derived from The Patterns Observed from these General Accounts.
A myn observes several dogs
in his neighborhood, as well as squirrels. Whenever there is a combination of
Dogs & Squirrels in The Same Vicinity; The Dogs will chase The Squirrel(s.
Inductive Reasoning
Postulates that Dogs like to Chase Squirrels.
This may be Wrong; The Dogs
may be chasing something that is unseen by The observer, in order to protect
The squirrels from it. Or The Observer may have made this inference from
watching only a few dogs chasing what appeared to be squirrels.
Abductive Reasoning / Inference
The Inverse of Deductive
Reasoning.
Deductive Reasoning makes
The Observation of A, which usually or always leads to B.
Abductive Reasoning suggests
that The Causality of B is Always or Nearly always A,
So that if B is Observed,
Then A must have occurred at some prior time, when The Observer was in The
bathroom.
A Womyn notices that her
friend is getting fatter, Thus she infers via Abductive Reasoning that her
Friend has Recently had surgery to implant packets of fat into her abdomen, as
this explanation is commonly used by her circle of friends to explain weight
gain.
This is Sherlock Holmes
Reasoning; In The Sherlock Holmes Universe, All Caused Events have one &
Only one Cause; & All Causality Events result in Only One Causal Result.
In The ‘Real’ World; Single
Causal Events, when done properly, will result in The Desired Outcome, But any
slight deviation of Circumstances or Variables, may result in a very unexpected
Result— & nearly all Observed Effects may have any number of Causal
Circumstances which prompted them to become actualized.
ProInductive Reasoning / Contrivance
A General Principle comes
into Popular Acceptance,
Either through Common
Inductive Reasoning or Folklore.
From this General Principle;
Various Expected, But
UnObserved, Individual Cases are Devised which fit all The Facts of The General
Principle.
A Dog Breeder has a Clear
Understanding of how Dogs may be Bred to Create any number of Novel Types of
Dogs;
And by using ProInductive
Contrivance; Predicts that A Number of Breeds that he has never seen, will be
discovered or Created in The Near Future.
There is No Empirical
Evidence for these UnSeen Stocks, but ProInductive Invention Allows them to
Exist Tentatively, or Forever, Since Their Non-Existence would have to be
Demonstrated as Defying The General Principle’s Constraints. Until then; Their
Existence would remain ‘Possible’ according to this line of Logical Prediction.
Poetic Deduction
A Shadow forms The Figure of
Christ / A Shaft a Light points The way to another Clue / An Overheard snippet
of Conversation on a Bus is Misinterpreted to Mean that An Overlooked Suspect
must be reconsidered / A Book is opened to a Randomly chosen page, then with
your eyes closed, you point to a line which is interpreted to fit an ongoing
argument /
DADA Supposition
A Magazine is cut into small
pieces, then rearranged with The help of dice, to make a poem that describes
What The Creator is Looking for.
Guerilla Averment
An Argument is won through
Intimidation & Violence.
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Appeal to Ignorance / or :
As Appeal to Ignorance is
Usually Applied; It pokes a Cruel Finger into The Eyes of Careless Fringe
Science Promoters that like to Wildly Assume Things from a Foundation of ‘What
Else could it be?’
This lack of imagination is often
laughable; Such as when they assume that The Pyramids must have been built by
Giant Fallen Angels; such as The Rephaim, Because The presumed ( by sounder
minds ) Methods used by Ancient Egyptian Engineers remain unknown.
( There is currently a very curious theory that claims that The
mysterious Ramps that have always been assumed to be Absolutely Necessary; Were
incorporated into The Pyramid(s itself, winding around The parameter as it
climbed upwards. )
Alternatively though; Appeal
to Ignorance may be misapplied when applied to The Arguments pertaining to A
Reasonably Intelligent Creator which Uses A Logical Application called :
Irreducible Complexity. While this in itself is often misused; Such as when
applied to The Evolution of The Eye, There are many other Features which Defy
An Ready Explanation of how they could have Evolved without Equally Harebrained
Speculation to Contradict them.
What is very annoying about
The Evolutionists is that they refute one of ‘Science’s’ bedrock assumptions;
Which is that any given theory must be Disprovable. Evolutionists absolutely
refuse to accept any Alternative Explanation to Essentially Random Darwinian
Evolution, No Matter how improbable Some or All of The Assumed Paths of
Evolution must take, For fear that by giving an inch, they are acknowledging
The possibility of Jehovah & Creationism. Never mind that The Reasonably
Intelligent Creator Argument Refutes Jehovah just as Vehemently. The Reasonably
Intelligent Creator is more akin to The First Technological Civilization in The
Milkyway Galaxy that went on to Colonize The Entire Milkyway Galaxy in only a
few hundreds of Millions of Years, even without WarpDrive ( ! ), & Seeded
many Worlds with Life, such as our own, & then went on to oversee our
continuing Development.
This is all Deeply
Applicable to The Appeal to Ignorance— As there is no ‘Direct’ Evidence for it;
Aside from The Very Improbably Details of Evolution. Evolution looks great from
The Hilltops, but examination of any of its necessary details invariably
exposes countless problems with The Darwinian Paradigm.
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No True Scotsman
No True Scotsman in A Slight
Variation on The Moving Goalposts Fallacy (
Nearly all Fallacies have several Alternative Names ! ) Which refers to
Changing The Rules of a Developing Argument when a Deal Killing Piece of
Evidence is Introduced.
In its purest Form; A
Scotsman is accused of a Crime that was previously unimaginable that a Scotsman
would do such a Thing; So that The Defenders of Scottish Moral Superiority
insist that No True Scotsman would have committed such A Crime, Inferring that
The Accused Scotsman’s Grandfather was Irish or Norwegian.
Of Course; This Shouldn’t
Dissuade a Logician from Changing their Argument if it’s determined to have
Weaknesses or An Attack on it demonstrates that its definitions are incomplete.
Every Argument is a Work in Progress, Even if they seem ‘Irrefutable’ at any
given point in time ( ! )
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Genetic Fallacy / Chronological or Regional Bias
This seems to be A Variation
of an Ad Hominem in that The Promoter of The Argument is Evaluated for Various
Attributes & these irrelevant traits are used to Determine The Value of
Their Argument.
We shouldn’t believe that
Opponents of Northwest Forest Harvesting are Genuinely Concerned for Ecological
Inhabitants of The Forest, Which includes The Trees themselves, as well as The
Full Spectrum of Fauna & Those Publicity Whores; The Spotted Owls— Because
this Group of Environmentalists were born in authentic Log Cabins.
We Can’t believe anything
George W. Bush says because he’s a Member of The Skull & Bones Cult.
The Chronological or
Regional Bias may provide Sincere Critics of An Argument with a Stepping off
Point to ‘Follow The Money’, But standing alone; It’s a feeble &
duplicitous Attack.
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Guilt by Association
A Very Simple & Common
Fallacy is to View A Logician’s Position from The Company that they Keep.
i’ve often thought that a
terrifically devious political campaign strategy would be to run Television Ads
FOR your Opponent, Such that they would be Endorsed by The Most Disreputable
People you could find; Such as Filthy, Disheveled Motorcycle Gang Members,
Methamphetamine Addicts in Opium Dens, Small Fidgety Children with ADHD, Wild
Eyed Schizophrenics holding Assault Rifles, Criminals in Prison— & so on.
The Curious thing about many
‘Logical Fallacies’ is that they seem ‘Intuitively’ to be Examples of Sound
Reasoning. Surely if A Political Candidate really is, Genuinely Supported by
Bedraggled Foreign Suicide Bombers; That should give you pause in considering
their qualifications as A State Senator ( ? )
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Affirming The Consequent
This The Flipped Version of Modus
Ponens ( !!! )
Which takes The Generally
Assumed to Be A Valid Propsitional Logical Function of :
If A Then C. If A is True;
Then C is also True.
The Fractional Propositional
Version of this; Algebraically is :
MAX (( 1-p ), q )
Which means that if you’ve
given The Likelihood of your Antecedent (p of being True as 83% ( .83 ) &
The Likelihood of your Consequent (q of being True of 67% ( .67 ); Then The
Logical Function of these Observed Variables yields a Validity Value of :
MAX ( .17, .67
) = .67 Valid. ( ? )
The Less True your
Antecedent is, Compared to The Consequent, The More True your Function is. What
does this Mean ?
This is The Problem with
Propositional Logic, Either Binary or Fractional,
It’s just crazy. The Truth
Tables seem to ‘Make Sense’ but no one has ever figured out a way to use these
tools to apply them to Real World Arguments or Reasoning !
The Most Glaring
Demonstration of this is That All Internet Search Engines work by looking up
Key Words or Phrases. None have any success at actually parsing a sentence
& determining what The Inquiry is Actually seeking ( ! )
Oh ! Sorry, i got distracted
!
Affirming The Consequent
means that The Logician is Attempting to Persuade his Audience that IF (p Then
(q, & (q is shown to be True, Then (p must be True as Well.
This may also be Called The
SherlockHolmes Fallacy, In that in The Sherlock Holmes Reality, Every Causal
Agent has One & only One Effect & Consequently; Every Caused Effect has
One & only One Causal Agent.
Of course; In The Actual
World; Even if we allow that Every Causal Agent has a Highly Predictable
Outcome— Which is somewhat Dubious ( ? ) In that in Real World Scenarios, There
are always so many Peripheral Variants that The Outcome of any Causal Effect is
Merely Probable at Best. But Even if we allow for that; Any Given Consequential
Effect may in fact be The Result of many different Causal Agencies.
2 + 2 = 4 : Therefore 1 + 3 = 4 must be false.
Sadly; i can Not think of a better example than this; For this to be
genuinely applicable; The Source Function of IF (p THEN (q should rigorous true
without exceptions ! All of The Examples in The Book do Not meet this greater
standard, & amazingly; i can’t find a plain english example in any of my
logic books !!!
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Appeal to Hypocrisy / or : Questioning The Sincerity of Ones Motives
This is simply a Distraction
( Red Herring ) Method that is typically used in The Form of ; ‘Oh Yeah! Say’s
You!’
Or ‘If You’re The Queen of
The Universe; Why do you Still chew your Fingernails !’
The Bible addressed this
Fallacy with The Parable of The Woman About to Be Stoned for Adultery or
Shoplifting, or Something like Changing her Socks in Public. So Jesus comes
along & Quips, ‘Oh, So you’ll all so High & Mighty, Let s’he who is
without Gravy Stains on their lobster bib cast ( throw ) The First Stone!’
& there was a awkward pause before someone stepped forward & began
heaving old loafs of bread at The Woman.
There is also The Story
regarding regarding a dust mote in The Eye of A Philistine, while The Street
Beggar had an unruly hair tuff that he couldn’t comb down. For some reason
Jesus spent an entire afternoon ranting about this. ( ? )
It seems to me that it
should be entirely reasonable to point out The flaws or foibles in others,
while falling far short of The Fashion Acumen that only Hollywood Media Whores
possess. Is it Not entirely Desirable that a homeless beggar, urine stained
with an embarrassing haircut that went out of style 20 years ago; Make The
Constructive Observation that you have a Very Noticeable Booger hanging from
your nose as you prepare to meet an attractive Prostitute on a well illuminated
Corner? Wouldn’t this be a commendable Gesture of Humility & Empathy with
his Caste Superior? Yes; It would be !
Likewise; Might it be
Logically Reasonable to Question The Sincerity of Someone whose own Willful
Eagerness to Sin before The Lord of Gravity & Queen of Magnetism, When they
are maliciously pointing out your own itty-bitty social faux pas in front of
your new girl friend? Might they be attempting to perpetrate a Tangental Agenda
that is incidental to your own Venial Indiscretions?
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Slippery Slope /
or : When do Credible Speculations cease to be Pragmatic Conjectures?
If you allow Girls to Wear
Pants, They’ll next want to put on Suits, Take our Manly Jobs & Then Grow
Their own Penis’.
Slippery Slope is Usually
only an Egregious Fallacy when The Logician allows their Reasonable Concerns to
Cascade into Unrestrained Schizophrenic Delusions of Apocalyptic Barbarity
&/or Allowing Naked Red Skinned Daemons to use your bathroom.
It may be allowable to
permit your opponent to speculate within plausible constraints, But it is too
commonly revealed that if these idle musings are Not gathering The desired
hysteria from The Ramble Throng, They may choose to Escalate their Visceral
Ancestral Phobias of Snakes, Grass Fires, Itchy Rashes or Acid Rain to become
unwarranted features of their Argument. This is Wrong.
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Appeal to The Bandwagon /
or : Adherence to Cultural Values are What Define A Stable Civilization
Cultures & Societies Are
Defined by Classes of The Damp Masses Sharing Ethical Values, Dietary
Preferences, Fashion Restrictions, Technological Boundaries, Judicial
Extremism, Sexual Perversions, Library Book Preferences & Skin Color.
But Everyone is Expected to
Chose their own Shoes, Bathroom Towels & Personal Vernaculars, within
Reason.
Appeal to The Bandwagon is A
Logical Tool that Attempts to Superimpose Gratuitous Predilections to your
Private Behaviours, which are usually made to make The Unshorn Lambs easier to
Slaughter on Cold Autumn Mornings.
Highschool Peer Pressure is
A Curious Example of A Class of Subhumans that fancy themselves to be The Most
Individualistic & Radical in their Thoughts & Fashions— Yet as a
Spectral Caste, They adhere to a Standard of Internal Conformity that horrifies
Adults 25 to 40 years old.
Most New Ideas are Widely
& Silently Suppressed by The Notion of Validation, Which Requires that Any
New Fashion Trend, IceCream Flavor, Car Model or Celebrity to Be Validated by
An Authoritative Source before it can be Accepted or Taken Seriously.
It has been long suggested
that Science; The Hallmark of Earnest & Sober Analytical Progress, Advances
haltingly, One Funeral at a Time.
This may be why African’s
fell so far behind The Social, Artistic & Technological Advances of their
Progeny on Other Continents, It Was that they Somehow Lacked The Media or
Communal Validation Sources which would have allowed New Ideas to
Propagate.
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Ad Hominem /
or : “…Reason is, & ought only to be The Slave of The Passions,
& can Never pretend to any other office than to serve & obey
them.”
David Hume 1739
Ad Hominem; ( To The Person
)
or The’ Hey— Stinky! Get out
of My Chair!’ Fallacy
When Attacking your
Opponents Rational Arguments or Position, Draw Attention to Their Cultural
Illiteracy, Large Feet, Gnawed away Fingernails, Funny Looking Ears or Odd
UnIdentifiable Body Odor.
Would it be Wrong though to
mention that your Political Opponent excessively uses The Phrases; ‘Don’t cha
know’ & ’Smokin’ Tatties’ ?
What may be Relevant about
their Personal Habits or Sexual Preferences, If those inclinations might result
in prosecutions that would interfere with their parliamentary duties?
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
Circular Reasoning /
or : Considering The Cyclical Complexion of The Natural World
We know that The Bible is
Infallible & Wholly Accurate because it Says So.
More often; Small
inexpensive Dictionaries use The Word being defined, in The Definition.
Circular Reasoning is hard
to defend, But Isn’t Nature Itself Circular in it’s Seasonal Rhythms, Planetary
Orbits, The Laws of Chemistry & The Repetition of Historical Motifs?
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
Composition & Division / or : The Holistic Relevance of Form &
Fabric
This Fallacy is Concerned
with The Confusion Relating to Things & Their Parts.
A Marginally Attentive
Waitress is Considered Alive, & her Individual Cells are alive, But are her
Molecules Alive? Some of them, All of them or None of Them? Are Atoms Alive?
An Ant Colony or Bee Hive
Expresses Directed Activities, But do The Individual Insects possess an
Awareness of Goal Oriented Behaviours?
A Brain can Think, But do
Neurons Think?
Each M&M has a Candy
Shell, Does a Bag of M&Ms have a Candy Shell?
The Gaian Model of The Earth
claims that it’s Ecological Biosphere Possess all The Attributes of a Living
Cell, Is The Earth an Autonomous Living Entity?
It’s usually pretty obvious
that The Attributes of A Thing are Different than it’s Parts, & Vice Versa;
But occasionally it Is Confusing :
What’s made of Wood, Yet can’t
be Sawed?
What gets Wetter The More it
Dries?
a) What is full of holes,
but is excellent for holding water ?
b) How many lines does it
take to make a drawing?
c) How can you ruin Garbage?
( Lynda Barry )
d) i am greater than gawd
and more evil than The devil
The poor have it in
abundance
yet The rich desperately
desire it
and if you eat it, you will
surely die
what am i?
e) The More you take away,
The Bigger it becomes.
f) The more you take, The
more you leave behind.
If Everyone in a Family is
Happy, Is it Entirely Reasonable to Assume that The Family is Happy?
Books have Meaning & are
made up of Words; Words have Meaning & are Made up of Letters; Letters have
Meaning, What are They Made up of?
- - -
Answers :
Sawdust, A Towel, A Sponge, Nothing, A Hole, Footsteps
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
Mine Own Favorite Fallacies :
The Fallacy of The Elegant Solution
Very often; Historically
& Contemporaneously; Learned Myn have Sought out Solutions or
‘Explanations’ for Observed Phenomena & been Sorely Frustrated by Their
Inability to Understand That Given Marvel of Nature— So they Resort to Simply
attaching Labels to their observed particulars & meticulous measurements,
Without ever revealing The Underlying Principles of Causality.
The Worser Case is when The
Learned Professor Contrives An Elegant Solution or Explanation, Which; To be
Polite & Delicate; Does Not withstand The Diligence of Future 5th Grade
Text Books.
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
The Fallacy of The UnIntelligible Response
This simply refers to The
Response given to you by a Learned Professor or Crazy Lunatic in The Park;
Which is UnIntelligible to you. There is Really No Way for you to Know or
Assume that The Answer that they’ve provided is Either ‘Over your Head’ or ‘Mere
Gibberish’.
Further Inquiries will be
required.
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
The Fallacy of The Too Long Proof
It may well be that A
Genuinely Sound & Stringently Logical Argument may require numerous
carefully laid steps toward its desired elucidation; But one must always be
Suspicious of Proofs or Arguments that are ‘Too Long’.
Contrarily; A Very Short
& ‘Elegant’ Proof or Argument may Contain a Single, Very Cleverly placed
Miss-Step, Which may confound even The Harshest Critic into Accepting its
Validity. ( ! )
Keep in mind that many
‘Statements’ or ‘Sentences’ that Seem to Be Entirely Reasonable, or Sensible,
are Not— They are merely artful Gibberish.
Consider The Many Well
Acknowledged Paradoxes for Examples.
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
The Two for The Price of One Fallacy
This Line of Reasoning is
often used by The American Airforce when refuting claims made by The Advocates
of Flying Saucers, & was first Suggested, as a Fallacy, by either Stanton
Friedman or J. Allen Hynek ( ? ).
When The Advocates of The
Flying Saucer Crash at Roswell, New Mexico; Insisted that Alien Bodies were
Recovered from The Crash Site; As Attested to by numerous witnesses; The
Airforce first Suggested one Theory to account for what was seen, & then if
you don’t like that one; They offered a different contradictory Theory.
This Same Phenomena is
Rampant with The 911 Fiasco. There are Innumerable Theories as to what ‘Really’
happened, But unfortunately; While each of these Theories has it’s own wondrous
evidence; They are collectively Completely incompatible with one another.
The use of this Fallacy in
Any Given Argument tends to Introduce additional DisInformation & Severely
Muddle The Search for a Greater Truth.
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
MisUse of An Analogy, Simile, Metaphor or Trope
Sarah Palin says that she’s
a Pitbull with Lipstick— i don’t mind The Lipstick, but Do you really want a
State Governor, or Vice President with Four Legs?
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
xxx
Commentary
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
xxx
Commentary
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
⫸ 𝄐⩏𝄑⩎𝄐⩏𝄑⩎𝄐⩏𝄐⩎𝄑⩏𝄐⩎𝄑⩏𝄐⩎𝄐⩏𝄑⩎𝄐⩏𝄑⩎𝄐⩏𝄐⩎𝄑 ⨵ ⊙
Review :
Firstly; Thinking Clearly is
Amazingly Difficult.
Good or Sound Reasoning is
Fraught with so many maddeningly frustrating & Confusing Particulars as to
Render The Functionality of ‘Logic’ Nearly Pointless. If we allow that The
Purpose of Sound Logical Thinking is to Provide Certainty to our Conclusions
& Decisions, Then Logic is Bunk. Never mind that any Decision that you make
& Translated into Action is Confronted with The Dilemma that you have No
Idea how that Decision & Action will ‘Play Out’ an hour, a day or two weeks
from now; Which may result it Events & Consequences that are Exactly The
Opposite of your Desired Outcome.
The Most you can ever
reasonably hope for; Is to avoid making stupefyingly boneheaded or genuinely
suicidal Decisions.
The Problem with Identifying
& Avoiding Catalogued Fallacies is that this often leads Directly to
Committing New Fallacies, Since The Fallacy that you’ve Identified may well be
A Red Herring to The Gist of The Argument. ( ! ) Are you looking for The Truth,
or merely picking at pimples ( ? )
Secondly; Calling this Book
an Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments is Astonishingly Disingenuous. The
Illustrations Do Not in any way provide useful expositions of The Fallacies
Inventoried.
Perhaps i would committing
The Fallacy of UnNecessary Cruelty by mentioning that these Illustrations
feature an Timeworn method of depicting stylized Eyes in a Somewhat Novel &
Caricatured Manner which i found Disturbing & Confusing ! It took me
several minutes to make sense of What i was looking at; Such that with a
Cursory Examination; The Animals appear to have Double Pupils in their Eyes ( ?
) Perhaps if The ‘Reflection Wedge’ were used more Consistently, This wouldn’t
be so Disconcerting.
The Cover Illustration is
about 40% better than The Interiour Doodles, of which there are very few, &
pertain only fleetingly to The Topic of Each Chapter, which Consists of Dense
Formal Prose that provides A Superficial Examination of The Fallacy being
considered.
The Cover seems to Suggest
that The Book is for Young Readers, But The Commentary of Each Chapter is
Written for College Level Sophomores, which often includes fallacious Reasoning
& Poorly Considered Examples to Support The Fallacies Themselves.
i was hoping for a Clever
Collection of Short Narratives which involved The Two Characters depicted on
The Cover, Investigating Benign & Curious Mysteries in their Forest, which
invariably lead them to disclose The Poor & Careless Thinking Habits of
Their Neighbors.
What would have been
Additionally Interesting & Enlightening, would be; If After Exposing A
Particularly Egregious Example of Irresponsible Cognition; It’s latter revealed
that The Conclusions of this Thinking was Spot On ! This Unexpected Discordance
is then Examined Further.
This was The Very
Anti-Thesis of My Expectations that The Cover & Title Lead me to Believe
was The Content of This Book.
If i were to Assert that
Proposition (x is True by some brief line of reasoning, & The Author would
then point out that i have committed some indelible Fallacy with A Latin
Epithet— The Assumption may well be that my Original Assertion is Wrong; Which
itself is A Fallacy !
The Search for Truth has to
Transcend merely memorizing Volumes of Catalogued Fallacies, Each of Which will
undoubtedly possess a Mirror Fallacy which Calls into Question Each of them.
The Opposite of a Strawmyn
Argument may be A Fallacy of Accurately Recalling your Opponents Position; As
Stated, But Failing to Consider its Spiritually Intended Consequences; Such
that The Truly Appropriate Attack of your Opponent’s Argument would be to State
Their Policy in its Strongest Form, & Then Show how that Approach is Ill
Considered.
The Rival of A Slippery
Slope would be to Consider only The Immediate Consequences of your Opponents
Strategy; While The more Pertinent Analysis would be to Provide A Full &
Exhaustive Spectrum of Possible Ramifications of their Bone-Headed Plan,
Pointing out The Disastrous Consequences of Each Facet.
The Point Being; That A
Clever Logician Can Find Fault & Fallacy in Any Perfectly Reasonable
Logical Approach. That is The Nature of Plain English Discourse.
i prefer to think of
‘Assertions’ or ‘Arguments’ as either; Strong or Thin.
If you Discover that An
Argument is ‘Weak’; Then it is entirely reasonable to suspect that The
Conclusion(s are Flawed, but that in itself is Fallacious Thinking.
It may be The Conclusions
are True; But The Argument is Imperfect.
One of The Most Clever &
Devious Ways to Argue for A Given Point, Is to Argue Badly for your Opponents
Position, Which will hopefully lead your Audience to ‘Make up their Own Mind’
that ‘your’ Argument must be Strong Evidence for your Actual ( UnSpoken ) True
Position ( !!! )
⫸ 𝄐⩏𝄑⩎𝄐⩏𝄑⩎𝄐⩏𝄐⩎𝄑⩏𝄐⩎𝄑⩏𝄐⩎𝄐⩏𝄑⩎𝄐⩏𝄑⩎𝄐⩏𝄐⩎𝄑 ⨵ ⊙
The Principle Reasons that
Thinking Clearly is So Difficult, Is that One must first have an entrenched
Desire to Discover The Truth through Careful Reasoning.
A Structured Argument is The
Opposite of That.
The Purpose of The Argument
is to Convince your Audience that Whatever Crazy things you Believe to Be True,
Are in Fact; True.
Everyone Believes Crazy
Things. The Smartest or Dumbest, The Most Well Read or Illiterate, Bright or
Dull, Gentleman or Lady, Young or Old all have Beliefs which they’ve come to
hold dear & will tenacious defend them from Assaults by Cunning Scholars.
The Reason that we Observe
some People as being Smarter than others; Is that The Smart Ones are Able to
Provide Ingenious Arguments to Demonstrate That their Crazy Beliefs are
Accurate.
To Construct A Well Meaning
Argument to Provide Certainty of Some Ludicrous Belief that you Possess :
Establish A Set of Axioms to
Jump off From. These are Assertions that you & your Culturally Specific,
Particular Religiously Oriented or Given Scientific Discipline, Believes to be
True without Question. These Axioms are So True that your Audience Can’t
imagine them to be Not True.
Unfortunately; Because
Axioms are UnProved, They Tend to have an Equally Fanatical Audience that
Believes Exactly The Opposite.
How Sure are you of
Elemental Aspects of your Reality?
How Sure are you that There
are Elephants in Africa?
Do you Completely Discount
The Thousands of First Person Accounts of Faeries, Flying Saucers, BigFeet or
Regional Disparities of The ‘Others’ ?
Do you only Believe People
in Positions of Authority? Of a Particular Political Party?
Do you Believe your own
Eyes? Your own memories from your Childhood?
After you’ve selected some
Axioms;
You then have to Add some
Propositions which may or may Not come with Sound Reasons for Why they’re True.
But how True is True. Propositional Logic only
allows that Something is True or False. But Most everything we Believe is True
or False has Some Doubt Associate with it. Shouldn’t we Allow that Things are
Fractionally True?
Might it be Reasonable to
Allow that There are Elephants in Africa to Be 98% True; While that There were
once Unicorns in Europe to Be 32% True. There is Certainly a lot of Evidence
for Both. How would go about Determining The Fractional Truth Value for Most
Assertions ?
Then; You’ve got to Arrange
your Axioms & Propositions within a Well Structured Logical Framework that
is Consistent & Free of Fallacies. The Shorter & More Elegant, The
Better.
You should always be very
skeptical of Any Argument that goes on & on for pages & pages, Becoming
more & more Convoluted.
But it is also very easy for
a very Short Argument to Contain A Confusing Paradoxical Element or Simply A
NonSensical Statement that sounds like A Well Meaning Sentence, But is in fact
Pure Gibberish!
Every Unsolved Paradox is
Evidence that There is Something Seriously Wrong with our Ability to Know What
is ‘Reasonable’.
There are many Long Standing
Historical Paradoxes that Still Confound Logicians & Philosophers.
Many People are easily lead
astray by A Statement that seems perfectly ‘logical’; But Actually doesn’t make
any sense at all. ( ! )
This book completely Fails
to Address The Greater Problems of Good Thinking. It is merely a very
superficial listing of common Fallacies, & utterly neglects to consider
their true complexity, which actually leads to a greater degree of muddled
thinking & a significantly better chance of Arguing Badly.
This Book Teaches Bad
Thinking.
& It is just barely
Illustrated.
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
One would think/believe that if There really was this Thing
Called ‘Smartness’, It would Exist in a Uniform Manner throughout Human
Civilizations.
But it does not. ( Apparently )
One might believe that if you simply took all The Smartest
People from around The World, & Asked them a series of Very Simple
Questions; They would all Readily Agree as to what The Correct Answers would
be.
And without going into Examples here;
If this Thought-Experiment could actually be Performed; Someone
would have performed it by now, & it would be Transparently Clear that
Smart People Consistently Agree on Elemental & Complex Issues, &
Therefore; It would be Extremely Obvious that The Smartest People should be
Running The Governments of The World.
But that is not The Way things Work Either.
Why is this ?
The Smartest People in The World Do Not Agree on The Simplest
Issues.
The Apologist may argue that they Do Agree on many things, But
Even So;
They would Vehemently Disagree about many simple/Axiomatic
Issues.
And Much More So; Hysterically DisAgree about many, only
Slightly more so, Complex Issues or Items Relating to Any ‘Vested’
Beliefs.
Suggested Film :
Resurrect Dead
: The Mystery of The Toynbee Tiles / Jon Foy / © 2011/ This is a truly amazing film in that it so very clearly shows how one
may be mislead with fallacious thinking into believing with very strong certainty that (x is True, when
it isn’t ( !!! )
My Glossary :
Jiggery-Pokery |ˈjigərē ˈpōkərē|
noun informal chiefly Brit.
deceitful or dishonest,
disingenuous or devious thinking, reasoning or behavior.
Batman/Riddler Logic Form of Jiggery Pokery
Riddle & Joke Logic Form of Jiggery Pokery
Partisan Logic Form of Jiggery
Pokery
Folk Wisdom Form of Jiggery
Pokery
Laity Common Sense Form of Jiggery Pokery
Judicial Law Form of
Jiggery Pokery
Psychiatry Diagnostics Form of Jiggery Pokery
Sherlock Holmes Universe Form of Jiggery Pokery
Socratic Wilisms Form of Jiggery
Pokery
Inspector Columbo
Investigative Methods / Form of Jiggery Pokery
Fallacy Promulgation Form of Jiggery Pokery
Paradoxes Form
of Jiggery Pokery
Infinities Form
of Jiggery Pokery
Dissimulated Definitions Form of Jiggery Pokery
Overwrought Proofs Form of Jiggery Pokery
Convenient Orthodoxies Form of Jiggery Pokery
Convenient Dogmas Form of Jiggery Pokery
Logical Taboos Form of Jiggery
Pokery
Arguments by Authority Form of Jiggery Pokery
Darwinian Proclamations Form of Jiggery Pokery
Einsteinian Proclamations Form of Jiggery Pokery
Hawkingian Proclamations /
Form of Jiggery Pokery
Failures to Acknowledge Form of Jiggery Pokery
Improbable Expectations Form of Jiggery Pokery
Inconvenient Feasibilities Form of Jiggery Pokery
Disagreeable Prospects Form of Jiggery Pokery
Horses have an Even Number
of Legs.
Behind They have Two Legs
& in The Front, they
have ForeLegs
That is Six Legs
But this is an Odd number of
Legs for a Horse
The Only Number that is Both
Even & Odd
Is Infinity
Such that; A Horse has an
Infinite Number of Legs
: - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - : o
Which has more Legs, a Horse
or No Horse?
A Horse usually has Four
Legs
No Horse has Six Legs
No Horse has More Legs.
- - -
A Baby is Not Worth Two Cents.
A Baby is a Crier.
A Crier is someone that Speaks The News.
The News is that which makes Sense.
One Sense is not Two Cents.
Therefore A Baby is Not Worth Two Cents.
- - -
A Baby is Not Worth Two Cents.
A Baby is A Crier.
A Crier is A Messenger.
A Messenger is One Sent.
One Cent is Not Worth Two Cents.
Therefore : A Baby is Not Worth Two Cents.
While These Examples of Joke Logic ( Jiggery Pokery ) are
intended to be Humorous, Most Exercises of Jiggery Pokery are Contrived to
Genuinely Mislead, Confuse or Befuddle The Damp Masses into Believing Patently
False Things as Irrefutably True.
The Very Quirky Thing about Jiggery Pokery ‘Logic’ is that you
Can use it to ‘Prove’ Anything, & If your Jiggery Pokery Argument is
Determined to Be Flawed in Someway, It is quite easy to Extend & Supplement
it to Bring it back to a State of Invulnerability.
Real & True Logic can only Prove True Things, & While a
Flawed True Logical Argument may be ‘Fixed’, It is Invariably restricted by
Whether or Not The Desired Conclusion is in Fact True or Not.
Mind you; The Purpose of True & Genuine Logic &
Reasoning is to Provide The Epistemologist with A Degree of Certainty that
their Beliefs are True, & Not merely Crazy Notions that are Common amoung
Small Children & Republicans.
But — Since Jiggery Pokery Arguments can often Feign The
Seriousness & Solemn Presentation of A True Logical Approach, This
Certainty that True Logic Promises is Severely Compromised. That is; You can
Never really be Certain that A Given Argument is Logically Sound or
Calamitously Disingenuous.
One might only peruse The History of Scientific, Philosophical,
Medical, Ethical or Socially Judicious Arguments & Well Considered Beliefs
to Reveal that our Recent Ancestors Commonly Believed with All Sincerity, All
sorts of perfectly Ludicrous Things.
Ergo : Logic is Bunk.
: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - : o
Tautology A Statement which is True
by It’s Own Definition
Axiom A Truth So Elemental as to Be Self-Evident
Obiter Dictum An Authoritative Pronouncement
Apophthegm A Popular Maxim of Pragmatic
Wisdom
Predicate Statement of an
Irrefutable Description of (x
Premise A Proposition used as
an Antecedent or Succedent
Proposition A Statement that Ascertains
a Subjective Judgement
Assumption An Obvious Statement
Presented & Accepted without Proof
Postulate An Agreeable Statement
of Reasonable Truth
Conjecture An Ill Formed Postulate
that is Hopefully True
Inference A Conclusion Arrived at
from Facts & Reasoning
Deduction An Inference Derived from
An Established Principle
Belief An Accepted
Statement acquired from Sound Judgement
Conviction A Belief Held in Faith
adopted from UnDisciplined Hope
Dogma An Authoritative Principle which is
Incontrovertibly True
Creed A Systematic Collection of Ideological
Convictions
Fact A Thing which is True
Factoid A Concise Aphorism of
Something Believed to Be True
Assertion A Confident Declaration
of Subjective Truth
Axiom An
Unproven Assumption
Antecedent p
Principle Variable
Consequent q
Variable in an IF THEN Conditional
Succedent q
Variable in an AND or OR Binary Operator
There Exists ∃
There Exists One Unique Case ∃!
x is an Element of Set y ∈ ( x,y )
The Set x contains y ∋ ( x, y )
x is in Subset of y ⊂ ( x,y )
x is in a Superset of y ⊃ ( x,y )
Intersection of x & y ∩ ( x,y )
Union of x & y ∪ ( x,y )
Therefore ∴
Series Product of Multiplication ∏
Series Summation of Addition ∑
x is Proportional to y ∝ ( x,y ) ∶ ∷
Infinity ∞
Asymptotically Equal ≃ ≅ ≈ ≊
End of Proof ∎
{ } [] «» Sets
§ § Section
⇢ Follows
+ & Addition
/ Inclusion
< Less Than
= ≡ Equivalent /
Identical
≈ ≅ ≓ Almost
≃ Asymptotically
Equal / Becomes Equal at Infinity
≠ ≢ ≉ Not Equal / Not
Identical
¬ ⊖ ~ Not
≐ Approaching The
Limit
≓ ⊷ Image of
∨ Or
∧ And
⊻ XOR
∀ Tautology / For
All Cases
∅ Null / Empty Set
⊼ NAND
⊂ Subset of
∈ Element of
⊃ Superset of
∩ Intersection
∪ Union
∴ Therefore
∵ Because
∶ Ratio
∷ Proportion
⁂ This is Important
> Greater Than
∍ Contains as a
Member
∃ There Exists
∄ There Does Not
Exist
∎ End of Proof
Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem
The theorem that in any sufficiently powerful,
logically consistent formulation of logic or mathematics there must be true
formulas that are neither provable nor disprovable. The theorem entails the
corollary that the consistency of a logical system cannot be proved within that
system.
Gödel Sentence A
Sentence which asserts its own unprovable.
Henkin Sentence A
Sentence which asserts its own provability.
Explicit Henkin S- A
Sentence which asserts its own provability and contains within it, that proof.
Axiom: Axiom
Premise: Premise
Assumption: Assumption
Postulate: Postulate
Conjecture: Conjecture
Inference: Extrapolation
Wild UnFounded Belief: Belief
Proposition: Proposition
Assertion: Assertion
Therefore: ∴ Intermediate
Conclusion
Conclusion: Conclusion
Peroration: Concluding
RabbleRousing
Synthesis: Synthesis
Compromise Resolution
Predicate Axiomatic
Assumption
Antecedent p
Succedent q
Syllogism A
is Somehow B & B is Sort of C ∴ A is Vaguely C
Deduction The
Principle of Q Suggests That A & B are True
Induction Facts
A, B, C, D & E Allows the Induction of S
Dialectic Aufhebung
/ Sublation / OverComing / Relever /
Kantian Dialectic Thesis
- AntiThesis - Synthesis
Hegelian Dialectic Abstract
- Negative - Concrete
Hegelian Alternate Immediate
- Mediated - Concrete
Polemic Diatribe
/Invective / Rant / Tirade / Harangue / Rebuke
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