Logical Fallacies Game

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Here's another game I thought might be witty and suitable for the Coliseum. The goal is to name the logical fallacy employed in a statement (or in a syllogism), and show why and how it is false. Whoever gets it correct asks the next question, and so on. If nothing else, it's good practice.

Here's the first statement (please put it in bold letters):

"Hitler loved Wagner's music. Therefore anyone who is a fan of Wagner, is a potential Nazi."

I know it's an easy one, just wanted to get the ball rolling.

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See these pages:
List of fallacies on Wiki
List of fallacious arguments

[Babur]

John Williams and Howard Shore love Wagner's music,they're not Nazis ,they're both Academy award winners.Hell I like Ride of the Valkyries, but I hate the Nazis especially after seeing one of their concentration camps:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

was that a worthy debunk?

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

You can disprove the statement too, but I meant finding which type of logical fallacy is it? Is it an ad hominem, a straw man etc? And if you find the correct answer, you can pose your own (false) statements.

[Babur]

I don't think that is a strong enough one to debunk

can I suggest one?. "Marxist-Leninism was a necessary evil for the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War"

I edited my previous post btw.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Good, it was an association fallacy. The next poster my go ahead solving the Marxist riddle.

[Babur]

But you didn't find the logical fallacy, Chaghatai. It was an association fallacy. The next poster my go ahead solving the Marxist riddle.

well association fallacies are too commonplace,such as the idea that all Muslims are terrorists.I was too distracted by your sig .

but I want someone else to solve my riddle .

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

"Marxist-Leninism was a necessary evil for the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War"

In this raw format, the sentence lacks proof why Marxism-Leninism would have been a necessary evil for Eastern Europe. So it's hard to name which type of logical fallacy is it, I'm hesitating between "lie" and argument from ingorance. If you would say, that "Marxist-Leninism was a necessary evil for the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, because the only other choice would have been Nazism, a greater evil.", it would be a false dilemma. And if you applied syllogism, saying

"Marxism-Leninism is necessary for reforming impoverished societies.
Eastern bloc had impoverished societies at that time.
Marxist-Leninism was a necessary evil for the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War."

it would be a fallacy of necessity, since one of your initial statements had a degree of unwarranted necessity.

My next statement:

"The earth must be flat, because nobody has ever proven otherwise."

[Odovacar]

"Marxist-Leninism was a necessary evil for the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War"

That's not a fallacy. Purely logically you may never know whether it was necessary evil or not.
Logical fallacies are the faults of logical process, coming from the erraneous usage of the forms of logical judgement.

Such as
Some christians are intolerant
Therefore christanity is intolerant.

This is simpy an error in the syllogism.

If you say it this way:
Christians are intolerant

Christianity is intolerant.
Then you err (apart from making a tautologic judgement, since christianity equals all the christians) not logically but simply you may have committed a false generalisation. whether its false or not though, can't be decided by logic alone. (Although there is a high probability that every such generalisation is false)

[Ummon]

Argument from ignorance, powerwizard.

I will allow someone else to propose one, passing my turn, because as of now I am particularly busy.

[Musthavename]

In order to show what I think PW originally intended.

Here's the first statement:

"Hitler loved Wagner's music. Therefore anyone who is a fan of Wagner, is a potential Nazi."

I know it's an easy one, just wanted to get the ball rolling.

Let Hilter be denoted "h". If any person loves Wagnar's music, he belongs to the set W. Therefore, h is an element of the set W. "h" is also an element of the set N, the set of Nazi's (or potential Nazi's, whatever). Your statement only states that h is an element of W, not that any element of the set N must also be a member of the set of W (i.e. the set W is not a subset of the set N). [Man, this would be a whole lot easier to write if I knew how to put Logic notation into this forum -_-].

I'm guessing I read that too logically...
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I'm not sure what the aim is but i'll post a Paradox for the sake of it. It's quite famous, and this can be resolved .

"On an island, the barber shaves all men who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber?"

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Good solution, Musty and a nice question.

"On an island, the barber shaves all men who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber?"

There's a false implication here that the barber doesn't leave island, therefore he needs to shave himself, since the others are lazy bums who don't. But if he would shave himself, it would mean that the initial statement ("all men who do not shave themselves") was wrong, so the whole problem would be a paradox. But since you didn't rule out that the barber can leave the island, it is by no means a paradox: he can take the first ship to the main land and get a nice beard cut in the first barbershop. Hence, it is a false dilemma.

My next one, very easy one just to move this thread forward:

"Musthavename obviously couldn't make a valid statement about the above situation on an imaginary island, since he wasn't there and couldn't see all the men and the barber."

[Ummon]

I'm not sure what the aim is but i'll post a Paradox for the sake of it. It's quite famous, and this can be resolved .

"On an island, the barber shaves all men who do not shave themselves. Who shaves the barber?"

It is famous, because it is in Paul Watzlawick's books on human communication as well. I will let those who don't know it answer.

[Musthavename]

That's not the answer I was looking for PW, there's a much simpler solution . Technically your answer is correct, so you'll just have to assume that they can't leave the island. You've made an assumption in your answer that is wrong, and that's the key to solving it.

[Bovril]

Regarding the question about the barber, the fallacy is that false implications are made about what the barber does. The statement "the barber shaves all [the] men who do not shave themselves" does not negate the statement "the barber shaves himself". Belonging to category A does not exclude him from belonging to category B as well. If the problem included the predicate "the barber does not shave those who shave themselves" then there would be a paradox, and we could conclude that at least one of the predicates was false.
The falacy has the structure: A is a B therefore A is not a C. This is the falacy of the false dilema (sort of). To create a true paradox the predicate no Bs are Cs would have to be included. Since there is no middle term, its also not a logical operation strictly speaking. To be honest, the whole thing is a bit of a mess, and is only an implied falacy since it does not have a stated conclusion. You could simply answer "the barber" and not contradict the statement made.

PW,
I don't know of a generic name for your fallacy. The nature of it is that you are applying standards of proof you would not apply in other situations to this situation. Its a bit like special pleading, but not quite the same. Alternatively, you are misreading the point of the anecdote, which is to illustrate a logical problem, and assuming it is a truth claim.



Here's a very simple one, but see if you can disect the structure of the falacy and give its name:
The Green party is opposed to capital punishment. Tim is a member of the green party. Therefore Tim is opposed to capital punishment.

[Desperado †]

"The earth must be flat, because nobody has ever proven otherwise."

Something isn't definitely something because it's not something else. X isn't definitely A because it's not been proven to be B.

Thinking them up is harder.

'Governments give justice. Governments are a necessary evil. Governments are hence justified, and justice is evil.'

Oh, and one Tony Blair said:

'I only did what I thought was right.'

[Bovril]

'Governments give justice. Governments are a necessary evil. Governments are hence justified, and justice is evil.'

There are two seperate fallacies here, since there are two inferences made.
The first has the structure
As are Bs (governments are justice givers)
As are Cs (governments are (a necessary) evil)
therfore:
B is equal to C (justice is evil)

This is a false conclusion. The fact that all As are Bs and all As are Cs does not make B equal to C. Additionally there is a fallacy within a fallacy. It is assumed what is true of justice givers is true of justice. To see the absurdity of this falacy substitute the inference above with "therefore D is equal to C". I think this is called the fallacy of substitution.
I put the word necessary in brackets because I don't think it relates to the logical structure of the argument. It's superfluous information, if you will.

The second falacy has the structure:
As are Bs (governments are justice givers)
*As are Cs (governments are (a necessary) evil)*
Therefore:
As are Ds (governments are justified)

In part in stars is not relevant to this fallacy so we can discard that (leaving it in is an informal rhetorical fallacy of bombarding the listener with irelivent information). There is an implication that all Bs are Ds (all justice givers are justified), but this is not one of the predicates, so that is fallacious. If that implication were a stated predicate, there would be no fallacy. I think this is substitution again.

Oh, and one Tony Blair said:

'I only did what I thought was right.'

What fallacy he is comiting here (if any) depends on what he is claiming (or implying) can be infered from the fact he only did what he thought was right.
Other than that, it looks like a good old appeal to pity.



If anyone wants another one, try this:
Jim's references say he is trustworthy. That makes it unlikely Jim would have given us dodgy references.

again, not difficult, but fun to disect formally.

[Musthavename]

What's with all the immensly complicated worded answers... it's far simpler than that... I'll put the answer in spoilers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The barber is a woman.

[Bovril]

What's with all the immensly complicated worded answers... it's far simpler than that... I'll put the answer in spoilers.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The barber is a woman.

Haha! I should have got that! But actually your answer might be fallacious:
(contains answer)

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The fallacy there would be equivocation. Men can mean the totallity of humanity, as can be assumed by a reader, or can mean human males, as is assumed by the answer given. But that's just me being tricky because I didn't spot the obvious answer!

[Desperado †]

What fallacy he is comiting here (if any) depends on what he is claiming (or implying) can be infered from the fact he only did what he thought was right.
Other than that, it looks like a good old appeal to pity.



If anyone wants another one, try this:
Jim's references say he is trustworthy. That makes it unlikely Jim would have given us dodgy references.

again, not difficult, but fun to disect formally.

Ah crap, yes, I the full sentence should be:

Tony Blair: 'I was only doing what I thought was right.' Tony was hence morally justified in what he did.

[Bovril]

Tony Blair: 'I was only doing what I thought was right.' Tony was hence morally justified in what he did.

The logical structure of this is:
A is a B (Blair in the the category 'did what he thought was right')
Therefore:
A is a C (Blair in in the category 'moraly justified')

There is a missing term, i.e. all Bs are Cs. Without this term the conclusion is not logically justified, even if the initial term and the conclusion are true (which is another question).