(10) To neglect the negative conditions to which a cause is subject.
When we say that water boils at 212° F., we mean "provided the pressure
be the same as that of the atmosphere at about the sea-level"; for under
a greater pressure water will not boil at that temperature, whilst under
less pressure it boils at a lower temperature. In the usual statement of
a law of causation, 'disturbing,' 'frustrating,' 'counteracting'
circumstances (that is, negative conditions) are supposed to be absent;
so that the strict statement of such a law, whether for a remote cause,
or for an immediate cause (when only positive conditions are included),
is that the agent or assemblage of conditions, _tends_ to produce such
an effect, other conditions being favourable, or in the absence of
contrary forces.
(11) It is needless to repeat what has already been said of other
fallacies that beset inductive proof; such as the neglect of a possible
plurality of causes where the effect has been vaguely conceived; the
extension of empirical laws beyond adjacent cases; the chief errors to
which the estimate of analogies and probabilities, or the application of
the principles of classification are liable; and the reliance upon
direct Induction where the aid of Deduction may be obtained, or upon
observation where experiment may be employed. As to formal fallacies
that may be avoided by adhering to the rules of logical method, this may
suffice.
§ 4. There remain many ways in which arguments fall short of a tolerable
standard of proof, though they cannot be exhibited as definite breaches
of logical principles. Logicians, therefore, might be excused from
discussing them; but out of the abundance of their pity for human
infirmity they usually describe and label the chief classes of these
'extra-logical fallacies,' and exhibit a few examples.
We may adopt Whately's remark, that a fallacy lies either (1) in the
premises, or (2) in the conclusion, or (3) in the attempt to connect a
conclusion with the premises.
(1) Now the premises of a sound argument must either be valid
deductions, or valid inductions, or particular observations, or axioms.
In an unsound argument, then, whose premises are supported by either
deduction or induction, the evidence may be reduced to logical rules;
and its failure is therefore a 'logical fallacy' such as we have already
discussed. It follows that an extra-logical fallacy of the premises must
lie in what cannot be reduced to rules of evidence, that is, in bad
observations (§ 5), or sham axioms (§ 6).
(2) As to the conclusion, this can only be fallacious if some other
conclusion has been substituted for that which was to have been proved
(§ 7).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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