The Art of Logical Thinking; Or, The Laws of ReasoningAtkinson, William Walker
Philosophy
The Art of Logical Thinking; Or, The Laws of Reasoning
Atkinson, William Walker
Logic; Reasoning
_Fallacies of Mistaken Cause_ result from the assumption of a thing as a
cause, when it is not so, of which the following are familiar examples:
_Substituting the Antecedent for the Cause_, which consists in assuming
a mere antecedent thing for a _cause_ of another thing. Thus one might
assume that the crowing of the cock was the _cause_ of daybreak, because
it _preceded_ it; or that a comet was the cause of the plague which
followed its appearance; or in the actual case in which a child reasoned
that doctors _caused_ deaths, because observation had shown that they
always visited persons before they died; or that crops failed because a
President of a certain political party had been inaugurated a few months
before. Some fallacies of everyday reasoning are quite as illogical as
those just mentioned. _Substituting the Symptom for the Cause_, which
consists in assuming as a _cause_ some mere symptom, sign or incident of
the real cause. To assume that the pimples of measles were the _cause_
of the disease, would be to commit a fallacy of this kind. We have
mentioned elsewhere the fallacy which would assume silk-hats to be the
cause of Civilization, instead of being a mere incident of the latter.
Politicians are fond of assuming certain incidents or signs of a period,
as being the _causes_ of the prosperity, culture and advancement of the
period, or the reverse. One might argue, with equal force, that
automobiles were the causes of national prosperity, pointing to the fact
that the more automobiles to be seen the better the times. Or, that
straw hats produced hot weather, for similar reasons.
_The Fallacy of Analogy_ consists in assuming a resemblance or identity,
where none exists. We have spoken of this in another chapter. Brooks
says, also: "It is a fallacy to carry an analogy too far; as to infer
from the parable of the praying of the importunate woman that God
resembles the unjust judge."
In conclusion, we would call your attention to the following words from
Jevons, in which he expresses the gist of the matter: "It is impossible
too often to remind people that, on the one hand, _all correct reasoning
consists in substituting like things for like things_, and inferring
that what is true of one will be true of all which are similar to it in
the points of resemblance concerned in the matter. On the other hand,
_all incorrect reasoning consists in putting one thing for another where
there is not the requisite likeness_. It is the purpose of the rules of
deductive and inductive logic to enable us to judge as far as possible
when we are thus rightly or wrongly reasoning from some things to
others."
FINIS.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
Obvious typos and printer errors have been corrected without comment. In
addition to obvious errors, the following changes have been made:
Page 18: "Idea" changed to "Ideas" in the phrase, "... forming
Concepts or General Ideas."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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