Pints With Aquinas - 28: 7 common logical fallacies

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 28. I'm Matt Fradd. This is the second part in a three-part series we're doing on logic and argumentation. I wanted to give you all a heads up that Catholic Answers have got this neat deal just for the listeners of Pints with Aquinas. Here's what it is. A couple of years back, I recorded a DVD in a pub, incidentally, called How to Win an Argument Without Losing a Soul. If you want to buy that DVD, you can get 30% off by going to shop.catholic.com. And when you buy How to Win an Argument Without Losing a Soul in the promo section, just type the word PINTS, capital P-I-N-T-S, in and you'll get 30% off. That's pretty cool. So if you want to do that, feel free to do it. In today's episode, we'll be discussing seven common logical fallacies.

Starting point is 00:01:11 Oh, g'day guys. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I would usually pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor and discuss theology and philosophy, but today we're doing something a little different. And we're doing it because you asked for it, you remember? Y'all were writing to me and saying, hey, let's do something on logic. So that's what we're doing something a little different. And we're doing it because you asked for it. You remember? Y'all were writing to me and saying, hey, let's do something on Logic. So that's what we're doing. I have to apologize. I think I've had too much coffee,

Starting point is 00:01:32 and that explains why I'm being crazy. I'm sitting here with a hot pint. It is a pint, I think, of coffee. Oh, it's good. I drink black coffee, but someone just told me that it's a great way to make your teeth yellow. So I blocked them on Twitter and I will never speak to them again. And now I'm drinking black coffee and I feel good about myself. Are you doing okay? I am interested. I hope you're well. Just so you know, this is what it's like for me when I do a podcast. I sit down

Starting point is 00:02:03 in my study at home in my basement, surrounded by my books and my pictures of the Blessed Mother and a huge picture of St. Thomas Aquinas that I bought recently, which I thought would be a lot cooler than it is, but it's not. And I would return it, but it's too much hassle. And they knew that when they said I could return it. And so I'm not going to, and now it's on my wall forever. And I just chat to you. But here's the thing, like, I don't know how you're receiving these a lot of the time. So, if you want to make me feel good, send me a tweet or something, because sometimes I might do a whole podcast and not hear from anybody that week. And I'm like, ah, I don't know if it was good or not. I hope it was helpful. It's like, it would be like me,

Starting point is 00:02:40 standing up on a stage and giving a talk and no one responding. Like, okay, I'm i hope that was helpful bye anyway so if you want to send me your comments you can do that by tweeting me another way you can do it of course is by calling up pints with aquinas and leaving a voice message for us to play hey that'd be cool what's the number i hear you ask here it is get a pen or some digital device to write this down seven zero seven nine two seven four six eight seven that's seven zero seven nine two seven four six eight seven give that a call leave a message don't worry no one will pick up and uh we can play that make sure make it fun i want somebody to sing to me. That'd be great. Today we're talking about, wow, guys, I am massively ADD today, aren't I? I apologize. I'm kind of hoping that people are out there being like, oh, it's fun. It's cute. It's mad. It's all right. He's had too much coffee,

Starting point is 00:03:35 but I suspect I'm going to lose half of my listenership. Listenership. Is that a word? Listenership. I'm going to look that up because I have ADD and there is no chance of ever coming back. Listenership. Yep. You're welcome. It is. All right. Seven common fallacies. Are you ready? Now, look, the reason we're going through these fallacies isn't just so you can look at other people and say, look how illogical you are. It's also that we can look at ourselves and say, how am I reasoning inadequately? What are some of the things I think are true that I really haven't thought through well? What are some of the common logical fallacies that I sometimes commit on Facebook, on YouTube, et cetera? Our Lord said, you know, why do you look at the splinter in your brother's eye while you have a beam in your own eye? I think it's true. I think Louis de Montfort said this,

Starting point is 00:04:39 that when it comes to the faults of others, we have like the eyes of eagles. But when it comes to our own faults, our own weirdness, and by weirdness, I don't mean innocent weirdness, I guess I mean like annoying habits, our stubbornness, our arrogance, right? Our laziness. We're as blind as bats. So, we look around at everyone else and think, oh, please. And we fail to see how we are sinning, how we are, what I just said, lazy, arrogant, etc. And the same thing is true when it comes to talking about logical fallacies. It's a lot easier to detect them in other people or think we are than to see them in our own thinking. But the point of these podcasts, of course, is not just to do that, but to seriously consider our own missteps in logic.

Starting point is 00:05:26 just to do that, but to seriously consider our own missteps in logic. So, in this episode, I'm going to talk about seven logical fallacies. In next week's episode, I'll talk about five more. Now, this isn't supposed to be a comprehensive study of material fallacies, but it's just kind of the ones I think we're likely to encounter when we're online, etc. All right, so are you ready? Good. Okay, let's begin. Number one, bing, bing, bing, self-referential incoherence. Have you heard that before? It's a big fancy word that you can throw out at dinner parties and it'll make you sound smart. Self-referential incoherence. Another way to say that is a self-refuting proposition. A self-referentially incoherent statement is one which, when said, disproves what it is trying to communicate. So, if I say I don't speak a word of English, I've just proven that I speak about seven or eight

Starting point is 00:06:21 words of English. So, I have refuted what I tried to say. If I say there is no truth, then I have refuted what I'm trying to say. I remember being in Ireland. I serve with Net Ministries of Ireland, by the way. If you're not sure who they are, check them out, netministries.ie. If you want to proclaim the gospel to thousands of teens all over Ireland, travel the country, if you love Guinness and hate sunshine, this is what you should seriously consider doing. That's how I met my wife, serving with Net Ministries in Ireland. And anyway, after a particular retreat, a young guy comes up to us and he says,

Starting point is 00:06:57 I don't believe in God. He said, it was a fun retreat, but I don't believe in God. And we said, okay, why don't you believe in God? And he said, okay, why don't you believe in God? And he said, well, I don't believe in absolute truth. I think all truth is relative. And without missing a beat, my friend and my, she was on my team, her name was Charity, awesome woman, looked at him and just said, are you absolutely sure about that? Now you see it, right? I mean, if you say there's absolutely no truth, then you've just committed a self-referentially incoherent proposition, because that at least is true according to you. And if that at least is true,

Starting point is 00:07:36 then it's not true that all truth is relative. Now, I don't say this to make the story more dramatic. I'm not exaggerating when I say this guy, about 15 years old, 16 years old, honestly looked like he was about to fall over. I mean, he stepped back because it hit him like a ton of bricks. So, that is a self-referentially incoherent proposition. Another one, which we're going to be speaking about, by the way, in episode 30, we're going to be speaking with the awesome Trent Horn. And that's on this issue of scientism. All right, what's that? Scientism is the belief that one should not accept something as true unless it can be shown true by the scientific method. But,

Starting point is 00:08:21 you know what I'm going to say, that is a self-referentially incoherent proposition. Because if you want to say that you should not accept something as truth unless it can be shown true by the scientific method, then you should be able to show that that is true by the scientific method, and you can't. It is not a conclusion that you came to based on scientific investigation, it is rather a philosophical axiom that you began with. So it's self-referentially incoherent. The second myth, the second logical fallacy is the straw man fallacy. Now this is a good name for this fallacy since what this fallacy does is it sets up a weaker position than your opponent actually holds in order to more easily refute it. So, let's give an example of how Christians commit this fallacy against atheists. I'm sure all of my atheist listeners are like, yeah, thank you. Well,

Starting point is 00:09:26 I've seen Christians say things like, the only reason someone's an atheist is because they want to sin. All right. They deep down, they hate God. They want to just sin. That really bugs me. And it bugs me because like, I'm the Catholic guy, I'm at your parish and I'm speaking. And you say that and you think i'm going to agree with you and we can both be like yes oh yes too right yes absolutely but i don't and it makes things awkward it's just not fair like nor is it true um that that the reason all atheists are atheists is because they want to sin. Like, what about some like respected, like philosophical minded or just philosophers, you know, atheists who don't believe in God because they've looked at the evidence and they think that it's more likely to be the case that

Starting point is 00:10:15 atheism is true. And here you are psychologizing, you know, saying, well, you know, they think they just want to sin. All right. Now, that's the reason. And now here's why they shouldn't conclude that God exists just because they want to sin. You haven't actually responsibly evaluated their arguments and responded to them. Rather, you've set up a straw man and then have attacked that. And yeah, you look victorious, set up a straw man and then have attacked that. And yeah, you look victorious, but against who? Against a straw man. The third fallacy is ad hominem, which means in Latin, against the man. Now, the reason this is a fallacy is because it attempts to invalidate an argument. It rejects an argument, not because of the reasoning behind that argument, but because of the person making it.

Starting point is 00:11:16 So, if I say to you, I think we've got good reasons to think that Jesus Christ was who he claimed to be. I might point to the documents of the New Testament to speak about how they're the best attested document of antiquity, yada yada, okay? How they were written within the first generation after the death of the apostles, okay? I might say all these things. Now, if you respond by saying, look, you're not a historian, Matt Fradd, and you're not a scripture scholar. So, like, it's not, so you're not a historian, Matt Fradd, and you're not a scripture scholar. So, you're wrong. The fallacy doesn't lie in requiring me to give you reasons to think what I'm saying is true. It might be legitimate to say, hey, look, you're not a scripture scholar. Where are you getting

Starting point is 00:11:58 this from? Okay, that's totally legitimate. But if you reject what I'm saying because of who I am, or if I reject what you're saying because of who you are, then this is to commit the fallacy ad hominem. You know, you might hear someone say something like, look, don't listen to that lady, okay? She doesn't know what she's talking about. She's an alcoholic. That's an ad hominem fallacy. Even if it were true that she's an alcoholic, it doesn't mean that what she's saying is false. In fact, even if she was completely plastered at the time, she could potentially put forward an argument and you should at least consider that argument and not just reject somebody because of who they are. You know,

Starting point is 00:12:46 he's not a scripture scholar. She's an alcoholic. Or if I say, for example, that Richard Dawkins is a biologist, right? Like when it comes to philosophy, the dude is a layman. And I'm just going to go ahead and say it without backing up my claims, but his book really does show that fact that he's not a philosopher. And in my upcoming book on the five ways of St. Thomas Aquinas, we're going to spend some time refuting Dawkins. It's not difficult, honestly. I know that sounds like I'm being smart, but it's not. The point is this, if I reject atheism because of Dawkins, like, look, Dawkins, you're not a philosopher, therefore you're wrong. Well, that would be to commit the ad hominem fallacy. I should actually look at his reasons, look at

Starting point is 00:13:30 his arguments, and then decide whether or not I disagree with him. And it turns out I do. The fourth fallacy we want to look at just real quickly, and this is under the umbrella of the ad hominem fallacy, is to quoque, which is a Latin phrase meaning you too. We see a lot of this these days in political arenas, you know, someone might call somebody to account for something that they've said and they'll say, well, okay, I did say that, but what about him? Or what about her? Have they not also said this or that? Or much worse? Yeah, maybe they have, but that wasn't the question. And the point is that even if this person is like a rotten liar or says inflammatory things, the point is that doesn't

Starting point is 00:14:20 give you the right to do it. So we're trying to hold you to account for the things you've said. Another example would be, let's say you get pulled into your boss's office because you've been stealing things from the company. And your boss says to you, we understand that you've been stealing from the company. We've got good reasons to think that. And you're like, well, dude, are you telling me that you've never done that? Like you've never stolen anything in your life. You're telling me. Well, that's not the point, of course. So, tu quoque. Okay. Number five is the genetic fallacy. Now, genetic fallacy, I guess we could

Starting point is 00:15:04 say is also under the umbrella of the ad hominem fallacy. What does that do? The genetic fallacy. Now, genetic fallacy, I guess we could say, is also under the umbrella of the ad hominem fallacy. What does that do? The genetic fallacy attempts to invalidate a belief based on how it originated. And you can see why that's false, because you and I might come to hold all sorts of true beliefs based on inadequate reasons or inadequate evidence. So, an atheist might say to me, Matt Fradd, you believe in God because, you know, you were raised that way. Or you believe in God because you're afraid of reality and you like the idea of there being a cosmic sugar daddy up in the clouds who's going to give you a theme park when you're dead. Well done. Okay. Well, apart from being kind of insulting, it commits the genetic fallacy. So, the reason it does that is it

Starting point is 00:15:58 attempts to invalidate my conclusion, namely the existence of God, based on how it originates. my conclusion, namely the existence of God, based on how it originates, namely I was raised that way and I'm afraid of reality. So, really, this isn't an argument against God at all. It's an argument against my reasons for believing in God. Side note, it's really important whenever we're arguing with someone that we step back and say, what is the most that this argument proves? I think you'll find that extremely helpful as you dialogue with people. They might make an argument and you might not know how to respond to it, but you can always step back and go, okay, what is the most that this proves? Like, okay, the most that this would prove is X. Now, with a genetic fallacy in the example I just gave, I might step back and go, okay, what's the most this proves? Okay, well, the most this proves is, okay, maybe you're right.

Starting point is 00:16:49 Maybe I'm only a Christian because I was raised that way. And maybe you're right. I'm afraid of reality. Okay. Doesn't disprove God's existence, does it? It's not an argument against God's existence. So, I might respond, if someone were to say this to me, I might say, well, look, no, that's actually not true. I think I've got good reasons to think God exists. But even if you were right, it wouldn't show that God doesn't exist. It would just show that I don't have good reasons for believing in God. Number six is ad baculum, which is Latin for essentially appeal. It's an appeal to force. Okay. Appeal to force. If you say to your child, let's say your child says, I don't believe in Santa Claus,

Starting point is 00:17:36 or they might not say that much. Is there a Santa Claus? Is there a Father Christmas? And if you were to say to your kid, of course there's a Santa Claus, but he doesn't bring presents to kids who don't believe in him. That is an appeal to force, not to reason. Now, even if it were true that Santa existed and he didn't bring toys to kids who didn't believe in him, that would still be a fallacious thing to say because, again, you're not appealing to reason, you're appealing to force. thing to say because, again, you're not appealing to reason, you're appealing to force. The seventh and final one we'll look at in this episode is ad ignominium, which is Latin for an appeal to shame. Now, this is sort of an emotional appeal. We're going to look at some others in the next episode, such as an appeal to the masses or an appeal to pity, right? Now, these are pretty good as far as swaying people's minds, right? Swaying the mood of the conversation,

Starting point is 00:18:33 painting your opponent in this or that light. But in philosophy, we're interested in arguments and evidences. We're not interested in like what a good showman you are or how you can speak in such a way as to make your opponent seem this way or that way. So it's really important that when we're listening to debates, when we're listening to conversations, that we follow not the mood, if you will, of the conversation, the feel of it, but the reasoning behind it. So let me give you an example of this appeal to shame. but the reasoning behind it. So, let me give you an example of this appeal to shame. A couple of years back when my wife and I and family were living in San Diego, I told my wife that I'd be taking a nap. I was tired. I was up late the night before, and I went in to have a quick nap. As I was just laying down, my wife knocks on the door,

Starting point is 00:19:30 and she says, honey, sorry to interrupt you, but there's two guys out the front with Bibles. Now you have to understand, I get pretty excited when this happens. I'm not usual, I'm sure, but I'm like, oh, sweet. Okay. No, I'm coming. I threw my shirt on and I went out and sat out the front with them. We just chatted for a while. They were Jehovah's Witnesses. And it became pretty evident pretty quickly that I knew more than them. Now, that's not always true. I'm not trying to make myself sound terrific. There's definitely been arguments where I'm way out of my league and I've got no idea how to respond. Okay. But in this particular situation, it was clear that I had the upper hand here. I mean, I was responding quite well to them. I was pointing them to the passages of scripture they hadn't even considered. And I was essentially making an argument for the historicity of the Catholic Church.

Starting point is 00:20:18 Right. Now, as I'm doing that, these fellows, not really knowing how to respond, appealed to shame ad ignominium. And one of the priests said, okay, you're trying to tell me that the Catholic Church is the church Christ founded, but how could that be true in light of the sex abuse scandal? I mean, you've got these priests, right, who are committing all these atrocious like crimes. That is an appeal to shame. And it's a kind of, it's a tactic to divert the conversation. It doesn't mean it's not an important area that we should address. I mean, in this situation, it is an important area. Like, yeah, I agree with you. It's completely disgusting that certain wicked priests or very sick priests or both would commit certain crimes like this.

Starting point is 00:21:02 Just like it's sickening that any Catholic, you know, celibate or not, or any Christian, Catholic or not, would commit these sorts of things. But it's really a diversion tactic. Whether he meant it to be or not, that's what he was doing. And so, I stopped. I said, look, that has nothing to do with whether or not Jesus Christ established a church and whether or not that church is the Catholic church. It's an important topic, I said to him, so why don't we shelf that for a moment and we'll come back to it. So, it's important when someone tries to divert the conversation that you stop them and stick to the argument at hand. Okay, so to sum up today, we've looked at

Starting point is 00:21:42 seven arguments, sorry, not seven arguments, seven fallacies. Self-referential incoherence, number two is the straw man fallacy, number three was ad hominem, number four was tu quoque, number five was the genetic fallacy, number six was ad baculum, and number seven is ad ignominium. I'm going to be putting the names of these fallacies as well as the descriptions of them in the show notes so you can read up on them and I hope that's a help for you. A couple more things to say,

Starting point is 00:22:10 but before we do, I want to take a quick break. boxes, boxes. I would like to tell you about something more important than my podcast. Pints with Aquinas. Pint, pint, p-p-p-p-pints with Aquinas. Matt Fradd actually wrote a book on 50 plus deep thoughts from the angelic doctor. Pints with Aquinas. Here's the deal. Beer is easily lovable, but medieval monastic philosophers, they can be quite intimidating. Yet in this short pithy book, and I don't use that word often. In fact, I never use the word pithy, but I'm going to use it here, and you're going to agree with me. Matt Fradd made the greatest mind in the history of the church as easily accessible as your favorite beer. You'll laugh, you'll cry, well, you won't cry, but you'll laugh,

Starting point is 00:23:01 and you'll discover that this old school philosopher's wisdom is just as relevant today as it was back then. So do yourself a favor. Get a copy of this enlightening, pithy little book from Amazon right now. And when it arrives, pour yourself a frothy pint and dig in. You'll be glad you did. Welcome back to Pints with Aquinas. I want to thank everyone for listening to the show today. As I say, this is part of a three-part series we're doing on logic and argumentation. In the first episode, which if you haven't listened to, be sure to go and listen to it, we talked about logic. We talked about arguing the different types of arguments, what was necessary for a sound argument. In today's episode, we talked about seven

Starting point is 00:23:46 fallacies. And in next week's episode, I want to discuss, I don't know, maybe five more fallacies, as well as a few helpful things that I've learned about arguing and maybe more of the practicals to arguing. Thanks for tuning in. in do us a favor if you haven't already rate pints with aquinas on itunes and again thank you so much to everybody out there who has bought a copy of my book pints with aquinas from from amazon really appreciate your support speak to you next time And I battle with my consciousness I battle with my selfish flesh Whose wolves am I feeding myself to? Who's gonna survive?

Starting point is 00:24:42 Who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive Who's gonna survive And I would give my whole life To carry you

Pints With Aquinas - 28: 7 common logical fallacies

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