Showing posts with label logic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label logic. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

A bad argument

(1) Some Roman Catholics are bad or wicked or dangerous or wrong in some ways or something like that

(2) Some Roman Catolics use incense

(3) Therefore we must not use incense

Now, leave aside what you think about (1) for a moment. Just note that if were to grant this it would also prove:

(2a) Some Roman Catholics preach sermons using Bible texts

(3a) Therefore we must not preach (sermons using Bible texts).

As I said, a bad argument.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Analogies

I've commented before on the importance of analogies and their relation to arguments. In the end everything is an analogy.

This too from Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers (p254)

We formulate new ideas by analogy, working from what we know towards what we don't know....