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What type of fallacy is this?

Every man is mortal. Your mom is mortal. Your mom is a man.

asked on Wednesday, Aug 04, 2021 10:25:35 PM by

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Answers

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Bo Bennett, PhD
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fallacy of (the) undistributed middle.

A formal fallacy in a categorical syllogism where the middle term (mortal), or the term that does not appear in the conclusion, is not distributed to the other two terms. For a good explanation of what it means to be distributed, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_proposition#Distributivity

 

 
answered on Thursday, Aug 05, 2021 07:54:44 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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account no longer exists writes:

Fallacy: affirming the consequent, perhaps?

posted on Wednesday, Aug 18, 2021 06:38:32 PM
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Bo Bennett, PhD writes:
[To Prof M]

I didn't see how that fit the logical form. But sometimes we can adjust the language a bit without changing the form. If you can see how this works, let me know.

[ login to reply ] posted on Thursday, Aug 19, 2021 07:05:08 AM
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richard smith
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The term "man" is being used as a general term and not specific. Maybe Equivocation.

answered on Thursday, Aug 05, 2021 09:18:53 AM by richard smith

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Bo Bennett, PhD writes:

Good point... "Man" can be used here as "humanity" in premise 1 and "a man" in the conclusion.

posted on Thursday, Aug 05, 2021 10:54:13 AM
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TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:
[To Bo Bennett, PhD]

The use of "a man" rather than "man" appears to negate this possibility, but there's still a chance that linguistic confusion is at play here.

[ login to reply ] posted on Thursday, Aug 05, 2021 05:35:31 PM