Sophism
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Original Question
There is an old rhetorical ploy, it has its own name, but I'm not sure how it spells in English (when translated from my native language: "covered").
It is presented in the form of the following dialogue:
-Do you recognize this covered man?
-Not.
-That's your brother. So you don't recognize your brother.
What argument is implied here? Are you familiar with this trick? And finally, what logical fallacy is this?
At first glance, it seems to me that the argument looks something like this:
P: Person x does not recognize his brother when he is covered (this is one specific circumstance).
C: Person x does not recognize his brother (in general, without restriction).
In that case, I think this could be considered a fallacy of converse accident .
However, I found only this dialogue, without explanation, so I don't know if it makes any sense to interpret it as an argument or simply a statement that, depending on the understanding, takes on 2 different meanings.
Thanks for your answers!
Answers
5Fallacy and sophistry can still be a true argument in the end by a clock maker who forgot to...
I'd say it's unclear!
-That's your brother. So you don't recognize your brother.
This is the part that's tricky. If they're commenting on the fact you didn't recognise him, this is correct - you didn't see him behind the mask.
If they're suggesting you'd never recognise him, that's just a non sequitur.
I wonder if this is an example of unaccepted enthymemes at last?
The truncated syllogism (enthymeme) is: Person X is an idiot because he didn't recognize his brother.
The tacit assumption is that Person X could see his brother's face. The full syllogism reveals the unaccepted premise that was omitted:
Only an idiot wouldn't be able to recognize his brother.
Person X didn't recognize his brother when he was covered .
Therefore, Person X is an idiot.
What do we think?
Have a look at illicit substitution of identicals .
Try as I may, I cannot see a fallacy here. I am, however, interpreting "covered" to equate to
"masked" (?). I understand that covered might also mean "shrouded", as with a cadaver. In either instance, however, one might easily be excused for not recognizing someone they could not see to identify properly; the response in your example seems unreasonably harsh, but nothing here strikes me as fallacious.
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