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The Dudeman

Fallacies by Fictional Characters

I'm writing about fictional characters and I was planning on doing a critical analysis section showing some fallacious statements made by them (I was initially inspired by the Yoda example in the book), and I just want some help determining if these three statements contain any fallacies. One of them, I have an idea (though I'm not very confident) of what the fallacy is if there is one, the others I'm not sure *if* there's a fallacy, let alone what they'd be. Help is appreciated.


1. "The only thing that is impossible is impossibility."

2. "We do have a lot in common, the same earth, the same air, the same sky. Maybe if we started looking at what's the same instead of always looking at what's different... Well, who knows?"

(This one feels like the Argument from Silence, but I'm not too sure.)

3. "People's values change over time. And so do the leaders of a country. So there's no such thing as an enemy in absolute terms. The enemies we fight are only in relative terms, constantly changing with the times."
asked on Monday, May 15, 2017 05:24:11 AM by The Dudeman

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Bo Bennett, PhD
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The only thing that is impossible is impossibility.


Tautology or self-sealing argument . But only if the context of an argument. Statements like this are usually meant to communicate a deeper philosophical meaning or even irony. One might respond to that with "If by 'only' you mean 'impossibility' and countless other things such as married bachelors, square circles, or doubling a cube, then sure."

We do have a lot in common, the same earth, the same air, the same sky. Maybe if we started looking at what's the same instead of always looking at what's different... Well, who knows?



Nothing jumps out at me here as a logical fallacy without being unreasonably critical. I actually like that idea.

People's values change over time. And so do the leaders of a country. So there's no such thing as an enemy in absolute terms. The enemies we fight are only in relative terms, constantly changing with the times.



Let's put this one into logical form:

P1. People's values change over time.
P2. Leaders of a country change over time.
C. Therefore, there's no such thing as an enemy in absolute terms.

I would say a simple non-sequitur —the conclusion does not follow. Perhaps even fallacy of four terms because we are introducing "enemy" in the conclusion, which was not in either of the premises.


answered on Monday, May 15, 2017 05:55:25 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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