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The Existential Fallacy
March 7, 2015 at 4:07 pm
I learned a new fallacy today.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/existent.html
I'm going to try to put this into my own words. The existential fallacy is when a class is assumed to not be empty.
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all. - Denis Diderot
We are the United States of Amnesia, we learn nothing because we remember nothing. - Gore Vidal
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RE: The Existential Fallacy
March 7, 2015 at 4:19 pm
Right, that's a good one.
Sort of connected to the loaded question? Which God is real?
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RE: The Existential Fallacy
March 7, 2015 at 7:28 pm
I think it may be more connected to begging the question.
It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all. - Denis Diderot
We are the United States of Amnesia, we learn nothing because we remember nothing. - Gore Vidal
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RE: The Existential Fallacy
March 7, 2015 at 7:59 pm
.. or argumentum bullshittery.
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RE: The Existential Fallacy
March 20, 2015 at 5:17 pm
(This post was last modified: March 20, 2015 at 5:19 pm by Mudhammam.)
Wow, that website is everything that I pretty much learned in my Introduction to Logic class this past Wednesday. Actually, some of my homework that I was going to do today is just that. Basically, the ancient philosophers came up with these diagrams to express the relationships in which the categories of all claims fall: universal affirmatives, universal negatives, particular affirmatives, and particular negatives. In simpler terms, All S are P (A-type), No S are P (E-type), Some S are P (I-type), and Some S are not P (O-type). The idea of existential import basically means that when S is a subject that does not exist in some veritable manner, the relationships between the different categorical propositions (alternation and subalternation) break down so that the only thing left to differentiate them is contradiction, or rather: statements about non-existing entities fall either to the proposition that All S are P or No S are P, of which both can be stated as true.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
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RE: The Existential Fallacy
March 20, 2015 at 5:35 pm
(This post was last modified: March 20, 2015 at 5:38 pm by Jenny A.)
(March 7, 2015 at 4:07 pm)Pizz-atheist Wrote: I learned a new fallacy today.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/existent.html
I'm going to try to put this into my own words. The existential fallacy is when a class is assumed to not be empty.
Your summary is accurate. But most of the people stating premises using this fallacy won't understand it. How about:
The ability to define a thing or things, does not cause that thing or those things to exist. Nor does defining a real thing or things cause the antithesis of that thing or things to exist.
If there is a god, I want to believe that there is a god. If there is not a god, I want to believe that there is no god.
