AboutHank Hokamp Expertise Books, books and more book! Personal experiences can sometimes disprove philosophical discussions and writings.
My PHILOSOPHY: If you do wrong to people, you don't have the right to exist. Helping people is WHY we're here. At least it's my purpose of life. Why do people keep seeking humanism, nihilism and existentialism? Few seem to realize satisfaction. All humans are subject to death and Earth has not been cultivated into an earth-wide paradise. Perhaps it can be if we serve one another. I can't imagine a more satisfying life than using my free will to serve thy neighbor. Let's get started. It's 2009! In fact, it's 3/24/09!
Question Here's the background information, earlier I would study with a guy who would call himself a conceptual thinker, and that everyone else was a details thinker. For example, if someone would relate to other disciplines when studying, he would call them a details thinker. When asked what he thought, he would regurgitate back what's in the study guide. Some would get annoyed. One man's detail is another man's concept. So I decided to come up with a phrase to use with him. When I was young, I would watch Science programs and one of the television shows used the phrase, "Newton's Apple, Understanding the World Around You." So I made up my phrase, "I'm just trying to conceptualize the world around me" for this guy. I didn't read it anywhere and only took three words "the world around" from TV, and added six.
So to the question, I was with a roommate and I said, "I'm just trying to conceptualize the world around me." He said, "LOL, not from a book." I told him I didn't get it from a book and he just said the same thing. Later in the day, he said, "I'm going to be creative. LOL. You killed my father, prepare to die."
Then I went to Google and looked up "You killed my father, prepare to die" and tens of thousands of results came up. Then I Googled "I'm just trying to conceptualize the world around me" and the only results that came up are when I've talked about it online. I felt it was a little unfair what the roommate said.
So my question is if there are any logical fallacies involved? "Not from a book", especially when it's not from a book? Or since you said you're into helping people, maybe there's a more constructive way of telling someone you didn't get it from a book, then saying "You just committed such and such fallacy"?
Looks like a play on words is involved, Nick. Here's my 'play on words:'
Aristotle was both the first formal logician — codifying the rules of correct reasoning — and the first informal logician - cataloging types of incorrect reasoning, namely, fallacies. He was both the first to name types of logical error, and the first to group them into categories. The result is his book "On Sophistical Refutations."
However, Aristotle's teacher, Plato, deserves credit for being the first philosopher to collect examples of bad reasoning, which is an important preliminary piece of field work before naming and cataloging. Plato's "Euthydemus" preserves a collection of fallacious arguments in dialogue form, putting the perhaps exaggerated examples into the mouths of two sophists. For this reason, fallacious arguments are sometimes called "sophisms" and bad reasoning "sophistry". Aristotle refers to a few of these examples as instances of his named fallacies.
In the centuries since Plato and Aristotle, many great philosophers and logicians have contributed to fallacy studies, among them John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, and Arthur Schopenhauer.
That's for starters, Nick:
A fallacy is a mistake, and a logical fallacy is a mistake in reasoning. There are, of course, other types of mistakes than mistakes in reasoning. For instance, factual mistakes are sometimes referred to as fallacies. However, the Fallacy Files is specifically concerned, not with factual errors, but with logical ones.
In logic, the term FALLACY is used in two related, but distinct ways. For example:
1. Argumentum ad Hominem is a fallacy. An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps.
First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim. Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of argument has the following form:
Nick makes claim X.
Hank makes an attack on person A.
Therefore Nick's claim is false.
The reason why an Ad Hominem of any kind is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not, in most cases, have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).
Secondly, your argument is a fallacy.
*By the way, Plato is my favorite philosopher.
Most of the help I give to people comes from my past experiences. Thus, REALITY -- the way things word. The rest comes from creditable authors et al - RESEARCH. Anyway, I'd just say, "Your statement is a FALLACY and here's WHY." Then apply the above to your reasoning et al.
Hope this helps, Nick. If I missed something, let me know.
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