Form
It has the general argument form:
- If P, then Q.
- P is a fallacious argument.
- Therefore, Q is false.
Thus, it is a special case of denying the antecedent where the antecedent, rather than being a proposition that is false, is an entire argument that is fallacious. A fallacious argument, just as with a false antecedent, can still have a consequent that happens to be true. The fallacy is in concluding the consequent of a fallacious argument has to be false.
That the argument is fallacious only means that the argument cannot succeed in proving its consequent. But showing how one argument in a complex thesis is fallaciously reasoned does not necessarily invalidate the proof; the complete proof could still logically imply its conclusion if that conclusion is not dependent on the fallacy:
All great historical and philosophical arguments have probably been fallacious in some respect... If the argument is a single chain, and one link fails, the chain itself fails with it. But most historians' arguments are not single chains. They are rather like a kind of chain mail which can fail in some part and still retain its shape and function. —David Hackett Fischer, Historians' fallaciesRead more about this topic: Argument From Fallacy
Famous quotes containing the word form:
“The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can’t fake it ... try to fake three laughs in an hour—ha ha ha ha ha—they’ll take you away, man. You can’t.”
—Lenny Bruce (1925–1966)
“In many places the road was in that condition called repaired, having just been whittled into the required semicylindrical form with the shovel and scraper, with all the softest inequalities in the middle, like a hog’s back with the bristles up.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Since you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire, take care and watch yourselves closely, so that you do not act corruptly by making an idol for yourselves, in the form of any figure -the likeness of male or female...”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 4:15,16.