"Logic, therefore, as the science thought, or the science of the process of pure reason, should be capable of being constructed a priori."
-Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy
("a priori" is defined as deduced from self-evident premises)
The first and second editions of 'Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric" are the best. By the third edition vital logical concepts have been deliberately omitted or obscured.
Chapter one of the first edition is entitled "Fallacious Even If Valid". Within the first nine pages Howard Kahane explains the following logical fallacies: (1) suppressed evidence, (2) doubtful evidence, (3) unknown fact, and (4) doubtful evaluation. This is interesting to me since I have recently reviewed college introductory logic texts which never once mention that premises must be supported by evidence (or be self-evident) or that known relevant evidence must not be suppressed (the fallacy of suppressed evidence). Why on Earth would a professor of Logic fail to explain the fallacy of suppressed evidence in an introductory logic text?
Here's a definition of cogent reasoning that appears in the second edition of 'Logic and Contempory Rhetoric' by Howard Kahane which is deliberately stripped of its meaning by the third edition:
"Fallacious reasoning is just the opposite of what can be called cogent reasoning. We reason cogently when we reason (1) validly; (2) from premises well supported by evidence; and (3) using all relevant evidence we know of. The purpose of avoiding fallacious reasoning is, of course, to increase our chances of reasoning cogently."
-Howard Kahane, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric, 1976, second edition
This is what the definition of cogent reasoning has become by the third edition:
"Criteria for Cogent Reasoning
To reason cogently, three criteria must be satisfied: (1) we must start with acceptable,or warranted premises; (2) we must include all available relevant information; and (3) our reasoning must be valid, which means roughly that it must have correct form or structure. (The second criteria is important primarily with respect to what is called inductive reasoning.)
We get warranted premises for an argument from the conclusions of other valid arguments and from reports of observations. And we learn what is relevant to a given argument by appeal to broad theories whose main points are conclusions of still other valid arguments. So validity is a key ingredient of cogent reasoning."-Howard Kahane, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric, third edition (1980)
Did you notice how the third edition removed the word evidence from the definition? Why do you suppose that was done?
Here are the thoughts of other logicians on the subject of supporting premises with evidence and the logical fallacy of suppressed evidence:
(A) "Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong."
-Thomas Jefferson
(B) "Aristotle devides all conclusions into logical and dialectical, in the manner described, and then into eristical. (3) Eristic is the method by which the form of the conclusion is correct, but the premises, the material from which it is drawn, are not true, but only appear to be true. Finally (4) sophistic is the method in which the form of the conclusion is false, although it seems correct. These three last properly belong to the art of Controversial Dialectic, as they have no objective truth in view, but only the appearance of it, and pay no regard to truth itself; that is to say, they aim at victory."
-Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy
(C) "All instruction given or received by way of argument proceeds from pre-existent knowledge."
-Aristotle, Posterior Analytics
(D) "We ought in fairness to fight our case with no help beyond the bare facts: nothing, therefore, should matter except the proof of those facts."
-Aristotle, Rhetoric
(E) "The truth or falsity of a statement depends on facts, not on any power on the part of the statement itself of admitting contrary qualities". - Aristotle, Categories
(F) "Similarly with any other art or science. Consequently, if the attributes of the thing are apprehended, our business will then be to exhibit readily the demonstration. For if none of the true attributes of things had been omitted in the historical survey, we should be able to discover the proof and demonstrate everything which admitted of proof, and to make that clear , whose nature does not admit of proof". - Aristotle, Prior Analytics
(G) "We suppose ourselves to posses unqualified scientific knowledge of a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the accidental way in which the sophisticated knows, when we think that we know the cause on which the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and of no other, and further, that the fact could not be other than it is". - Aristotle, Posterior Analytics
(H) "The province of Logic must be restricted to that portion of our knowledge which consists of inferences from truths previously known; whether those antecedent data be general propositions, or particular observations and perceptions. Logic is not the science of Belief, but the science of Proof, or Evidence. In so far as belief professes to be founded on proof, the office of Logic is to supply a test for ascertaining whether or not the belief is well grounded."
- John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic
(I) "The statements that make up an argument are divided into one or more premises and one and only one conclusion. The premises are the statements that set forth the evidence, and the conclusion is the statement that is claimed to follow from the evidence."
-Patrick Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic (1985)
(J) "An argument expresses an inference in a special way, in terms of one or more premises that present evidence and a conclusion that is claimed to follow from that evidence. Because the antecedent of a conditional statement is not asserted to be true, it presents no evidence; and because it presents no evidence, a conditional statement is not an argument, even though it may express an inference."
-Patrick Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic (1985)
(K) "The fallacy of suppressed evidence is committed when an arguer ignores evidence that would tend to undermine the premises of an otherwise good argument, causing it to be unsound or uncogent. Suppressed evidence is a fallacy of presumption and is closely related to begging the question. As such, it's occurrence does not affect the relationship between premises and conclusion but rather the alleged truth of premises. The fallacy consists in passing off what are at best half-truths as if they were whole truths, thus making what is actually a defective argument appear to be good. The fallacy is especially common among arguers who have a vested interest in the situation to which the argument pertains."
-Patrick Hurley, A Concise Introduction to Logic (1985)
(L) "Fallacious Even If Valid
So far, we have considered arguments that are fallacious precisely because they are invalid. But arguments may be fallacious for reasons other invalidity --even valid arguments may be fallacious. Thus we have the fallacy category 'fallacious even if valid.
1. Suppressed Evidence
When arguing, it is human nature to present every reason you can think of that is favorable to your own position, while omitting those that are unfavorable. Nevertheless, anyone who argues in this very human way argues fallaciously. Let's call this the fallacy of 'suppressed evidence...
Questionable Premise
The fallacy of the 'questionable premise' is simply the fallacy of accepting premises in an argument that are both questionable and inadequately supported."
-Howard Kahane, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric, 1976
(M) "This is the argumentum ad verecundiam. It consists in making an appeal to authority rather than reason, and in using such an authority as may suit the degree of knowledge possessed by your opponent.
Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment, says Seneca; and it is therefore an easy matter if you
have an authority on your side which your opponent respects. The more limited his capacity and knowledge, the greater is the number of authorities who weigh with him. But if his capacity and knowledge are of a high order, there are very few; indeed, hardly any at all. He may, perhaps, admit the authority of professional men versed in science or an art or a handicraft of which he knows little or nothing; but even so he will regard it with suspicion. Contrarily, ordinary folk have a deep respect for professional men of every kind. They are unaware that a man who makes a profession of a thing loves it not for the thing itself, but for the money he makes by it; or that it is rare for a man who teaches to know his subject thoroughly; for if he studies it as he ought, he has in most cases no time left in which to teach it...
There is no opinion, however absurd, which men will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted. Example effects their thought just as it affects their action. They are like sheep following the bell-wether just as he leads them. They will sooner die than think. It is very curious that the universality of an opinion should have so much weight with people, as their own experience might tell them that it's acceptance is an entirely thoughtless and merely imitative process. But it tells them nothing of the kind, because they possess no self-knowledge whatever...
When we come to look into the matter, so-called universal opinion is the opinion of two or three persons; and we should be persuaded of this if we could see the way in which it really arises.
We should find that it is two or three persons who, in the first instance, accepted it, or advanced and maintained it; and of whom people who, in the first instance, accepted it, or advanced and maintained it; and of whom people were so good as to believe that they had thoroughly tested it. Then a few
other persons, persuaded beforehand that the first were men of the requisite capacity, also accepted the opinion. These, again, were trusted by many others, whose laziness suggested to them that it was better to believe at once, than to go through the troublesome task of testing the matter for themselves. Thus the number of these lazy and credulous adherents grew from day to day; for the opinion had no sooner
obtained a fair measure of support than its further supporters attributed this to the fact that the opinion could only have obtained it by the cogency of its arguments. The remainder were then compelled to grant what was universally granted, so as not to pass for unruly persons who resisted opinions which everyone accepted, or pert fellows who thought themselves cleverer than any one else.
When opinion reaches this stage, adhesion becomes a duty; and henceforward the few who are capable of forming a judgment hold their peace. Those who venture to speak are such as are entirely incapable of forming any opinion or any judgment of their own, being merely the echo of opinions; and, nevertheless, they defend them with all the greater zeal and intolerance. For what they hate in people who think differently is not so much the different opinions which they profess, as the presumption of wanting to form their own judgment; a presumption of which they themselves are never guilty, as they are very well aware. In short, there are very few who can think, but every man wants to have an opinion; and what remains but to take it ready-made from others, instead of forming opinions for himself?
Since this is what happens, where is the value of the opinion even of a hundred millions? It is no more established than an historical fact reported by a hundred chroniclers who can be proved to have plagiarised it from one; the opinion in the end being traceable to a single individual."-Arthur Schopenhauer, The Art of Controversy
" ' How is the dictionary getting on?' Said Whinston, raising his voice to overcome the noise.
'Slowly,' said Syme. "I'm on the abjectives. It's fascinating.'
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Newspeak ...
'The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition,' he said. ' We're getting the language into its final shape -- the shape it's going to have when nobody speaks anything else. When we've finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is inventing new words. But not a bit of it! We're destroying words -- scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We're cutting the language down to the bone. The Eleventh Edition won't contain a singe word that will become obsolete before the year 2050 ...
'It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words' ...
'Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.' "
- George Orwell, 1984
If you would like to better understand the people who control your schools and media, here's a good place to start:
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
9/11 Missing Links
Dr Alan Sabrosky, former Director of Studies at the U.S.Army War College
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The first and second editions are good; key concepts are omitted or obscured in subsequent editions.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 26, 2016
Fantastic read... again, after all of these years. But a rude awakening as well. Our education system is digressing.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 14, 2017Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 30, 2016
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Copy your notes onto index cards or powerpoint slides when studying for quizzes and exams for this textbook.
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