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The 10 Commandments of Logic


Mark Knight

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On another site, I saw "The 10 Commandments of Logic" posted. I think it would be good to read them, and then do our best to adhere to them here.

1. Thou shall not attack the person's character, but the argument. [Ad hominem]

2. Thou shall not misrepresent or exaggerate a person's argument in order to make them easier to attack. [straw man fallacy]

3. Thou shall not use small numbers to represent the whole. [Hasty generalization]

4. Thou shall not argue thy position by assuming one of its premises is true. [begging the question]

5. Thou shall not claim that because something occurred before, it must be the cause.

6. Thou shall not reduce the argument down to two possibilities. [False dichotomy]

7. Thou shall not argue that, because of our ignorance, your claim must be true or false. [Ad ignorantum]

8. Thou shall notlay the burden of proof onto him that is questioning the claim. [burden of proof reversal]

9. Thou shall not "this" follows "that" when it has no logical connection. [Non sequitur]

10. Thou shall not claim that because a premise is popular, therefore it must be true. [bandwagon fallacy]

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Food for thought. I'm glad you posted these 'commandments' and will refer to them when I write, and ask others to do the same. In truth I don't know how many of them I have broken or how often, and hope that if I do cross that logical line somehow will bring it to my attention.

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4. Thou shall not argue thy position by assuming one of its premises is true. [begging the question]

Hey Mark,

Number 4 is incorrect, IMO. A premise is also known as a "given." That is, it is an element of the argument whose validity is stipulated by all parties. Sometimes we even say, "Assume, for the sake of argument, that...blah blah blah."

Blah blah blah is the assumption. That "assumption" would then be utilized as one of the "premises" upon which the argument is built in pursuit of a conclusion.

I think the term "one of its premises" should be replaced with the word "conclusion" in number 4 above:

4. "Thou shalt not argue thy position by assuming its conclusion is true."

Or it could read this way:

4. Thou shall not argue thy position by utilizing the conclusion as a premise. [begging the question]

Edited by Greg Burnham
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Greg, you're correct. I will state that I simply copied this verbatim from the source at which I found it. That doesn't take me off the hook for not making sure it was correct, and to that I plead guilty.

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