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Mark

Empty class

In the Existential Fallacy, I do not understand what is meant by an empty class. What is meant by an empty class ? Where is the empty class in the examples given ?

asked on Wednesday, Jan 04, 2023 07:35:07 AM by Mark

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Bo Bennett, PhD
3

Example #2:

All forest creatures live in the woods.

All leprechauns are forest creatures.

Therefore, some leprechauns live in the woods.

The class "leprechauns" is empty, because there are no such thing as leprechauns. In other words, there are no leprechauns. Yet the conclusion states that "some leprechauns live in the woods" which cannot possibly be true if it is true that no leprechauns exist (that is, "leprechauns" is an empty set).

answered on Wednesday, Jan 04, 2023 07:43:04 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:

For OP, I'd add that in logic, 'some' means 'at least one member of the set', whereas 'all' simply means 'every member of the set'. Thus, 'some' implies that set members actually exist - there's no such implication for 'all'.

So if I say 'some leprechauns live in the woods', I'm suggesting that leprechauns actually exist - but they don't. So the particular conclusion does not follow from the general premise.

posted on Wednesday, Jan 04, 2023 08:29:12 AM