search

Become an active member of our fallacy-discussing community (or just become a lurker!)

Stolen Concept Fallacy

Description: Requiring the truth of the something that you are simultaneously trying to disprove.

Logical Form:

Person 1 is attempting to disprove X.
X is required to disprove X.

Example #1:

Reason and logic are not always reliable, so we should not count on it to help us find truth.

Explanation: Here we are using reason to disprove the validity of reason, which is unreasonable -- reasonably speaking.

Example #2:

Science cannot be trusted.  It is a big conspiracy to cover up the truth of the Bible and the creation story.  Besides, I saw fossils in the creation museum with humans and dinosaurs together, which proves science is wrong!

Explanation: Geology is a branch of science.  Using science (examining fossils through the science of geology) to disprove science is absurd, a contradiction and, therefore, a fallacy in reasoning.

Exception: Intentional irony.

Fun Fact: The nofallacies fallacy is the belief that fallacies don't exist (not really).

References:

Peikoff, L. (1993). Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand. Penguin.

Questions about this fallacy? Ask our community!

Like the Site? You'll Love the Book!

This book is a crash course, meant to catapult you into a world where you start to see things how they really are, not how you think they are.  The focus of this book is on logical fallacies, which loosely defined, are simply errors in reasoning.  With the reading of each page, you can make significant improvements in the way you reason and make decisions.

Get 20% off this book and all Bo's books*. Use the promotion code: websiteusers

* This is for the author's bookstore only. Applies to autographed hardcover, audiobook, and ebook.

Get the Book