Self-refuting idea

Cogito ergo sum Logic and rhetoric

Key articles

Logical fallacy Syllogism Argument

General logic

Appeal to tradition Blaming the victim Illicit process Wronger than wrong Appeal to identity Wet van Poe

Bad logic

Tu quoque Argumentum ad baculum Chewbacca Defense Appeal to fear Motte and bailey Wrong direction v - t - e

A self-refuting idea is a logical fallacy in which the conclusion denies the premises. It occurs when concept A is used to deny concept B, but A logically depends on B. It is a formal fallacy.

The fallacy is in some ways the mirror of begging the question (where you assume what you are attempting to prove), but instead, you are assuming what you want to disprove. Many conspiracy theories are self-refuting ideas.

Alternate names

• Stolen concept fallacy (coined by Ayn Rand)
• Friendly fire
• Kettle logic
• Own goal
• Shooting oneself in the foot
• Smuggled concept
• Unforced error

Forms

Self-refuting ideas are relatively common among those who don't consider the assumptions they're making or what those assumptions actually mean; the result is an argument that undermines itself. This is particularly common when the person making the claim is cherry picking, since they may not bother to check if the things they're picking even are cherries.

However, a claim of self-refutation may be based on semantics or a straw man. The common Objectivist example of the stolen concept is Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's statement that "property is theft"; it is argued that this is self-negating, as theft requires a concept of lawful property. This ignores the author's intended definition of the two terms – Proudhon referred to the private property of landowners and capitalists, claiming they "stole" profits from workers (he called his preferred property concept "possession"). It is important to distinguish this from ad hoc attempts to rescue a self-refuting idea by adding terms to it after the fact.

One ought to be aware of the principle of charity, to take the most reasonable interpretation of one's opponent's words. An argument may be formed as a deliberate oxymoron, as a striking way of saying something, or other metaphor, and is not to be taken literally.

And one must distinguish between a self-refuting idea and the quite useful reductio ad absurdum, where one begins with the assumptions that one is trying to refute and shows that they result in a contradiction or other unwelcome conclusion.

Canceling hypotheses

Canceling hypotheses occurs when someone explains away the absence of the evidence for something / consequences of something by (ad hoc) introducing a new hypothesis which cancels the effect of the first.

Unintentional apophasis

See the main article on this topic: Apophasis

A literary term is for a species of irony, unintentional apophasis. Intentional apophasis is to bring up a subject with the pretense of not mentioning it, such as "I will not dwell on my opponent's atheism". Unintentional apophasis, on the other hand, is to bring up a subject which is best left alone, such as Donald Trump talking about the size of his hands.

Kettle logic

Kettle logic (logique du chaudron) was named by philosopher Jacques Derrida for a story that Sigmund Freud told in "Irma's dream" in The Interpretation of Dreams and Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. A man is accused by his neighbour of returning a borrowed kettle in a damaged condition and answers:

• That he had returned the kettle undamaged
• That it was already damaged when he borrowed it
• That he had never borrowed it in the first place

The arguments may stand individually, but put together they contradict each other.

Examples

• Some axioms are self-refuting, and are held to be true in spite of this.
  • For example, the claim "everything is subjective" would require the statement itself be objectively true and is thus self-negating; any attempt to rescue it using logic would fall prey to special pleading by demanding one arbitrary exemption to the claim.
  • Similarly, the attempt at proving the existence of God by positing that everything must have a cause, while making one special exemption (namely, God) to the need for a cause, can fall prey to this as well.

• Both religious absolutists, who believe that judgement is God's, and moral relativists, who believe you cannot judge the morals of others, have a hard time defending their judgment of the opposing camp.

• Alder's Razor

• Anti-science groups will often use scientific theories or methods which assume some of the things they're trying to refute; perpetual motion claims are often based on the idea that quantum physics can be used to defeat the laws of thermodynamics, even though these laws are actually assumptions of quantum theory.

• "I do not exist" — The speaker denies the idea that they exist, but in the very act of making the statement, they presume their existence. Interestingly, people with some forms of the Cotard delusion believe that they do not exist and thus manifest this.

• "Reality is a(n) illusion/simulation/hallucination" — The concepts of "illusion", "simulation", and "hallucination" are derived from the concept of "reality"; that is, they can make no sense unless there is indeed a true "reality" with which either may be contrasted. Note that this is not a refutation of solipsism or other forms of philosophical skepticism which argue that what one believes/perceives to be reality is/could be an illusion, or that reality itself is reducible to one’s mental content. Neither position proposes the absence of reality; they simply propose that humans are not capable of correctly perceiving reality.

• "Logic is illogical" — self-evidently contradictory, as logic defines what is logical.

• "The real question is not whether machines think, but whether humans do." — The act of pondering who (if anybody) thinks is, itself, thinking.

• "This statement is False"

• "There are atheists who hate God(s)" — This is laughable on its face, since any atheist who hated a God would by necessity believe in that particular God, and therefore no longer be an atheist.

• The widely repeated urban legend that David Rice Atchison was President of the United States for one day in 1849, since President-elect Zachary Taylor refused to take the Oath of Office on Inauguration Day since it was a Sunday. But Atchison didn’t swear the Oath either, so if this makes Taylor not President, then Atchison certainly isn’t President.

Statements or concepts involving explicit or implicit absolutes/universals

Although statements and concepts involving them explicitly and implicitly which are not self-refuting ideas do indeed exist, absolutes and universals generally create these readily due to their nature of allowing no exception to be given and thus requiring an escape hatch to get out of any apparent exception.

• The concepts of divine omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence present a battery of possible contradictions, such as "If God is all-powerful, can He create a rock He cannot lift", "If God is all-loving and all-powerful, how could evil and suffering exist", or “What can ‘free will’ mean in a world with a God who knows everything, including what we will do and what we would do in reaction to anything She does?”.

• "Whether or not any form of actually valid/strong argument exists, no valid/strong argument can really be sound/cogent" (“Every argument must contain a false premise/only goes as deep as definitions”) — The speaker may not be calling logic out as "arbitrary" or "illogical" explicitly, but nevertheless denies the real possibility of any logical deduction or induction at all. But how could any arbitrary or illogical "deduction" or "induction" even be possible to determine without contrasting it with what deduction or induction is known to be logical?

• "There is not really anything" — The speaker may not be invoking the concept "illusion", "simulation", or "hallucination" explicitly, but nevertheless denies the real existence of anything at all. But the very act of speaking presupposes the real existence of an entity which is able to speak and a language containing at least only the relatively well-defined words being said and the grammar for accepting them in that particular order.

• "There is no sign that is really well-enough defined to be used" — The very use of any given sign generally presupposes that it is indeed well-enough defined to be used.

• "Everything is a(n) illusion/simulation/hallucination; nothing actually exists," — Even an illusion, simulation, or hallucination still exists, if only apparently. But the concept apparently exists can make no sense unless there is indeed something that "actually exists" with which anything else may be contrasted.

• "All knowledge is doubtful" (“Question Everything”) —

“”If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein #115 from On Certainty

• ”That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” But no evidence is provided that such dismissal is justified, so it can be dismissed without evidence, but then it can be asserted without evidence again, and be dismissed again, and so on ad infinitum.

• ”Nothing is certain” and/or “There are no absolutes”. If nothing is certain, then the statement that “nothing is certain” is, itself, not certain. This would mean it is possible that something is certain. Basically, claiming that “nothing is certain” implies that something might be certain. Stating that there are no absolutes is even more direct in refuting itself. If there are no absolutes, then the statement, itself, is not absolute, so there must be something absolute out there to stop the statement from being absolute.

Christianity

The proponents of "presuppositional apologetics" (for example, Gordon H. Clark) accuse any arguments against the existence of God of committing the Stolen Concept Fallacy on the grounds that any arguments from logic, induction, or morality allegedly presuppose the existence of God (see the transcendental argument for God). This is an incorrect application of the Stolen Concept fallacy, with its question-begging starting premise (X could only be sourced in my God; X exists; therefore my God exists).

Methods of rebuttal could include showing that logic does not require God — e.g., the alleged Divine Attributes (omnipotence paradox) are or the idea of Creation ex nihlio, at least relative to an isolated system, is inherently illogical; that induction does not require God — e.g., miracles undermine the natural order, hence making induction faulty if God exists; and/or that objective morality does not require God — e.g., if God is the source of morality, then morality reduces to subjective divine commands.

In all cases, speakers and listeners presuppose the validity of logic and induction by the very enterprise of engaging in argument; correct arguments then use logic and induction to discover whether postulated entity X (such as God) exists. Presuppositional apologetics / the transcendental argument, in negating the validity of logic and induction (until and unless the speaker's God is conceded to exist), is the side committing a Stolen Concept fallacy.

See also

• Conspiracy theory
• Correlation does not equal causation
• False analogy

External links

• Canceling Hypotheses (Conspiracy Theory), Bruce Thompson