Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
e. Circular reasoning ( Latin: circulus in probando, "circle in proving"; [ 1] also known as circular logic) is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with. [ 2] Circular reasoning is not a formal logical fallacy, but a pragmatic defect in an argument whereby the premises are just as much in need of ...
Lodgings to Let, an 1814 engraving featuring a double entendre. He: "My sweet honey, I hope you are to be let with the Lodgins!" She: "No, sir, I am to be let alone".. A double entendre [note 1] (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, one of which is typically obvious, and the other often conveys a message that ...
An example of the above is that of the concepts "finite parts" and "wholes"; they cannot be defined without reference to each other and thus with some amount of circularity, but we can make the self-evident statement that "the whole is greater than any of its parts", and thus establish a meaning particular to the two concepts.
Monty Hall problem. In search of a new car, the player chooses a door, say 1. The game host then opens one of the other doors, say 3, to reveal a goat and offers to let the player switch from door 1 to door 2. The Monty Hall problem is a brain teaser, in the form of a probability puzzle, based nominally on the American television game show Let ...
A false dilemma, also referred to as false dichotomy or false binary, is an informal fallacy based on a premise that erroneously limits what options are available. The source of the fallacy lies not in an invalid form of inference but in a false premise. This premise has the form of a disjunctive claim: it asserts that one among a number of ...
Thomas Fowler (1869) states the paradox as follows: "Epimenides the Cretan says, 'that all the Cretans are liars,' but Epimenides is himself a Cretan; therefore he is himself a liar. But if he is a liar, what he says is untrue, and consequently, the Cretans are veracious; but Epimenides is a Cretan, and therefore what he says is true; saying ...
Zeno's arguments may then be early examples of a method of proof called reductio ad absurdum, also known as proof by contradiction. Thus Plato has Zeno say the purpose of the paradoxes "is to show that their hypothesis that existences are many, if properly followed up, leads to still more absurd results than the hypothesis that they are one."
Loaded question. A loaded question is a form of complex question that contains a controversial assumption (e.g., a presumption of guilt ). [ 1] Such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner's agenda. [ 2] The traditional example is the question "Have you ...