How to Avoid the Most Embarrassing Logical Error

She stood up in my class and gave us all three logical reasons is to why logic is not useful and reasoned for us as to why we should not be using reason.   My student, was cutting her own philosophical throat.  She was making what philosophers call a self-refuting statement.  Allow me to explain.

I was speaking to a group of business people, and an executive approached me afterwards saying he was having a hard time with people who do not read or engage with anyone outside of their own peer group on a certain issue.  As we talked, I asked him what he thought of the argument for that position.  He said  he will never read the journals nor the evidence for that position--as it was beneath him. He basically said that he believed "these people" are closed minded and embrace the absurd.

By being unwilling to engage the evidence against his position, he was making the same error he was claiming that the others were making.  He was doing what my student was doing, cutting his own throat.  He was refuting himself without knowing it.

A self-refuting statement is a statement which refers to itself and fails to satisfy its own standard of rational acceptability or truthfulness.

It is like saying "I cannot speak a word of English!"

People are quite willing to attack others with a criteria that they will not use for themselves.

We are all guilty of this.

The person who speeds on the road, judges the person who smokes, and the person who smokes judges the person who swears.

We need to understand the people we disagree with so that we can know better why we disagree with them, and something radical may happen, we may see that they are not as insane as we originally thought they were!

However, we do not need to embrace every theory we understand. Aristotle said it well:

 It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Now, a word about judging.  Judging people by condemning them is never our job, that is only God's job. But judging illogical ideas, and destructive behaviors we become more moral and productive members of our society.  What would you say to a parent who did not judge the bad behavior of her son has he beat his little sister?  Or a police officer who would not judge one as a rape victim and another as a predator?  Society could not function.  We must make moral judgments.

In fact to not make moral judgments is it self a judgment!

I was talking to a woman who said she was angry at people who judge others.  She said they should "shut up and mind their own business" !  I asked her if she was judging them for judging.  She said she never thought about that. She was using the same criteria she was saying these others were guilty of.

I hope this helps....

In a previous post I shared the 10 commandments of logic, ten of the most common logical fallacies, so you can spot them and avoid them. You can read them here: How Not to Debate.

Also, check out this wonderful pseudo debate that you must watch!

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_tc2H6SbJY

What do you think?

This article was first published on LogicallyFaithful.com in 2016 and has been restored from the archive.

If this stirred something in you and you want to think it through with someone, book a 15-minute conversation with me.