Wrong premise
As a false premise ( English false premise ) is it called when a conclusion because of an incorrect or unknown statement (the premise is drawn). Incorrect premises are mainly used in rhetorical arguments to carry out sham evidence.
The counterpart to false premises is non sequitur , in which the premise is correct, but the conclusion was carried out incorrectly. It should be noted that an argument can contain both a false premise and a faulty conclusion. A wrong premise and a non sequitur are not mutually exclusive.
Examples
- example 1
The statement
- “If the street is wet, it must have rained beforehand. The road is wet. That's why it rained before. "
shows a correct conclusion, however, it is unknown whether the conclusion “this is why it rained before” is correct because the premise is wrong. This can be shown by the fact that there are other reasons why the road can get wet, for example because it has been moistened with a water bucket.
- Example 2
The statement
- “All men want to marry a woman in church. In order for all men to be able to marry a woman in church, the church must determine the marriage between man and woman. "
represents a false premise in several respects:
- Some men don't want to get married.
- Some men want to marry a man.
- Some men want to get married civilly and not in church.
- Some men want to marry multiple partners rather than just one.
The conclusion is correct in this case, but the conclusion drawn is only correct because it follows from the correct premise “ Some men want to marry a woman in church”. In this case, the wrong premise arises due to the ignorance of the person making the statement towards other forms of coexistence, which is why it is also an argument of ignorance .
- Example 3
The conclusion in
- “ There is no global warming . Therefore humans cannot be to blame for global warming. "
is true, but both the premise (since global warming exists) and the result of the conclusion (humans are actually largely responsible for global warming) are wrong. In this case, the wrong premise arises from the ignorance of the person towards global warming and its causes. Here, too, the premise follows from the ignorance of the person making the statement.
- Example 4
Another example of a false premise is the ontological proof of God , where the conclusion was mathematically proven but the premises were not. Rather, the premises were axiomatically assumed to be true.
Since no proof of God stands up to closer scrutiny, all arguments based on the existence of one or more gods represent a false premise. Arguments that assume the existence of one or more gods come about because of wishful thinking and ignorance , but not because of it proper reasoning and reason .
swell
- ↑ Michael Hohner: Fallacy # 2: Wrong premise. In: Ratio Blog. July 8, 2011, accessed June 4, 2017 .
- ↑ Christoph Benzmüller, Bruno Woltzenlogel Paleo: Formalization, Mechanization and Automation of Gödel's Proof of God's Existence. In: Arxiv . October 10, 2013, accessed June 4, 2017 .