Flaw Question Help Please!

mynameisjeff

I'm getting mixed up between false dichotomies and true contradictions.

Can someone please explain or give an example of the two. I'm getting them mixed up and its getting to me

Thank you 7sagers

keets993

Hey there,

So a simple example of a false dichotomy is : the weather here is not hot today. Therefore, it must be cold. (I actually saw something similar on the LSAT)

This equates the absence of something being hot with being cold. Not hot can include warm, cool, chilly, cold, freezing, etc. The argument attempts to neatly split the world into two halves, however, it goes about it in a mistaken way.

Similarily, if I say that the news said that the temperature will not be going up for the rest of the day. Therefore, the temperature will fall. This argument overlooks that the temperature can stay the same for the rest of the day.

A "true contradiction" do you mean like logical opposites? That could be "dog" and "not dog." A duck does not have the characterists of a dog, therefore it must be not a dog. This group of 'not dog' encompasses everything that doesn't belong to the group of dogs: cats, humans, ducks, shoes, water.

A more LSAT type of true contradiction could be, wrong and not right. If we say that doing x is wrong. Then we can say doing x is not right. Because 'wrong' falls into the category of 'not right.' Not right is the logical opposite of right and whatever that includes. But the group of not right includes things aside from being wrong. So 'wrong' is a subset of things that are 'not right' and that's why you can say that something that's wrong is not right.

Whereas, a false dichtomy would be 'wrong' and right'. For example, if I say bullying is not wrong, and then use that to conclude that bullying is therefore right. That's incorrect because 'right' is a subset of things that are 'not wrong' but it doesn't encompass the whole group of things that are 'not wrong.' So you cannot equate the two.

Do you see how those two, although they seem the same, are not? Let me know if that needs further clarification.

samantha.ashley92

Imagine you are arguing with the most ignorant person you know, and you HAVE TO show them up. If the answer to the issue at hand is black and white, like "a book" and "not a book", you can only argue that they labeled the thing a book when it's actually not a book. That's a contradiction. But if you can you tell them that they missed a possibility-- like the diet pill they're trying to sell you is "safe" because it does not make your heart explode, but it still gives you dangerously high blood pressure, that's a false dichotomy.