Question

philosophy Question

In simple terms a logical fallacy is an error in reasoning but, its a little more than that it is believing in falsehoods or rejecting the truth. An example of logical fallacy that I can think of is in music. Sometimes when I go to concerts I will hear people argue about which brand is better. A common logical fallacy that occurs in the argument when one person says this band is better than another band simply because they came first. This type of fallacy is an appeal to tradition. In short, it is the belief that anything new, compared to something old, is not as good simply because it came after. An example of this I could find was on the tv show the big bang theory. Leonard: "I guess it couldn't kill us to meet some new people." Sheldon: "Actually, it could kill us. They could be murderers or the carriers of unusual pathogens." In this scenario, Sheldon doesn't want to go out simply because its something new and not what he's used to, therefore he believes it is a terrible idea without actually using logical reasoning.

in your own words, criticize or support this opinion

Answer 1

(Answer) In support of Sheldon’s reasoning – Sheldon does not state the people they already know are safe and new people they meet are unsafe. He simply states that meeting newer people increases the likelihood of contracting germs. Hanging out with the people they already know might be safer because he is familiar with their hygiene and at least has a little information about their pathological state, enough to know that they are not entirely unsafe to spend time with.

However, meeting new people that they are unfamiliar with would mean meeting people whose level of cleanliness and medical history they might not know about. That is the reason for it being unsafe. He does not state with absolution that the old people are safer to spend time with because they are the older bunch and the new people are unsafe to spend time with because they are new. He reasons that the new people are not unsafe because they are new but, rather because they don’t know about the pathogens they carry.

His argument seems like it uses an appeal to tradition. However, he is simply stating that the information on new people is much less and so they are unsafe.