In contradictories, we have a term and its negation: full and not full (or p and ~p)
In contraries, we have a term and its opposite (or degrees or kinds): awake and asleep.
Contradictories allow only the two extremes: if one is true, the other must be false and vice versa. The law of non-contradiction applies here. This is the true “either-or” statement. We have only two alternatives, in other words, and a person cannot be awake and not awake at the same time, and a plant cannot be poisonous to humans and not poisonous to humans at the same time. Contradictories are not, so to speak, gradable; or there is no gradation between the term and its negation.
Contraries, on the other hand, allow us some other possibilities or gradations. If a person is not awake, then he could be unconscious, in stupor, in a coma, or perhaps even dead. If an elevator is not going up, it cannot be automatically assumed it is going down, since it could be stuck and not working.
A problem occurs when an argument treats contraries as if they were contradictories. I think this is very common in many social and political and religious debates (or argumentations). The fallacy is called “false alternativesâ€. The statement “If you’re not with us, you are against us†is one example. If a person does not support the decision of the government, we cannot infer or assume that he or she is anti-government. One can go against a particular decision, such as war, and still support the system. Or “if one is not a theist, then he must be an atheist.†This is clearly unwarranted since we can also say that he is an agnostic or something else.
[just a simple and informal explanation of the fallacy].
It’s actually a pretty common fallacy, to take a contrary as a contradiction (or just to speak of it as such). I myself do this all the time and don’t get called up for it…
For example, the only logical way to contradict “good” is to say, “not good” (its negation), “evil” contradicts “not evil”. But some people make a mistake of assuming or inferring that because a person is “not good”, then that person is evil. They use good and evil as extremes: no middle ground or gradations between the two.
Someoneisatthedoor,
Yeah, it is a pretty common practice and sometimes we don’t notice that we buy into this fallacy. The thread serves as a reminder. This happens a lot in moralistic arguments, those that dictate how things should be and proceed to give examples of contraries presented as contradictories.
POR,
I’m not trying to explain set theory. Just the common fallacy of false alternatives. The explanation of how contradictories and contraries function can get really complex, I know. But I’m not going to get in-depth with it.
[i]"The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Head of God’s creation, says these things: [15] "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. [16] So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of my mouth.
I guess you would say that The Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Head of God’s creation, makes the “mistake of assuming or inferring that because a person is “not good”, then that person is evilâ€. By what authority you assert that an Angel of the Lord has made a “mistake†I am not sure.
Great! That’s what I had in mind: in fact, I knew you were going to take issue with my implication that they are making that “mistake”. In that case, I am willing to make some adjustments: in argumentation/logic ( call this the “authority” if you’d like, but note I am putting it in quotes), it is surely a fallacy to take extremes of contraries as the only two reasonable and logical assumptions or inference to make. But since, I suppose we have to look at context, in this case, the quote you presented, then that fallacy should not applyeven if the quote implies contraries being contradictories. In other words, I have made it clear in my opening posts that this fallacy is frequently committed in “argumentations” of social, political, religious nature. The public discourse, if you will.
The authority is in the logic, bub. Whether angel of the lord, man or mule, to have an understanding of anything there is a degree of withstanding logic at work.
The rule stands regardless of who does the reasoning.
Don’t worry about Dunamis, Arendt. Those shenanigans are played out. Keep on with the good fight, sista.
For Dunamis, secretive, provocative, and seductive is a silk-laced, crotchless pocket-protector. He’s the guy you bring home to momma. One can’t get more wholesome than that.
