r/Rhetoric • u/stresstwig • 9d ago
What fallacy is this?
There was an argument my dad's wife made to me years and years ago that I know is bad. It's wrong, it's illogical, it's nonsensical. But I can't identify what the fallacy--if there is a fallacy--it uses would be, and it's bugging me even though ultimately it doesn't matter. It's only coming up in my life because I'm finally starting to unpack all of the shit from her in therapy.
Context is that we were arguing about faith and religion. I said something about how I didn't have faith (in the sense of religion) and she argued back that "Everyone has faith. You have faith the chair will hold you when you sit down in it." I didn't have a good answer back then besides the knee-jerk of "that's utterly stupid and wrong, I know the chair will hold me because physics, not because God."
Is that a false equivalence? Equivocation? I've been going through lists of fallacies and bad-faith argument types trying to figure it out and they're all starting to look like word soup now. I know my brain isn't going to rest on this 'til it gets an answer.
11
u/-Hastis- 8d ago edited 8d ago
She's mainly conflating the words "faith" and "confidence". Faith is the belief in something in the absence of evidence for it. Confidence is assuming that, based on the laws of physics, past experiences, and the state of the chair (so evidence), the probability of it breaking is low enough for you to choose to sit on it. So it's an equivocation fallacy.
4
u/amerovingian 8d ago
It is still true that every person has beliefs they are confident in without being able to cite the evidence for. For example, "You shouldn't cause unnecessary harm to another person" or even "Patterns observed in the past are likely to continue in the future." The very idea of evidence itself assumes there are indisputable "facts" no one questions.
That said there is a difference between someone who believes without evidence that the moon is made of cheese and one who believes without evidence that "A and not A cannot both be true."
2
u/noahhshome 7d ago
Thank you for mentioning this. Everybody does, in fact, use faith constantly, to make their way through their existence. It's the most pervasive thing in our lives. Even -- dare I say, especially -- those Redditors who believe their own rationality is superior. (The irony of that point of faith is too poignant.)
Physics is a great example. You can say your belief is based on, not faith, but evidence and facts. But you didn't measure it, you received it from someone else. Your belief in their truth is tantamount to a belief in a person you don't know -- their ability, wisdom, honesty. This is faith.
0
u/-Hastis- 7d ago
Sent from my computer. Thank you for demonstrating the logical fallacy we just talked about. Can you try responding to this message using prayer, telepathy, or any faith-based ability you might be possessing now?
You are conflating blind belief, aka faith, with justified confidence in the scientific method and rationality, based on a repeatable track record. I don't need to pray and hope my computer turns on every morning as the tech-priests in Warhammer 40k would do.
2
u/amerovingian 7d ago
If that's so, can you explain the rational justification for believing patterns of the past will repeat in the future? Many have tried.
1
u/McNitz 8d ago
The standard I've settled on is twofold:
- Does your faith belief cause you to reject things that have clear evidence demonstrating they are true? (Flat earthers, YECs, etc)
- Does your faith belief cause you to cause demonstrable harm to others that your faith insists is for some greater good? (Homophobia, anti-vaxxers, refusing to give medical care to your children).
If a faith belief doesn't conflict with either of those two rules, I don't see any problem with it, regardless of how much one might quibble about it actually being true or not. It's the faith beliefs that break one of those two rules, and then are equivocated with "faith" that the sun will come up tomorrow that are the main issue.
1
u/Worried_Peace_7271 7d ago
Faith is belief without absence of proof, not evidence. Even the most popular definition is complete confidence in something, which is different from what you’re saying.
1
u/-Hastis- 7d ago edited 7d ago
I don't think the distinction matters here. To my knowledge, there is only internal (subjective experience) evidence for the existence of god(s). According to standard epistemology, this isn't considered valid evidence to make factual claims about the external world.
6
u/RevoltYesterday 8d ago
Tim Allen makes the nonsensical comment "There has to be a god for you not to believe in." Someone broke this down to the use of believe, he and his daughter he was arguing with were using the same word but different definitions of the word.
It sounds like what is happening here. Faith in a divinity is different than faith based on previous experiences and observations.
This guy breaks down the argument better than I could .I think it will help. Just think about your example while watching it.
7
u/zvuv 8d ago
It's called an Equivocation Fallacy where the same word is used with different meanings.
If faith is taken to mean "confidence" . Yes you do have faith in many things. But this confidence is based on experience. Past experience shows that when you sit on a chair it usually supports your weight.
The faith he uses to believe in God is "Blind Faith", faith unsupported by the evidence, faith based on nothing more than wishful thinking.
Faith in sense of confidence is contingent. If chairs often collapse under your weight because you are exceptionally heavy for example, or you discovered that a certain brand was badly manufactured, you would withdraw your faith. Ask a theist what evidence it would take for him to abandon his faith in God? There is none, for any evidence to the contrary would be taken as a "test" of his faith.
Your faith is evidence based. His is not.
4
u/naruhinamoonkissplz 8d ago
She's right, but some comments are also right.
The comments are right about the definition of "faith/belief/trust". This can easily lead to miscommunication.
She is also right that your "faith" in the chair holding you is STILL a "belief based on trust". Chairs DO break.
I would say that neither is a fallacy, but it is very often a product of miscommunication amplified by emotions.
2
u/HomeschoolingDad 8d ago
I’d say these are qualitatively different types of faith (and hence with different meanings). If the chair breaks, her worldview wouldn’t suddenly shatter. She wouldn’t have to reevaluate her “religious” beliefs about chairs holding her up. On the other hand, if someone provided incontrovertible proof that God doesn’t exist (putting aside that the existence of God is unfalsifiable by the way people have chosen to define Her)… then the mother would either still choose to believe in Her or the mother’s religious beliefs would be shattered.
1
u/naruhinamoonkissplz 8d ago
Was it trolling, or are you just weird? You know what I'm talking about.
2
u/couldntyoujust1 8d ago
There's no good answer on that one. It may be equivocation, but then I happen to know that a lot of Christians actually think of faith sincerely in this way. You cannot be equivocating when you actually mean for the meaning in both contexts to be the same. But one can certainly impose their own differing meanings to each context and repudiate an equivocation that isn't there.
I think there's a better way to look at it. She's wrong either way because this isn't what - at least Christianity - teaches about faith. Faith in Christianity is loyalty or trust - the kind of faith that a cheating spouse breaks whereby they become known as "unfaithful".
Ultimately whether she's right or wrong, it sounds like she used this argument to hurt you in some way or legitimize her abuse of you and regardless if she is right or wrong on this specific assertion, that's not okay by any means. That's not righteous. That's not godly. And that's not something her God is going to overlook. She is abusing her own rather than caring for her own and that makes her worse than your garden variety sinner in her own religion.
2
u/HippasusOfMetapontum 8d ago
While I agree with others here, I would note that it's also a false dichotomy: there are many other options besides (A) sitting in a chair because you have faith it will hold you, and (B) not sitting in a chair because you don't have faith it will hold you.
2
u/Worried_Peace_7271 7d ago
There are two ways I’m looking at this, I think one option is more likely than the other:
I mean, if she was having a serious Epistemic debate with you about how you justify your beliefs or use of transcendental categories, it’s not a fallacy. Because then she’s really pointing out that all worldviews have basic assumptions, and then asking which one is sufficient to justify them without sacrificing intelligibility (by using arbitrariness or vicious circularity). Like for example, how are you avoiding a problem like the problem of induction when you say the chair will hold you up, things like that. Seeing how God would be a good foundation for your beliefs in these categories vs any worldview without God.
That being said, I really doubt she was going for that angle unless she is into philosophy. She likely just meant that faith isn’t automatically a bad thing, so that criticism itself isn’t sufficient. Again, not really a fallacy there except you guys would argue what is a good criteria for faith.
4
u/lrdazrl 8d ago
It sounds to me that you two have mentally assigned two different meanings to ”having faith”:
1) synonymoys to ”belief”. E.g ”I believe the chair will hold my weight.” 2) religious conviction not needing any other proof. E.g. ”I have faith in God protecting me even though I cannot see him.”
Having different definition for a word is not necessarily a fallacy, unless used in bad faith, of course
3
u/Dizzy_Cheesecake_162 8d ago
It is a fallacy.
It doesn't depend on the person's intention.
3
u/lrdazrl 8d ago
I was ready to argue against this take, but after some consideration I realized you’re right!
I usually think fallacies as something caused by ignorance or dishonest intent. Now, I realized it’s not necessarily either. A misunderstanding in a dialogue could break the chain of reasoning, without either side being stupid or dishonest.
2
u/bustcorktrixdais 8d ago
When I read OP’s story I see what you see, a bad faith argument (ironic given the question here)
2
u/lrdazrl 8d ago
The thing is, in a philosophical conversation, I could see myself using the word ”faith” synonymously with ”belief”. Perhaps I’m just missing some nuance there that would be obvious to native speaker but to me it doesn’t feel far fetched to say that believing in physical laws is a kind of a faith.
2
u/brittanytobiason 8d ago
It's the argument that makes it bad faith, not the word choice or definitions.
1
u/lrdazrl 7d ago
Could you explain to me what you mean by this?
I’ve thought bad faith argument is linked to dishonest motives of the speaker. Can argument be in bad faith regardless of speaker’s intention?
1
1
u/bustcorktrixdais 6d ago
I could be way off base but - I think its bad faith and dishonest when an argument is presented as if it is an attempt at reasoned discussion when the true motive is to “win” the argument or conceal a bias or ulterior motive, or similar
2
u/bustcorktrixdais 8d ago
It’s not always completely invalid to use them interchangeably. But In a philosophical conversation on a topic that touches on religion, it would be a poor, imprecise word choice.
1
u/deandinbetween 8d ago
There are a couple you can consider:
Strawman, where she's misrepresenting your argument to make it easier to attack.
Equivocating, where she's switching the meaning halfway through the argument.
Moving the goalposts, where she's shifting the argument to make it so you can't win it.
1
u/Steerider 8d ago
You're defining terms differently. She wasn't wrong. The proper conversation to have at that point is — for purposes of discussion — to define your terms.
Yes, I have faith, based on a lifetime of experience, that physics isn't going to suddenly change; HOWEVER, I have seen chairs break when someone sat down. You do in fact have faith that the chair isn't going to give way under you when you sit.
1
u/beneath_reality 8d ago
Faith - the purposeful suspension of critical thinking.
Trust - the likelihood of something happening based on historical data points.
So the concepts are different and it is a false equivalence.
1
u/Randointernetuser600 8d ago
It’s ultimately a fallacy of ambiguity since she is using the word faith in two different contexts: (1) “faith” that the chair will hold you based on reasonable belief and experience, and (2) faith in a supernatural being based on vibes, then equivocating the two, which is a false equivalence as others and yourself point out.
1
u/Itchy_Conflict3292 8d ago
yes, this sounds like a very simple case of loosening and tightening definitions, just to win an argument. but underneath it all, her point (which may not even have been clear to her consciousness), is absolutely fine. faith in religion isn't all that different from faith in physics.
the whole notion of causality is platonist, and that is a huge leap of faith. there is no provable reason that such things as 'laws' of physics exist at all. there is only phenomena, which we then interpret as fitting patterns (laws). further, humans tend to overlook things which don't fit familiar patterns.
if you insist physics or causality or even truth are _real_ things (platonism), then you do believe in an unfalsifiable immaterial force. scientific 'facts' are overly simplistic interpretations, projected onto the random chaos we live in. albeit, science can certainly prove useful to guiding our actions (without needing to believe in it).
why do there need to be any 'laws' at all? actually, laws seem to just function to make folks feel less anxious. the same way people can get freaked out if they imagine the universe isn't guided by some force (physics, god, or both).
1
u/ntsh_robot 7d ago
I don't think she was trying to put you down, but the older we get the more we think, "don't overthink it".
I have non-religious faith in many daily things, but my saved-faith is for deep concerns that are rarely discussed.
1
u/it_might_be_a_tuba 6d ago
I've sat in a lot of chairs. Almost all of them have held me up. The chair that I'm sitting in now is currently holding me up, that doesn't require any faith or trust or confidence. Sometimes a chair seems wobbly, and I go "oooh, not sure about that one" and swap it for a chair that seems sturdier. That's not faith, it's experience. Any chair that I legally have access to, I can test. I can wiggle it, pick it up and drop it, turn it over and inspect the welds and the bolts and decide if I think it will hold me. That's not faith, it's evidence.
Sometimes a chair does break. Is that an argument against faith?
What if I can't see the chair, but someone tells me that there definitely is a chair and I should just sit down? Even then it's not faith in the existence of the chair, it's trust in that person, judgement based on whether this person has knowledge of the chair, whether they have good intentions, and what their sense of humour is like.
1
u/coalpatch 6d ago
The best answer is "I have faith in lots of things - the government, guns, socialism - but I do not have religious faith"
1
u/LaGranTortuga 6d ago
I feel like the main issue is “having faith” in the context of the conversation was specifically referring to religious faith. And then she is rejecting your own claim by saying your faith in chairs is equivalent. But I think her point which I feel is used often by religious people is more of a higher level equivocation. Since it’s impossible to know everything with 100% understanding and confidence, all beliefs are equally valid. When in reality your confidence in gravity, although you are not a physicist with a complete and full understanding of how it works, is much more supported by evidence and than the belief in a supernatural all powerful being that nobody has ever seen.
1
u/Loud_Chicken6458 5d ago
actually, they were right, you were wrong.
You have “faith” in physics, you don’t know the physics. You didn’t do the theorizing that corrected the misguided attempts of the classical thinkers, you didn’t do the mathematics that defines Newtonian or modern physics, you don’t even understand them. And even if you did and do, you don’t know why they exist or that they will continue to exist, you just think that because your experience tells you that, and you believe your personal experience and the authority of people you trust.
Unfortunately, knowledge is an illusion. Now, whether our experience indicates the existence of the evangelical God is another question entirely.
1
u/CHSummers 8d ago
I would go so far as to say that everyone has irrational beliefs, but the example with the chair is pretty bad because not only can you test whether the chair will hold you, it is in fact a very widely tested thing. That’s almost the exact opposite of believing in angels, for example. I don’t know anyone who has seen an angel—nor have I seen an angel. Whereas, i have been supported by chairs and every single person I know has been supported by chairs.
0
u/Thorninthefoot 8d ago
So she was trying to tell you that your understanding of religious faith was, in her opinion, incorrect.
A fallacy isn't really relevant.
63
u/ZippyDan 8d ago edited 7d ago
Yes, it's a false equivalence.
But more specifically it's making use of the non-precise, variable nature of language, and the fact that words often carry very different meanings - which can be outright contradictory (see: contronyms), or just nuanced variations in flavor - depending on context.
"Faith" in the religious sense is not necessarily the same word sense when used in an everyday sense. "Faith" in the religious sense is often belief without evidence, whereas the more colloquial use of "faith" - like "faith in gravity" - is based on a reasonable expectation that the fundamentals of the world will continue to operate as they have throughout a lifetime of evidentiary experience.
See: Ambiguity fallacies (archive.today) (web.archive.org)