Which of the following are terms for the mistaken reasoning that one event caused another event simply because it happened first?
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Introduction to Logic: False CauseAbstract: The fallacy of false cause or non causa pro causa, and its various forms including post hoc ergo propter hoc, cum hoc ergo propter hoc, common cause, and others are defined and explained with examples.
Links to Quizzes with False Cause Examples with Suggested Solutions Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1922), §5.135-5.1361, 109. Notes: False Cause[Source title links below connect to the online page reference.] Generally speaking, causal relationships have been analyzed in terms of events, circumstances, conditions, states of affairs, facts, and even objects. The differences among these categories are neglected in this account of false cause. Also, the general view taken here is that the factors of causal relationships are usefully described in the somewhat idealistic descriptive contexts of event c causes event e relative to background conditions, which, in the case of false cause can be thought of causality under normal, everyday, ceteris paribus conditions. Such a view is roughly compatible with G. E. M. Anscombe [“Causality and Determination,” in Causation and Conditionals, ed. Ernest Sosa (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 63-80], H. L. A. Hart and A. M. Honoré [Causation and the Law (1959 Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978)], and Judea Pearl [Causality 2nd ed. (2000 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). I.e., Non causa pro causa, as a fallacy has been defined in at least three different ways in the literature. Here is a summary of each of those ways with representative logicians listed for each definition. Historically, this fallacy is also termed “non causæ pro causa or “non effectis pro effectu.” [An Elementary Treatise on Logic (London: J. Chapman, 1852), 65.] Definitions of Non Causa Pro Causa as an Informal or a Inductive Fallacy:(1) Fallacy of False cause: Presuming a causal connection that does not exist (causal conclusion from a false premise):
(2) Fallacy of Questionable Cause: Presuming a causal connection that probably does not exist (for lack of evidence, insufficient causal justification, or causal conclusion from probable false premise.)
Definition of Non Causa Pro Causa deductive fallacy(3) Groundless assumption, false ground, false evidence, irrelevant or false reason in a demonstration: conflation of the use of the terms “cause” and “reason.”
However, the fallacy of undue assumption (or false assumption) cannot be classified as a formal fallacy since the subject of logic is concerned with inference, i.e., distinguishing correct from incorrect reasoning. (Truth and falsity of premises can be taken from established truth values of other arguments which ultimately depend upon the truth or falsity of statements empirically derived or merely assumed. Arguing from a false premise only shows an argument to be unsound not invalid.)↩
Peter Achinstein points out, however, “[S]cientists frequently regard certain experiments as crucial in the sense that the experimental result helps make one theory among a set of competitors very probable and the others very improbable, given what is currently known.” Peter Achinstein, “Crucial Experiments,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1998), version 1.0. doi: 10.4324/9780415249126-Q021-1↩ 3. Horace William Brindley Joseph, An Introduction to Logic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), 401.↩ 4. John Woods and Douglas Walton, “Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc,” The Review of Metaphysics 30 no. 4 (June, 1977), 569. 5. Stephen Hupp and Jeremy Jewell, Great Myths of Child Development (John Wiley & Sons, 2015), 63. doi: 10.1080/07317107.2018.1428058↩ 7. Aristotle clearly describes this fallacy in his Rhetoric (1401b30-34), but historically, prior to 1700, the main emphasis of the fallacy of false cause was defined in accordance with this empirical account, but on Aristotle's notion of reductio ad impossibile in “non-cause as cause.” where “cause” is taken to mean a ”logical ground for” (Soph. El. 167b1-21-37). ↩ 8. W. D. Wallis, “Prodigies and Potents,” Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics ed. James Hastings (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1919), X: 369. ↩ 9. A.H. McKinney, “Shinto,” in The Missionary Review of the World, (United States: Missionary Review Publishing, 1893), 654.↩ 10. John Stossel, “Earth Daze,” Index-Journal no. 331 (April 14, 2014), 9A. See also John Stossel, “Earth Daze: Overcoming Environmental Hysteria”Reason (accessed 2019.11.18)↩ 11. Aristotle's discussion in De Sophisticus Elenchis of non causa pro causa is quite different from how the fallacy is defined in current texts. From a logical point of view Aristotle points out that “those [who] assert that what is not a cause is a cause” commit a language fallacy. In so doing his terminology does not distinguish reason from cause. What Aristotle essentially means by non causa pro causa is the fallacy of mistaking a reason for what is not a reason by including an irrelevant statement in an argument, i.e., the fallacy of supposing a conclusion is false because it follows from an extra premise which is false (Soph. El. 167b20-25). So, for Aristotle, non causa pro causa is a formal syllogistic fallacy, not the inductive fallacy (or informal fallacy) studied here. In the Topics Aristotle gives the example: “‘He who sits, writes’ and ‘Socrates is sitting”: for from these it follows that Socrates is writing.’” [Topics, viii 10] Aristotle states the argument is shown to fail by pointing out that he who sits does not always write and so cannot “cause” the truth of the conclusion. Thus, for Aristotle, non causa pro causa is an unsound syllogistic fallacy “caused” by a false premise, not the kind of non-deductive informal fallacy studied in current texts. Prior to the spelling reforms in the 16th and 17th centuries, Thomas Wilson, who wrote the first logic textbook in English in 1551, echoes Aristotle's sense of non causa:
Wilson's account is explained by Thomas Blundeville in 1575: ”The Fallax of non causa pro causa, is, when that thing is made to bee the cause of the Conclusion, which is not the cause in deed; as Wine is naught, because it will make a man drunke. Of which drunkennesse, Wine is not the cause, but the intemperance of the man, and his immoderate vse thereof.” [Thomas Blundeville (M. Blvndevile), The Arte of Logick, rpt. (1575 London: William Stansby, 1617), 196. (Also transcribed by University of Oxford Text Creation Partnership, University of Oxford Text Archive, The Arte of Logick] The second English historical account of “the fallacy of causation” concerns the use of a false causal premise in a syllogism. As the unknown author of An Elementary Treatise on Logic states, “[The fallacy is] to be found in the premises of an argument, and not in the connexion between them and the conclusions; it is the judgment, therefore that can alone detect and expose them.” An Elementary Treatise on Logic [Anonymous, (London: J. Chapman, 1852), 63.] For more on this topic see footnote 140. ↩ 12. Orsen Welles, “The Clock Speech,” in Graham Greene, The Third Man, directed by Carol Reed (U.K.: London Films), 1949.↩ 13. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding ed. Alexander Campbell Fraser Vol. 1 (New York: Dover Publications), 165.↩ 14. Locke, Essay, 434, 435.↩ 15. Locke, Essay, 165. Stewart, Philosophical Essays I, Chapter 3 says the same.↩ 16. C. J. Ducasse, “The Nature and Observability of the Causal Relation,” The Journal of Philosophy 23 no. 3 (February 4, 1926), 61. Also in Ernest Sosa, ed. Causation and Conditionals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 118. doi: 10.2307/2014377 J.S. Mill would probably respond that Ducasse's notion of a singular cause is not what he means by the philosophical meaning of the term: “We should never have had the notion of causation (in the philosophical meaning of the term) as a condition of all phenomena, unless many cases of causation, or in other words, many partial uniformities of sequence, had previously become familiar.” John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic 8th ed.(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1904), 401. ↩ 17. Anscombe, “Causality,” 66. ↩ 18. For example, the theory of causality expressed in terms of natural necessity: “‘X has the power to A ’ means ‘X (will) or (can) do A, in the appropriate conditions, in virtue of its intrinsic nature.’” [italics original] by R. Harré and E. H. Madden, Causal Powers (Totowa, N.J.: Rowan and Littlefield, 1975), 86. See also papers in Jonathan D. Jacobs, ed. Causal Powers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198796572.001.0001 The notion of intrinsic power or faculty of phenomena was treated as a fallacy in the Port-Royal Logic: “When we see an effect, the cause of which is unknown, we imagine that we have discovered it, when we have joined to that effect a general word of virtue or faculty, which forms in our mind no other ideas except that that effect had some cause, which we knew well before we found that word.” [Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, The Port-Royal Logic, trans. T. S. Baynes, enlarged 5th ed. (1662 Edinburgh: James Gordon, 1861), 252.] Arnauld and Nicole point out thinking that causality is a faculty or a power is the same sophism as, for example, claiming the ”soporific virtue” of the poppy.↩ 19. Earl of Halsbury, et al., The Laws of England, Vol. IX (London: Butterworth, 1909).↩ 20. Jane M. Orient and Joseph D. Sapira, Sapira's Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis (Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2010), 624.↩ 21. Edward Sullivan, “Introduction,” to Stefano Guazzo, et. al The Civile Conversation of M. Steeven Guazzo, trans. George Pettie (1581 rpt. New York: AMS Press, 1925), xiv.↩ 22. J. Leon Lievsay, “Shakespere's ’Golden World’ (A.Y.L.I., I.i.127),” The Shakespeare Association Bulletin, 13 no. 2 (April, 1938), 77-79.↩ 23. If we know that events As always precede events Bs, then we have some evidence toward the establishment of a causal law. As Hume points out the difference at issue here is the difference between constant conjunction and necessary connection. Accidental generalizations are sometimes reflected in the fallacy of converse accident, and, in particular, the somewhat narrower fallacy of hasty generalization.↩ 24. Bertha Alvarez, “False Cause: Cum Hoc Ergo Proper Hoc,” in Bad Arguments, eds. Robert Arp, Steven Barbone, and Michael Bruce (Glasgow: Bell & Bain, Ltd. for Wiley Blackwell, 2019), 336.↩ 25. There is some econometric evidence relating (1) economic and electoral interaction due to the expansionist policies of Democratic administrations tending to increase inflation and (2) followed by the electorate understanding the results of the Democratic policies then seeking to curb inflation by voting Republican with (3) a recession ensuing. [Alberto Alesina and Howard Rosenthal, Partisan Politics, Divided Government, and the Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 7-8.]↩ 26. Robert F. Bacigalupi, “A Man Without a Dog,” Opinion: Letters, New York Times (October 16, 2017) [accessed October 16, 2017].↩ 27. See Scott G. Schreiber, Aristotle on False Reasoning (New York: State University of New York Press, 2003), 107-112.↩ 27a. Hart and Honoré, Causation and the Law, 227-228. ↩ 28. The author of the quoted passage goes on to write, “The storm would have many other more immediate causes, of course, but without the butterfly, the storm might not have happened.” [Roger Schlafy, How Einstein Ruined Physics: Motion, Symmetry, and Revolution in Science (Smashwords, 2011), np.] Also, of course, a deterministic system does not imply individual predictability since information is lost from the finite accuracy of measurements in a series of events, as pointed out by G.E.M. Anscombe. [“Causality and Determination,” in Causation and Conditionals, 71-72.]↩ 29. Henri Poincaré, Science and Method, trans. by Francis Maitland (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1914), 70.↩ 30. J.S. Mill A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive 8th ed. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1904), 231. In terms of event description, would we then have the possibility of an indefinite number of descriptions of a storm which depend upon the differences of the lack of a specific number of wing flaps of a number of specific butterflies? C. J. Ducasse rightly points out cause and conditions need be distinguished: “To take up the environment into the ‘cause’ as Mill's definition of cause tries to do, is impossible because the cause consists of a change in that environment.” [Ducasse, “On the Nature and Observability of the Causal Relation,” 116-117.] The cause is, ordinarily speaking, the occurrence of an event sufficient for the occurrence of another event.↩ 31. Pierre Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities, trans. F. W. Truscott and F. L. Emory (London: Chapman & Hall, 1902), 4.↩ 32. John Woods and Douglas Walton, “Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc” The Review of Metaphysics 30 no. 4 (June 1977), 570.↩ 33. George Will, “The Apostle Mike Huckabee,” Index Journal (May 12, 2015) 97 No. 79, 6A. Also, “Mike Huckabe's Appalling Crusade,” Washington Post (May 8, 2015).[accessed 2019.11.19]↩ 34. Some logic texts make the mistake of identifying post hoc ergo propter hoc wholly with false cause.↩ 35. Example of false cause from C.J. Ducasse, Nature, Mind, and Death (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1951), 94.↩ 36. Frédéric Bastiat, Fallacies of Protection: Being the Sophismes Economiques, trans. P. J. Stirling (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1909), 166.↩ 37. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers VI.61.↩ 38. Cicero, De Natura Deorum III.37 ↩ 39. William Stanley Jevons and Harriet Ann Taylor Jevons, Investigations in Currency ad Finance (London: Macmillan, 1909), 196. ↩ 40. J. V. Wall, C.R. Jenkins, Practical Statistics for Astronomers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 91.↩ 41. Scottish philosopher William Hamilton does not distinguish between post hoc ergo propter hoc and cum hoc ergo propter hoc which he terms, “cum hoc (vel post hoc) ergo propter hoc,” literally translated “with this (or after this) therefore because of this.” [Sir William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, vol. III Lectures on Logic Vol. I, eds H.L. Mansel and John Veitch (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1860), 461.] John Stuart Mill does not distinguish these fallacies either; he cites examples such as “speculative writers [maintaining] that the national debt was one of the causes of national prosperity.” Such arguments, he states, are a posteriori “bad generalizations” where “one class of influencing circumstances [is assumed] to be the paramount rulers of phenomena which depend in an equal or greater degree on many others.” [John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, 552-553.]↩ 42. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Hints Towards the Formation of More Comprehensive Theory of Life, ed. Seth B. Watson (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1848), 24.↩ 43. The example is used by Brian Skyrms, Causal Necessity: A Pragmatic Investigation of the Necessity of Laws (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 130. Examples like this one are due to the confusion of the notion of an “action” with the notion of “act.” In evidential decision theory, when an individual decision is based on acting in accordance with the evidence which would result from the decision itself, that hypothetical state of affairs could eliminate the reason for the act, itself. See Judea Pearl, Causality 2nd ed. (2000 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 108.↩ 44. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discours sur Cette Question: Quelle est la Vertu la plus nécessaire aux Héros; & quels sont les Héros à qui cette Vertu a manqué? in Collection Compléte Des Œvres de J.J. Rousseau Tome III (Geneve: [éditeur non identifié] 1781), 48. doi: 10.3931/e-rara-7942 “Où il n’y a nul effet, il n’y a point de cause à chercher: mais ici l’effet est certain, la dépravation réelle, & nos ames se sont corrompues à mesure que nos Sciences & nos Arts se sont avancés à la perfection. … L’élévation & l’abaissement journalier des eaux de l’Océan n’ont pas été plus reéguliérement assujettis au cours de l’Astre qui nous éclaire durant la nuit, que le sort des mœurs & de la probite au progrés des Sciences & des Arts.” See also Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Basic Political Writings, trans. Donald A. Cress (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2011), 8.↩ 45. Jarl Flensmark, “Is There an Association Between the Use of Heeled Footwear and Schizophrenia?” 63 no. 4 Medical Hypotheses, 740-747.doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2004.05.014↩ 46. Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — But Some Don't (New York: Penguin Books, 2012), 195.↩ 47. See for example Haskell Fain, “Some Problems of Causal Explanation,” Mind New Series 2 no. 288 (October 1963), 519-532. doi: 10.1093/mind/lxxii.288.519"↩ 48. See also Tyler Vigen, Spurious Correlations (New York: Hachette Books, 2015).↩ 49. John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, 239. ↩ 50. Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, 5th ed. The Port-Royal Logic (Edinburgh: James Gordon, 1861), 286-287.↩ 51. H.L.A. Hart and A.M. Honoré Causation in the Law (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), and Douglas Gasking, “Causation and Recipes,” Mind 64 no. 256 (October 1955), 479-487.doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198254744.001.0001↩ 52. Sam Blows, Cusack's Principles of Logic (London: City of London Book Depôt, 1899), 169.↩ 53. Champ Clark,, “The Financial Bill: Remarks of Champ Clark of Missouri,” in Gold Standard, Scientific Banking System, Etc: Miscellaneous Papers, 1878-1912, United States Congress (December 16, 1899), 14.↩ 54.John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, 552.↩ 55. More specifically, “Taking a cause that which is not a cause.” Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, The Port-Royal Logic trans. T. S. Baynes, enlarged 5th ed. (1662 Edinburgh: James Gordon, 1861), 251. ↩ 56. D. M. Armstrong, What Is a Law of Nature? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) 366. Oddly enough, this view seems to some extent anticipated by David Hume in one of his definitions of causality often overlooked: “Tis the constant conjunction of objects, along with the determination of the mind, which constitutes a physical necessity.” David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (1888 Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 171. Online see A Treatise of Human Nature, eds. T.H. Green and T.H. Grose (London: Longmans, Green, 1890), I: 465.↩ 57. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, Elements of Chemistry: In a New Systematic Order, trans. Robert Kerr (Edinburgh: William Creech, 1790), 65, 176, and 146. (He specifically states in the latter passage that vinegar is already known by experimentation to contain oxygen, so his argument above is suppositious.)↩ 58. Note how this syllogism illustrates Aristotle's view (discussed below) of “non-cause for a cause” or as it is sometimes spoken of as non causa pro causa as the assignment of a false reason for some effect or conclusion such that the “causa” is taken either as a ground of inference (e.g. a false premise of a syllogism) or as a mistaken cause.↩ 59. Thomas Reid, Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind (London: R. Griffin and Co, 1827), 603.↩ 60. John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic,, 389.↩ 61. Johnson O'Connor, Science Vocabulary Builder, (Boston: Human Engineering Laboratory, 1956), n.p.↩ 62. This example of common cause fallacy is effected by a fallacy of division. I.e., In sum, the fallacious claim is that since city residents vocabularies increase in proportion to city library size, a particular individual will thereby increase personal vocabulary in accordance with the increase in personal books owned.↩ 63. Donna Brazile, “A New Movement for Sensible Gun Laws?,” Index-Journal 95 no. 348 (April 28, 2014), 6A. Online at Uexpress (April 24, 2014) [accessed 2019-11-22]↩ 64. George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie, ed. Edward Arber (1589 London: Bloomsbury, 1869), 193-194.↩ 65. There are several types of slippery slope fallacies; all have three common characteristics: 1. A first problematic determination; M. J. Rizzo and D. G. Whitman summarize slippery slope arguments as beginning with an initial seemingly acceptable decision and ending with a “danger case” — an unacceptable decision or argument. [Mario J. Rizzo and Douglas Glen Whitman, “The Camel's Nose Is in the Tent: Rules, Theories, and Slippery Slopes,” UCLA Law Review 51 (2003-2004), 544. doi:10.2139/ssrn.352981] Douglas Walton provides a ten-step description of slippery slope arguments with six essential characteristics occurring within a two-agent dialogue. [Douglas Walton, “The Basic Slippery Slope Argument,” Informal Logic 35 no. 3 (September, 2015), 287-288. doi: 10.22329/il.v35i3.4286]↩ 66. William Makepeace Thackeray, “The History of Pendennis,” Vol. 3, The Works of William Makepeace Thackeray (London: Smith, Elder, 1901), 21.↩ 67. Paul Dean, “Review Copies,” The Times Literary Review no. 6041 (January 11, 2019), 6.↩ 68. Richie S. Kink, “After Lean Acorn Crop in Northeast, Even People May Feel the Effects,” New York Times (December 2, 2011), A17.↩ 69. Richard S. Ostfeld, Taal Levi, Felicia Keesing, Kelly Oggenfuss, and Charles D. Canham, “Tick-Borne Disease Risk in a Forest Food Web,” Ecology 99 no. 7 (July 2018), 1562-1573. doi: 10.1002/ecy.2386 See also “Forest Ecology Shapes Lyme Disease Risk in the Eastern US,” Science Daily (July 8, 2018). The rate of confirmed Lyme disease cases in New York actually fell 35% in 2012. [Amy M Schwartz, et al. “Surveillance for Lyme Disease — United States, 2008-2015,” MMWR Surveillance Summaries 2017 66 no. SS-22 (November 10, 2017), 1-12. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.ss6622a1 ↩ 70. I.e., “Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht.” Friedrich Schiller, “Resignation, ” in Philosophische Gedichte (Hamburg-Frossborstel: Verlad der Deutschen-Dichter-Gedächtnis Stiftung, 1905), 55.↩ 71. John Smyth, Truth and Religion with Special Reference to Religion, (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1901), 221.↩ 72. John Smyth, Truth and Reality, (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1901), 227.↩ 73. Philip L. Kohl and Clare Fawcett, “Archaeology in the Service of the State: Theoretical Considerations,” in Nationalism, Politics, and the Practice of Archaeology eds. Philip L. Kohl and Clare Fawcett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), 5, 13.↩ 74. Kohl and Fawcett, “Archaeology in Service, ” 13.↩ 75. James Ward, “Naturalism,” Encyclopædia Britannica Vol. 19 (New York: Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911), 274. Désiré Mercier expresses a similar causal identity exemplifying this fallacy: ”[L]es énergies corporelles, y compris les énergies qui se développent dans la substance nerveuse et qui s‘accompagnment, soit de sensation, de passion, de mouvement spontané, soit de pensee et de volonté, ne sont que des énergies mécaniques.” [original italics] [Désiré Mercier, Logique in Cours de Philosophie, Vol. I “Sophismes d’induction,” (Louvain: Institut Supérieur de Philosophie: 1902), I:304.] In translation: “[B]odily energies, including energies which develop in the nervous system accompanied by sensation, passion, spontaneous movement, or thought and will, are only mechanical energies.” I.e., the identity of the psychical and the physical are fallaciously causally assumed.↩ 76. Marie Swabey, “Circles,” The Journal of Philosophy 34 no. 12 (June 10, 1937), 326. doi: 10.2307/2018140 ↩ 77. John B. Watson, Behaviorism (New York: Routledge, 1988), 175.↩ 78. Mercier, “Sophismes d’induction,” 305.↩ 79. Hans Kelsen, “Causality and Accounting”Essays in Legal and Moral Philosophy (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1973). doi: 10.1007/978-94-010-2653-6_7↩ 80. Henry Summer Maine, Ancient Law, 4th ed. (London: John Murray, 1870), 73-74.↩ 81. Peter Lipton, “Causation Outside the Law,” in Jurisprudence: Cambridge Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 136. ↩ 82. H. L. A. Hart and T. Honore, 391-410.↩ 83. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Unpublished Letters, Part I”, Westminister Review XXVII (London: Tröner, April 1, 1870), 354.↩ 84. As a philosophical account, this influential view espoused by David Lewis [“Causation,” Journal of Philosophy 70 no. 17 (October, 1973), 556-567. doi: 10.2307/2025310] has been criticized by a number of philosophers including Jonathan Bennett, A Philosophical Guide to Conditionals,” (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003), 290-291.↩ 85. Joel Mokyr, “Irish History with the Potato,” Irish Economic and Social History 8 no. 1 (June 1, 1981), 8-9. doi: 0.1177/033248938100800102↩ 86. Mokyr, “Irish History,” 9.↩ 87. “Mental Health and Social Relationships,” Economic and Social Research Council (May 2013).↩ 88. “Mental Health.”↩ 89. G. S. Hitchcock, “The Religion of the Hebrew Bible, The New Ireland Review vol. 29 (March to August, 1908) (Dublin: New Ireland Review Offices), 2 86.↩ 90. Francis Bacon, Apophthegms in The Works of Francis Bacon ed. Basil Montagu (Philadelphia: Parry & McMillan, 1857), 113.↩ 91. Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Play of “Troilus and Cressida, with Notes Critical and Explanatory, ed. John Hunter (London: Longmans, Green: 1872), 8.↩ 92. The causa cognoscendi describes Aristotle's most common use of “cause” in Soph. El. 167b20-25.↩ 93. Richard Whately, Introductory Lectures on Political Economy 2nd. ed. (London: B. Fellowes, 1832), 252-253.↩ 94. James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson ed. Henry Morley vol. I (London: George Routledge and Sons. 1885), 15-16. As the “cure” in this case did not work, Boswell suggests his mother “should have taken him to Rome.”↩ 95. Henry Morley, ed. “Introduction,” in Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 16.↩ 96. E.g., Thomas Aquinas writes, ”Walking, for example, is the cause of health as an efficient cause, but health is the cause of walking as an end. … the end is said to be the cause of the efficient cause, since the efficient cause does not do its work except through the intention of the end. Whence the efficient cause is the cause of that which is the end; walking for example, of health.” [St. Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas on Matter and Form and the Elements: A Translation and Interpretation of the de Principiis Naturae … trans. Joseph Bobik (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 60 (4.22)]. In this view, an efficient cause is said to be brought about by the final cause or purpose. A fallacy can arise when the process being described is not goal-directed.↩ 97. Elizabeth J. Parks-Stamm, Gabriele Oettingen, and Peter M. Gollwitzer, “Making Sense of One's Actions in an Explanatory Vacuum: The Interpretation of Nonconscious Goal Striving,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46 no. 3 (May 2010), 531-542. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2010.02.004↩ 98. Ana P. Gantman et al., “Why Did I Do That? Explaining Actions Activated Outside of Awareness,” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 24 no. 5 (October 2017), 1564. [Springer Link]↩ 99. Fiery Cushman, “Confabulation,” Edge ed. John Brockman (February 24, 2019).↩ 100. Larry Shannon-Missal, “Americans' Belief in God, Miracles and Heaven Declines,” The Harris Poll #197 (December 16, 2013).↩ 101. Jules Andrieu, “Astrology,” Encyclopæia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and General Literature 9th ed. (Philadelphia: Maxwell Sommerville, 1891), II: 649.↩ 102. H. Rushton Fairclough comments: “Historians, as well as poets, assure us that the atmospheric conditions for the year 44 B.C. (the year of Cæsar's assassination) were remarkable.” Virgil, Georgics in Virgil: Eclogues Georgics Aeneid I-VI (Georgics) trans. H. Rushton Fairclough Vol. I (London: William Heinemann, 1916), 113.↩ 103. Harry Thurston Peck, A History of Classical Philology from the Seventh Century, B.C. to the Twentieth Century A. D. (New York: Macmillan, 1911), 42.↩ 104. Jenny Turner, “As Many Pairs of Shoes as She Likes: On Feminism,” London Review of Books 33, No. 24 (Dec. 15 2011): 15. Also here: “As Many Pairs of Shoes as She Likes: On Feminism,” The Guardian UK 33 no. 24 (December 15, 2011).↩ 105. Froma Harrop, “Death Penalty for Tsarnaev Hurts Boston,” Index Journal 97 no. 85 (May 19, 2015), 97. Also on web here: “Death Penalty for Tsarnaev Hurts Boston,” Creators.Com (May 19, 2015). [accessed 2019-11-24]↩ 106. “[N]othing happens without a sufficient reason; that is to say, nothing happens without its being possible for him, who should sufficiently understand things to give a reason sufficient to determine why it is so and not otherwise.” [G.W.F. Leibniz, “The Principles of Nature and Grace 1714,” in The Philosophical Works of Leibniz trans. George Martin Duncan 2nd. ed. (New Haven: Tuttle Morehouse & Taylor, 1908), 303.↩ 107. “[W]henever an event is observed, it is always referred to some antecedent, which it follows according to a universal rule; or else, everything of which experiences teaches that it happens must have a cause. [Immanuel Kant,Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, trans. James W. Ellington 2nd. ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001), 37 (Ak 4:296).]↩ 108. Translated from: “Donc cause et effet doivent s’entrainer, s’impliquer mutuellement. … En d’autres termes, nous devons pouvoir, par la cause ou raison, á l’aide d’une pure opèration de raisonnement, conclure au phénomène. C’est ce que l’on appelle une déduction.” Émile Meyerson, De L’Explication Dans Les Sciences 2nd ed. (Paris: Payot, 1912), I:54. ↩ 109. Seth Pancoast, What is Bright's Disease? Its Curability (Philadelphia: Seth Pancoast, 1882), 50. John Veitch explains the distinction between cause and reason in this way: “The logical laws will be found to afford the nexus [between cause and effect] — the cause becomes in fact a reason. The difference between cause and reason logically is that the complete knowledge of the cause per se could not lead us to anticipate or predict, far less necessarily deduce, the effect, while the full knowledge or consciousness of the reason not only enables, but necessitates us to anticipate and think the consequent.” [Veitch, Institutes, 131.] General laws are reasons or grounds which can answer why something occurs.↩ 110. “State of Oklahoma, ex rel. v. Purdue Pharma, LP, et al.,” Untitled — Oklahoma Attorney General. [accessed 2019-11-24] ↩ 111. “Proximate cause” in Law is ambiguous: “proximate cause.1.A cause that is legally sufficient to result in liability. 2. A cause that directly produces an event and without which the event would not have occurred.” [Black's Law Dictionary ed. Bryan A. Garner, 7th ed. (St. Paul: West, 1999).] But also “‘Proximate cause’ — in itself an unfortunate term — is merely the limitation which the courts have placed upon the actor’s responsibility for the consequences of the actor’s conduct. [North v. Johnson , 58 Minn. 242, 59 N.W. 1012 (1894).] Also,“A definition of ‘proximate cause’ as the efficient cause from which the injury follows, in unbroken sequence without any intervening cause to break the continuity is incorrect.” [ Eichmann v. Buchheit, 107 N.W. 325, 326.]↩ 112. G.E.M. Anscombe writes: “Now we cannot say that since [an] answer mentions something previous to the action, this will be a cause as apposed to a reason … If an action has to be thought of by the agent as doing good or harm of some sort, and the thing in the past as good or bad, in order for the thing in the past to be the reason for the action, then this reason shows not a mental cause but a motive. This will come out in the agent's elaboration on his answer to the question ‘Why.’” [G.E.M. Anscombe, “Intention,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 57 (1956-1957), 322, 329.]↩ 113. Richard Whately writes: “[The ambiguity between cause and reason] has produced incalculable confusion of thought, and from which it is the harder to escape, on account of its extending to those very forms of expression which are introduced in order to clear it up. What adds to the confusion is, that the Cause is often employed as a Proof of the effect; as when we infer, from a great fall of rain, that this is, or will be, a flood; which is at once the physical effect, and the logical conclusion. The case is just reversed, when from a flood we infer that the rain has fallen.” [Richard Whately, Elements of Logic (London: J. Mawman, 1826), 298.] Judge Balkman's “Conclusions of Law” cites previous cases where interpretation of the nuisance law statute does not indicate that public nuisances must reference property. But, just in case the statute 50 O.S. 1981 ¶1 does require reference to property, he adds in conclusion 4: ”However, and in the alternative, in the event Oklahoma's nuisance law does require the use of property, the State has sufficiently shown that Defendants pervasively, systematically and substantially used real and personal property, private and public, as well as the public roads, building and land of the State of Olakahoma, to create this nuisance.” I.e.,Johnson and Johnson sales representatives were trained in their homes, conducted marketing in medical venues, traveled on roads, sent messages by computer, phones etc. — all, into Oklahoma properties.↩ 114. E.g., Whately, Elements, 181.↩ 115. Plato, The Republic, X.605b, trans. Jowlett.↩ 116. John Veitch, Institutes of Logic (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1885), 548. Perhaps, a better method to analyze this argument would be to point out, syllogistically, the conclusion would follow only if the argument is considered enthymematically, necessitating a false premise: [All persons who mislead are persons to be banned. (F)] This approach would jibe with an Aristotelian analysis: “The Logical writers … were confounding together cause and reason; the sequence of Conclusion from Premises being perpetually mistaken for that of effect from physical cause. [Richard Whately, Elements of Logic (London: J. Mawman, 1826), 183.] For more complete explanation see also the section entitled Aristotelian Background on this page.↩ 117. Margaret MacMillan, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History (New York: Modern Library, 2010), 38-39.↩ 118. J. B. Stallo, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (New York: D. Appleton, 1882), 292-293.↩ 119. Dennison Olmsted, The Mechanism of the Heaven (London: Thomas Nelson, 1801), 270.↩ 120. “Pastor John Hagee on Christian Zionism, Katrina,” Fresh Air with Terry Gross, National Public Radio (September 18, 2006).↩ 121. S. H. Emmens, A Treatise on Logic, Pure and Applied (London: Crosby Lockwood and Son, 1891), 107.↩ 122. More accurately, ceteris paribus conditions, normal conditions, standard conditions, and others such are uselessly vague in practice. Better to say, if C did not cause E then there must be (some unexpected) cause why it did not do so. G. E. M. Anscombe makes a similar point. [Causality and Determination,” 71.↩ 123. George J. Romanes, “The Contemporary Review,” 53 (June), (London: Isbister and Co., Ltd., 1888), 841-843.↩ 124. James Campbell, “NB: Back Pages,” Times Literary Supplement, no. 6040 (January 4, 2019), 36.↩ 125. Peter Lipton, “Causation and Explanation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Causation, eds. Helen Beebe, Christopher Hitchcock, and Peter Menzies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 625. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.003.0030↩ 126. Star Parker, “When Democrats Win, Freedom Loses,” Index-Journal 100 no. 258 (December 1, 2018), 15A. Also available “When Democrats Win, Freedom Loses,” Creators.Com [accessed 2019-11-28].↩ 127. Dave Ramsey, "”What Goes Up, Must Come Down,” Index-Journal 94 No. 51 (June 20, 2012): 6B.↩ 128. Alice Ambrose, ed. Wittgenstein's Lectures: Cambridge, 1932-1935) (1979 Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001), 39.↩ 129. Norwood Russell Hanson, Patterns of Discovery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 62.↩ 130. Alex Rosenberg, How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories, (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2018), 11-12. doi: 10.7551/mitpress/11905.001.0001 ↩ 131. Susan-Mary Grant, Oliver Wendel Holmes, Jr. Civil War Soldier, Supreme Court Justice (New York: Routledge, 2016), 5. doi: 10.4324/9780203077702↩ 132. Henry Cabot Lodge, The War with Spain (London: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1899), 29.↩ 133. Hayden White, “The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory,” History and Theory 23 no. 1 (February, 1984), 2. doi: 10.2307/2504969 ↩ 134. Francis Ellingwood Abbot, The Syllogistic Philosophy or Prolegomena to Science (Boston: Little, Brown. 1906), 24.↩ 135. Thomas Cooper, On Irritation and Insanity (Columbia, SC: S.J. McMorris, 1831), 341. In this aspect of understanding a posse ad esse non valet consequentia note its connection with argumentum ad ignorantiam: the fallacy that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proved false or that it is false simply because it has not been proved true.↩ 136. John Keill, An Introduction to Natural Philosophy or Philosophical Lectures (London: H.W., 1720), 17-19.↩ 137. Thomas Cooper, “On Volcanoes and Volcanic Substances,” The American Journal of Science, &c. 4 (New Haven: S. Converse, 1822), 211.↩ 138. Cooper, “Volcanoes,” 227. ↩ 139. A.A. Lindsay, Daily Life Psychology revised (Detroit: A.A. Lindsay, 1917), 106. Note also an equivocation on the word “exists”: in the first sentence the ideal is regarded as a possibility; however, in the second sentence the ideal is taken as existing since the image of the ideal exists. As Philipson, a character in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels states: “[A] man may often think, that if he were in such and such a situation, he would be able to achieve certain ends, which, that position being attained, he may find himself unable to accomplish.” Walter Scott, Anne of Geirstein in Scott's Novels (Paris: Baudry's European Library, 1833), XI:225. ↩ 140. Aristotle's discussion of non causa pro causa is quite different from how the fallacy is exclusively defined today. Aristotle distinguished different kinds of causes: the substance of which something is composed, its purpose, how it was produced, and its essential properties. From a logical point of view Aristotle points out that “those [who] assert that what is not a cause is a cause” commit a language fallacy. In so doing his terminology does not distinguish reason from cause. The difference between aition (neuter) and aitia (feminine), used here, is that an aitia is an explanatory argument (a type of deduction) that identifies causes, whereas an aition is an item in the world that is causally efficacious. Aristotle does not systematically observe the distinction … [C.D.C. Reeve, “Notes, in Rhetoric by Aristotle trans. C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2018), 157.] As Noah Davis states, “It is a case of sheer impertinence.” [Noah K. Davis, The Theory of Thought: A Treatise on Deductive Logic (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1880), 290.]; and Whately avoids the confusion by generalizing this sense of “non causa” to obtain the “fallacy of undue assumption.” Alexander Bain also apparently sees non causa pro causa as an inductively derived causa cognoscendi since the major premise of these kinds of argument is tacitly reached by inductive reasoning by “applying a general law to a concrete instance.” [Alexander Bain, Logic: Deductive and Inductive (New York: D. Appleton, 1889), 626.] Some logicians classify an argument with a false causal premise as a case of false cause; others classify such an argument as simply unsound. For more on this topic see footnote 11. ↩ 141. Owen Goldin, “Circular Justification and Explanation in Aristotle,” Phronesis 58 no.3 (January 2013), 197.doi: 10.1163/15685284-12341248↩ 142. See, for example, Frans H. van Eemeren, Kees de Glopper, Rob Grootendorst & Ron Oostdam, “Identification of Unexpressed Premises and Argumentation Schemes by Students in Secondary School,” Argumentation and Advocacy 31 no. 3, (August, 1995), 151-162, doi: 10.1080/00028533.1995.11951608 where secondary education students interpret unclear arguments as causal.↩ 143. As, for example, H.W.B. Joseph in 1906 in his An Introduction to Logic, 554-555.↩ 144. "[C]ause, n.3c, 6b." Oxford English Dictionary 2nd. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).↩ 145. Richard Whately, Easy Lessons on Reasoning (Toronto: Copp, Clark 1872), 137-138. Peter of Spain also follows Aristotle understanding of non causa pro causa: “Hence, a proposition that does nothing toward inferring the conclusion … so it is a non-cause taken as a cause.” Peter of Spain, “On Fallacies,” Tractatus in Brian P. Copenhaver, Peter of Spain: Summaries of Logic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 407.↩ 146. Douglas N. Walton, “Ignoring Qualifications (Secundum Quid) as a Subfallacy of Hasty Generalization,” Logique & Analyse 33 no. 129/130 (Mars-Juin 1999), 115.↩ 147. Whately's influential Elements of Logic also follows Aristotle. [Richard Whately, Elements of Logic 9th ed.(New York: Sheldon & Co. 1871), 223.] as do others.↩ 148. In this instance, when hasty generalization (or converse accident) “overlap,” the preferred fallacy label is the fallacy of converse accident since fallacy is defined in terms of an error in reasoning.↩ 149. Karen Lee, “Restoring Your Inner Balance — How to Stop the Aging Process in its Tracks,” Pick the Brain. Note that this fallacy is not best cited as an example of false cause (or post hoc ergo propter hoc) since there is empirical evidence that persons consuming more fruits and vegetables than others are less likely to acquire cancer. However, since the consumption of enormous quantities of fruits and vegetables is not necessarily a balanced, healthy diet, this example is not aptly chosen to support the conclusion that a balanced diet is the best remedy for disease in general. Thus the fallacy of converse accident occurs.↩ 150. The phrase secundum quid is taken here by C.L. Hamlin as an abbreviation for a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter (i.e., literally, reasoning “from an unqualified statement to a qualified statement.”) Converse accident or hasty generalization is usually taken to be one form of secundum quid.↩ 151. C.L. Hamlin, Fallacies (London: Methuen, 1970), 37-38.↩ 152. Whately, Elements, 229.↩ 153. Soph. El. 167a2 (Forester)↩ 154. Scott G. Schreiber, Aristotle on False Reasoning (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), 150, 226. For example, a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid, is “any fallacy arising from the use of a general proposition without attention to tacit qualifications which would invalidate the use made of it.” Alonzo Church, “Secundum quid,” in Dagobert D. Runes, Dictionary of Philosophy (Patterson, NJ: Littlefield, Adams, 1943), 287.↩ 155. This outline of follows Charles P. Krauth, Henry Calderwood and William Fleming, A Vocabulary of the Philosophical Sciences (New York Sheldon, 1878). 192, 667. Also available at https://archive.org/details/vocabularyofphil00kraurich/page/666.↩ 156. Sometimes in logic texts, the expressed causal premise at issue is regarded as false. The characterization of non tali here is more traditional as it also includes recognition of the view of definition of non causa pro causa as presuming a causal connection that probably does not exist. Occasionally, non tali pro tali is equated with the fallacy of false analogy as in M. Bautain, “The Logic of the Orator,”The Art of Extempore Speaking (New Edition New York: McDevitt-Wilson's, 1915), 210.↩ 157. Lawrence Johnstone, Short Introduction to the Study of Logic (London: Longmans, Green, 1887), 112.↩ 158. Henry Coppée, Elements of Logic rev. ed. (New York: American Book Company, 1857), 143.↩ 159. “Biogenesis,” The New International Encyclopædia ed. Daniel Coit Gilman, et al. vol. 3 (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1909), 85.↩ 160. Igor Schneider and Chris Amemiya, “Developmental-Genetic Toolkit for Evolutionary Developmental Biology” in The Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Biology ed. Richard M. Kliman, vol 1 ( Oxford: Academic Press, 2016), 404-408. doi: 10.1016/b978-0-12-800049-6.00128-1↩ 161. Joseph Devey, Logic; or the Science of Inference (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854), 323. ↩ 162. Peter of Spain, “On Fallacies,” Tractatus in Brian P. Copenhaver, Peter of Spain: Summaries of Logic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 89. doi: 10.1093/actrade/9780199669585.book.1↩ 163. Watts, Logick, 318-319.↩ 164. W. Stanley Jevons, The Elementary Lessons in Logic (London: Macmillan, 1870), 176. (This popular logic text was widely used in British and American universities in the nineteenth century). ↩ 165. Edward Bentham, An Introduction to Logik: Scholastick and Rational (Oxford: W. Jackson and J. Lister, 1773), 59.↩ 166. Ester Cepeda, “Accommodation Nation,” Index-Journal 95 no. 6 (May 07, 2013), 6A. Also online “"Accommodation Nation,” ArcaMax (May 5, 2013) [accessed 2019-12-03]↩ 167. Aristotle explains this fallacy to include its counterpart fallacia a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter discussed above. That is, he describes dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid as “the confusion of absolute or unrestricted propositions with propositions restricted in mode, place, degree, or relation.”[Soph. El. 180a23-26.] So, briefly, secundum quid is the fallacy of “overlooking qualifications.” [Douglas Walton, Fallacies Arising From Ambiguity (Dordrecht: Springer-Science, 1996), 139. doi: 10.1007/978-94-015-8632-0] When Whately in the 19th century resurrected Aristotelian logic in English, he specified the fallacy as that which current informal logic subumes under the fallacy of accident. [Whately, Logic, (1871 ed.), 219.]↩ 168. Charles Krauthammer, “The Big Bird Counterattack,” Index-Journal 94 No. 166 (October 14, 2012), 9A. Also see online “The Big Bird Counterattack,” The Washington Post (October 11, 2012)[accessed 2019-12-03] ↩ 169. Traditionally, the suppressed or supposed causal premise is often stated only to be false. The characterization of non vera here includes recognition of the view of some definitions of non causa pro causa presume a causal connection that probably does not exist, as discussed above in footnote 140.↩ 170. E.g., see Henry Aldrich & H. L. Mansel, Artis Logicae Rudimenta, from the Text of Aldrich with Notes and Marginal Reference (Oxford: William Graham: Whittaker, 1852), 138n.↩ 171. “Flee,” Oxford English Dictionary 2nd. ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).↩ 172. Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, The Port-Royal Logic trans. Thomas Spencer Baynes 5th ed. (Edinburgh: James Gordon, 1861), 286-7.↩ 173. The Port-Royal Logic, 286-287.↩ 174. See Peter Godfrey-Smith, “Causal Pluralism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1010), 326-337. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199279739.003.0017)↩ 175. W.B. Gallie, “Essentially Contested Concepts,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56 no. 1 (June 956), 167-198. doi: 10.1093/aristotelian/56.1.167 also in Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 14 no. 1 (Autumn 1994), 3. doi: 10.5840/inquiryctnews19941415↩ 176. Bertrand Russell, “On the Notion of Cause,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society New Series 13 (1912-1913), 1-26.↩ 177. Christopher Hitchcock, “Of Humean Bondage,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 54 no. 1 (March 2003), 1. doi: 10.1093/bjps/54.1.1↩ 178. Nancy Cartwright, The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 105, doi: 10.1017/cbo9781139167093 and again in “Causation: One Word, Many Things,” Philosophy of Science 71 no. 5 Proceedings of the 2002 Biennial Meeting Part II ed. Sandra D. Mitchell (December, 2004), 805-806.doi: 10.1017/cbo9780511618758.003↩ 179. Judea Pearl, Causality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 342. doi: 10.1017/cbo9780511803161"↩ 180. Judea Pearl and Dana MacKenzie, The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect , (New York: Basic Books, 2018), 49. [Google Preview]↩ 181. Hitchcock, “Of Humean Bondage,” 4.↩ 182. Willard Van Orman Quine, “Epistemology Naturalized,” in Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969) 71-72.↩ 183. Ulrike Hahn, Roland Bluhm, and Frank Zenker, “Causal Argument,” (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 483.↩ 184. Frederich Waismann, “Verifiability in How I See Philosophy, ed. R. Hareé (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1968), 42.↩ 185. Michael J. Manthey, “Nondeterminism Can Be Causal,” International Journal of Theoretical Physics 23 no. 10 (September, 1984), 930. doi: 10.1007/BF02213435↩ 186. Ali Bulent Çambel, Applied Chaos Theory A Paradigm for Complexity (Boston: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993), 14.↩ 187. As in Jaakko Hintikka, “Are There Nonexistent Objects? Why Not? But Where Are They,” Synthese 60 no. 3 (September, 1984), 451. doi: 10.1007/BF00485567↩ 188. Hahn, “Causal Argument,” 483.↩ 189. Most of the current proposals for criteria of causal relation are based on J.S. Mill's five methods of experimental inquiry: (1) Method of Agreement: if instances of a phenomenon have only one shared circumstance in common, that circumstance is inferred as a cause or an effect. Causal criteria such as these are not sufficient for establishing causal relations because of factors such as the problem of event description, knowing which conditions or circumstances are relevant, and the problem of accidental correlation. Of note also, see the Bradford Hill criteria for causality in occupational medicine which proved to be the starting point for many recent attempts to decipher causal association in medicine. Sir Austin Bradford Hill, “The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine 58 no. 5 (May 1965), 295-300. doi: 0.1177/0141076814562718↩ “The principle of the causal connection among appearances is limited in our formula to their serial succession, whereas it applies also to their coexistence, when cause and effect are simultaneous. … The great majority of efficient natural causes are simultaneous with their effects, and the sequence in time of the latter is due only to the fact that the cause cannot achieve its complete effect in one moment. … Now we must not fail to note that it is the order of time, not the lapse of time, with which we have to reckon; the relation remains even if no time has elapsed. The time between the causality of the cause and its immediate effect may be [a] vanishing [quantity], and they may thus be simultaneous; but the relation of the one to the other will always still remain determinable in time. If I view as a cause a ball which impresses a hollow as it lies on a stuffed cushion, the cause is simultaneous with the effect. But I still distinguish the two through the time-relation of their dynamical connection.” [emphases original] (Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason A202-3/A247-8 (trans. Norman Kemp Smith).) Kant's point is often causally assumed in the empirical sciences when the events or states of affairs are complex.↩ 191. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (1888 Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 171. Hume provided two definitions of “cause,” one of which suggests necessity: (1) ”A CAUSE is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it, that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of one to form a more lively idea of the other.” (Treatise, 170) The received view of Hume's well-known theory of causality is that we cannot have any idea of cause as a power to produce an effect or even as some sort of necessary connection as the basis of the observed regularity of successions of causes to effects since power and necessity in nature are “equally without foundation.” (Treatise, 171.) So there are two problems here: (1) causality cannot be observed, only succession is observed and (2) ordinarily, we cannot know that future “instances, of which we have had no experience, resemble those, of which we have had experience.” (Treatise, 89).↩ 192. J.S. Mill questions the notion of necessary succession in the definition of causality: “The Law of Causation, the recognition of which is the main pillar of inductive philosophy is but the familiar truth, that the invariability of succession is found by observation to obtain between every fact in nature and some other fact which has preceded it.” [J.S. Mill, System of Logic III: 397.] (Empirical) invariability does not imply (logical) necessity.↩ 193. Yet in the empirical sciences, this requirement has been questioned. For example, in biology some teleological arguments and some biological processes suggest that causality is more complex. The question of the origin of life raise a number of difficulties with this asymmetry: “What came first, the protein or the nucleic acid? The term ‘first” is usually meant to define a causal rather than a temporal relationship … ” [emphasis original] [Manfred Eigen, “Selforganization of Matter and the Evolution of Biological Macromolecules,” Die Naturwissenschaften 58 no. 10 (October, 1971), 465.] And, as well, Manfred Eigen goes on to discuss reciprocal or “closed” loop causation in the origin of life as summarized here: “Although the line from which the loop is formed must have originated somewhere, the starting point will have lost all its importance as soon as the circle is closed.” Selforganization of Matter and the Evolution of Biological Macromolecules" Backward or retro-causation is discussed by philosophers and physicists (although many philosophers consider backward causation a contradiction in terms). Michael Tooley writes: [T]he physicist, G. Feinberg, suggested that there might be particles — called tachyons — which traveled faster than the speed of light, and which thus, according to the Special Theory of Relativity, would have to travel backward in time. Another, very famous physicist indeed, Richard Feynman, proposed that positrons might be simple electrons travelling backward in time.” [Michael Tooley, “Time and Causation,” in Analytical Metaphysics, ed. Michael Tooley (New York: Garland, 1999), ix.] See also Huw Price's interview: Huw Price, interview by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton, ”Huw Price on Backward Causation,” Philosophy Bites (July 15, 2012), 16 min.↩ 194. John Stuart Mill writes: “If there be any meaning which confessedly belongs to the term necessity, it is unconditionalness. That which is necessary, that which must be, means that which will be, whatever supposition we may make in regard to all other things. … Invariable sequence, therefore, is not synonymous with causation, unless the sequence, besides being invariable, is unconditional.” [John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive Vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1846), 203.] From a psychological point of view, causation cannot be understood solely as a uniform empirical sequence.↩ 195. “Writer Sues Over 3.2 Beer,” The Decatur Herald (March 17, 1979), 4. Reprint from Wall Street Journal (February 14, 1979).↩ 196. W. E. B. Griffin, The Lieutenants: Brotherhood of War I (New York: Penguin, 1982), 352.↩ 197. This example fits definition 2 of non causa pro causa in footnote 1 above.↩ 198. Alfred Adler, Understanding Life (Oxford: One World, 1997), 40-41. (First published as The Science of Living (New York: Greenberg, 1927)).↩ 199. “Dear Abby: Says Caresses Restored Tresses,” Index-Journal 62 no. 2 (February 1, 1980). 21. On the web at “The Index-Journal, Page 5” Newspapers.com (February 1, 1980), Scroll OCR at pg. btm.” ↩ 200. B. L. Schiff and A. B. Kern, “A Study of Postpartum Alopecia,” 87 no. 5 (May 1963), 609. doi: 10.1001/archderm.1963.01590170067011↩ 201.Kevin T. Patton and Gary A. Thibodeau, The Human Body in Health & Disease 7th ed. (St. Louis: Elsevier, 2018), 153.↩ 202. Noah Knowles Davis, The Theory of Thought: A Treatise on Deductive Logic (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1880), 292.↩ 203. Associated Press, “Television Intoxification’ Claimed As Defense in Trial of Boy, 15,”Ironwood Daily Globe no. 249 (September 13, 1977), 1. [Scroll OCR at pg. btm.]↩ 204. “Law of Islam Blends Tradition Adaptability, Mercy and Stern Justice,” The Des Moines Register (May 20, 1979), 23. [Click on OCR for article access]↩ 205. Randy Robinson, M.D. “Family Practice Notes: Children and Chest Pain,” 72 no. 355 Index-Journal (February 9, 1990), 10.↩ 206. Lord Mahon, History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Aix-La-Chapelle, vol. 1 (Paris: Baudry's European Library, 1841), 3.↩ 207. Football Results Influence Voters,” New Scientist (July 7, 2010) based on A. J. Healy, N. Malhotra, and C. H. Mo. “Irrelevant Events Affect Voters’ Evaluations of Government Performance,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 no. 29 (July 6, 2010), 12804-12809. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1007420107 ↩ 208. ”Diary or the Month of March,”The London Magazine: New Series Vol. 7 (April, 1827), (London: Hunt and Clarke, 1827), 508-509.↩ Readings: False CauseJohn Anderson, “The Problem of Causality,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 16 no.2 (1938), 127-142. doi: 10.1080/00048403808541382 Anonymous,Syncategoremata Monacensia, (early 12th century) in The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts Vol. I, Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump, eds. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 167. Google Preview Aristotle, On Sophistical Refutations (De Sophisticis Elenchis) trans. E.S. Forster (1955 London: Harvard, 1992), 33 (167b:20-37). Alexander Bain, Logic: Deductive and Inductive (New York: D. Appleton, 1889), 625-626. Allan Bäck, “The Role of Qualification,” Journal of Philosophical Research 27 (2002), 159-171. doi: 10.5840/jpr_2002_29 Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock, and Peter Menzies, The Oxford Handbook of Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press,2009). doi: 9780199279739.001.0001 David Botting, “Without Qualification: An Inquiry into the Secundum Quid,” 36 no. 1 Studies in Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric, 161-170. doi: 10.2478/slgr-2014-0008 Myles Brand,, “Identity Conditions for Events” American Philosophical Quarterly 14 no.4 (October, 1977), 329-337. JSTOR Alex Broadbent, “Causation: Research Guide,” University of Cambridge: Department of History and Philosophy of Science [accessed 2020-01-02] Arthur Burks, Cause, Chance and Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977). Donald Davidson, “Causal Relations,” Journal of Philosophy 64 no. 21 (November 9, 1967), 691-703, reprinted, among other places, in “The Individuation of Events,” in N. 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Tindale, “Correlations and Causal Reasoning,” in Fallacies and Argument Appraisal (Cambridge University Press, 2007), 173-193. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511806544.010 Douglas Walton, “Arguments from Correlation to Causation,” in Argument, Evaluation and Evidence (Cham: Springer, 2016),179-208. [uncorrected preprint]. Google Preview Douglas N. Walton, “Ignoring Qualifications (Secundum Quid) as a Subfallacy of Hasty Generalization,” Logique & Analyse 33 no. 129/130 (Mars-Juin 1999), 113-154. Douglas N. Walton, “Rethinking the Fallacy of Hasty Generalization,” Argumentation 13 no. 2 (May, 1999), 161-181. doi: 1026497207240 Douglas Walton and Thomas F. Gordon, Jumping to a Conclusion: Fallacies and Standards of Proof 29 no. 2 (June, 2009) Informal Logic, 215-243. doi: 10.22329/il.v29i2.1227 Richard Whately, Elements of Logic (London: J. Mawman, 1826), 181-182. Wikipedia contributors,“ Causality,” Wikipedia (December 28, 2018). Page Version ID: 875810126. John Woods and Hans V. Hansen, “The Subtleties of Aristotle on Non-Cause,” Logique et Analyse, 176 (2001), 395-415. John Woods and Douglas Walton, “Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc” The Review of Metaphysics 30 no. 4 (June, 1977), 569-593. James Woodward, “Causation and Manipulability,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 ed.), ed. Edward N. Zalta
Which of the following is the reasoning process that moves from a general principle to a specific conclusion quizlet?deductive reasoning moves from generalized principles that are known to be true to a true and specific conclusion.
Which of the following is the reasoning process in which two similar cases are compared?Comparison Reasoning. Comparison reasoning is also known as reasoning by analogy. This type of reasoning involves drawing comparisons between two similar things, and concluding that, because of the similarities involved, what is correct about one is also correct of the other.
Which of the following is an example of the fallacy of using an appeal to novelty?Overestimating things that are perceived or painted as “new”. For example: “if you're trying to lose weight, then you should follow the latest trends in dieting; they always work best”. Underestimating things that are perceived or painted as “old”.
Which of the following is the Latin name for the false cause fallacy?The fallacy of false cause is often known by its Latin name, post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
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