Fallacy of division

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The fallacy of division [1] is an informal fallacy that occurs when one reasons that something that is true for a whole must also be true of all or some of its parts.

Contents

An example:

  1. The second grade in Jefferson Elementary eats a lot of ice cream
  2. Carlos is a second-grader in Jefferson Elementary
  3. Therefore, Carlos eats a lot of ice cream

The converse of this fallacy is called fallacy of composition, which arises when one fallaciously attributes a property of some part of a thing to the thing as a whole.

If a system as a whole has some property that none of its constituents has (or perhaps, it has it but not as a result of some constituent's having that property), this is sometimes called an emergent property of the system.

The term mereological fallacy refers to approximately the same incorrect inference that properties of a whole are also properties of its parts. [2] [3] [4]

History

Both the fallacy of division and the fallacy of composition were addressed by Aristotle in Sophistical Refutations .

In the philosophy of the ancient Greek Anaxagoras, as claimed by the Roman atomist Lucretius, [5] it was assumed that the atoms constituting a substance must themselves have the salient observed properties of that substance: so atoms of water would be wet, atoms of iron would be hard, atoms of wool would be soft, etc. This doctrine is called homoeomeria , and it depends on the fallacy of division.

Examples in statistics

In statistics an ecological fallacy is a logical fallacy in the interpretation of statistical data where inferences about the nature of individuals are deduced from inference for the group to which those individuals belong. The four common statistical ecological fallacies are: confusion between ecological correlations and individual correlations, confusion between group average and total average, Simpson's paradox, and other statistical methods. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ontology</span> Philosophical study of being and existence

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<i>Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus</i> 1921 philosophical work by Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is the only book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that was published during his lifetime. The project had a broad goal: to identify the relationship between language and reality and to define the limits of science. Wittgenstein wrote the notes for the Tractatus while he was a soldier during World War I and completed it during a military leave in the summer of 1918. It was originally published in German in 1921 as Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung. In 1922 it was published together with an English translation and a Latin title, which was suggested by G. E. Moore as homage to Baruch Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670).

The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" refers to the inability to legitimately deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two events or variables solely on the basis of an observed association or correlation between them. The idea that "correlation implies causation" is an example of a questionable-cause logical fallacy, in which two events occurring together are taken to have established a cause-and-effect relationship. This fallacy is also known by the Latin phrase cum hoc ergo propter hoc. This differs from the fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc, in which an event following another is seen as a necessary consequence of the former event, and from conflation, the errant merging of two events, ideas, databases, etc., into one.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fallacy</span> Argument that uses faulty reasoning

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The fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy that arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole. A trivial example might be: "This tire is made of rubber; therefore, the vehicle of which it is a part is also made of rubber." This is fallacious, because vehicles are made with a variety of parts, most of which are not made of rubber. The fallacy of composition can apply even when a fact is true of every proper part of a greater entity, though. A more complicated example might be: "No atoms are alive. Therefore, nothing made of atoms is alive." This is a statement most people would consider incorrect, due to emergence, where the whole possesses properties not present in any of the parts.

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References

  1. "Division" . Retrieved 2020-12-23.
  2. M. R. Bennett; P. M. S. Hacker. 2003. Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. Table of contents.
  3. Rom Harré. Behind the Mereological Fallacy. Philosophy 87:3, July 2012, pp. 329-352. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031819112000241
  4. P.M.S. Hacker. 2013. Before the Mereological Fallacy: A Rejoinder to Rom Harré. Philosophy, 88(1), 141-148. doi:10.1017/S003181911200054X
  5. Brauneis, Robert (2009). Intellectual Property Protection of Fact-based Works: Copyright and Its Alternatives. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 110.
  6. Burnham Terrell, Dailey (1967). Logic: A Modern Introduction to Deductive Reasoning . Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp.  160–163.

Further reading

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