How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic (2006)

Quatemlo terminorum 133

fallacies can park at will. Greek historians regularly discussed
natural disasters in terms of human actions. In looking for the
cause of an earthquake, for example, we are likely to find Her-
odotus, or even Thucydides, gravely discussing the events which
preceded it before concluding that a massacre perpetrated by
the inhabitants of the stricken town was probably the cause.
The determined fallacist will see this as a field of opportunity.
Whatever your opponent is urging is bound to have been tried
somewhere, in some form, at some time. All you need do is
attribute the unpleasant things which followed it to the opera-
tion of that factor. We know that unpleasant things followed it
because unpleasant things are happening all the time; there are
always plenty of earthquakes, sex offences and political broad-
casts on TV which you can lay at your adversary's door.

'Imprisonment is barbaric. We should try to understand criminals and

cure them using open prisons and occupational therapy. '

'They have been trying that in Sweden since 1955, and look what's

happened: suicides, moral degeneracy and drunks everywhere. Do we

want that here?'

(A term such as 'moral degeneracy' is the hallmark of the sterling

fallacist, being more or less impossible to disprove.)

Quaternio terminorum

Quaternio terminorum is the fallacy of four terms. The standard

three-line argument requires that one term be repeated in the

first two lines, and eliminated from the conclusion. This is

because it works by relating two things to each other by first

relating each of them to a third thing. This 'syllogistic' reasoning

depends on one term, the 'middle term', being repeated in the

premises but disappearing from the conclusion. Where there are