A Brief Intro to Syllogistic Logic

Syllogistic or Aristotelian logic takes a middle ground between informal logic (which concerns itself with distinguishing good and bad arguments in everyday discourse) and formal logic (which concerns itself with the form of arguments, and its validity).

Disclaimer: This page is intended only to provide a little background to syllogistic logic as an aid to understanding any formal fallacies on this site. Consider it a work in progress: by no means should it be considered a comprehensive source of information about intentional logic. I welcome suggestions or corrections from experienced logicians.

Propositions

According to Aristotle, a proposition is a sentence that affirms or denies a predicate of a subject. In other words, a proposition makes a truth claim about something or someone. The subject and predicate of a proposition are also known as terms.

There are only four kinds of propositions:

• the universal affirmative (or A proposition): All S is P.
• the particular affirmative (I proposition): Some S are P.
• the universal negative (E proposition): No S is P.
• the particular negative (O proposition): Some S are not P.

The nicknames A, I, E, and O come from the vowels in the Latin words affirmo ("I affirm") and nego ("I deny").

Distribution

A term is said to be distributed if the proposition gives information about every member of its class.

• In an A proposition, the subject is distributed.
• In an I proposition, neither subject nor predicate is distributed.
• In an E proposition, both subject and predicate are distributed.
• In an O proposition, the predicate is distributed.

Syllogisms

A syllogism is a deductive argument comprising three propositions. The first two are are premises. In a valid syllogism, if the two premises are true, then the third proposition, the conclusion, must also be true.

The classic syllogism is as follows:

Premise 1. All men are mortal.
Premise 2. Socrates is a man.
Conclusion. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Every valid syllogism contains no more or less than three terms:

• The minor term (in blue) is the subject of the conclusion, and common to the conclusion and the minor premise.
• The major term (in red) is the predicate of the conclusion, and common to the conclusion and the major premise.
• The middle term (in green) is common to the two premises, and does not appear in the conclusion.

For a syllogism to be valid, the following must be true:

• There must be no more than three terms.
• The middle term must be distributed at least once.
• Any term distributed in the premises must be distributed in the conclusion.
• A particular premise cannot support a universal conclusion.
• A negative premise cannot support an affirmative conclusion.
• Two negative premises do not support any conclusion.

If a syllogism follows these rules, then it is valid: the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises. Of course, it is possible to draw a false conclusion from a valid syllogism, if one or both premises are false:

All elephants are Communists.
Stephen Harper is an elephant.
Therefore, Stephen Harper is a Communist.

If a syllogism is valid and its premises are true, then it is sound.

Welcome to the sideshow

King James Onlyism (or KJV-onlyism as I prefer) is a movement within certain Fundamentalist circles, especially independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFBs). KJV-onlyists believe, to varying degrees, that the Authorized Version of the Bible (commonly known as the King James Version, or KJV, in North America) is exclusively the Word of God in the English language. Some KJV-onlyists take this even farther and claim it is exclusively the Word of God in all languages.

It would be no big deal if the KJV-only camp simply said, "This is our opinion," and left it at that. But the claims being made are not mere preference claims. They are truth claims. Therefore, they ought to be open to scrutiny.

Unfortunately, when you give the arguments used by KJV-onlyists a close examination, they don't stand up. The reasoning employed by the KJV-onlyists is fallacious at its root. It occurred to me that, given enough time, I could build a pretty comprehensive list of logical fallacies by drawing on KJV-only sources alone. And, since you are reading this, that means I have already found ten examples - the minimum number I decided beforehand would make a worthwhile Web site. Of course, there are plenty more where those came from, so this site is still a Work in Progress.

So my purpose is twofold. One, I want to warn people against the specific errors of KJV-onlyism by exposing the faulty reasoning that underlies it. I hope that by pulling the rug out from underneath the KJV-only rhetoric, I might dissuade at least someone who is thinking through the question of Bible translations from accepting this serious error. Of course, I realize that shredding the illogic of the KJV-only arguments is not, in itself, a refutation of the position. KJV-onlyism might still be true despite the illogic. It still remains to show the KJV-only position false  - that is a job for another page.

Two, we Christians are, unfortunately, a credulous lot. So I hope that a presentation of these critical thinking concepts, framed in a Christian theological issue, might help some of the brethren spot bad arguments - of any kind, not merely KJV-onlyism.

And, finally, KJV-onlyism is one of the more laughable errors to fall under the rubric of "Christianity" in recent years. Let's face it: the KJV-only camp is arguably the largest collection of Biblical ignoramuses claiming to know the most important truth about the Bible. What they lack in facts and sound argument, they make up for in volume and tone. I want to take a little of the wind out of the KJV-onlyists' sails by having a good laugh at their expense.

What is a fallacy?

A fallacy is a logical flaw in an argument that renders it invalid. Some people use the word fallacy to refer to any error in reasoning, whether factual or logical. Strictly speaking, however, fallacies are errors of logic rather than errors of fact.

Fallacies can be roughly divided into two major categories: formal and informal. Formal fallacies have to do with the structure of the argument, while informal fallacies have to do with their content.

The sideshow is still a bit under construction, but at least it's presentable. This site was originally hosted on Geocities, until the announcement that Yahoo would be shutting that service down. I decided to transfer it over to Blogger and take advantage of its label feature to categorize the fallacies. In addition to formal and informal logical fallacies, I have also decided to include posts about the sillier arguments some KJV-onlyists like to use: errors of fact or history, bad theology, inept exegesis, eisegesis, a line of weird rationales I've taken to calling "goofy proofs" - and, unfortunately, the kind of rank dishonesty that is all too prevalent in KJV-only circles. So-called "Christians" really ought to know better.

But enough ballyhoo. It's time to step right behind this curtain and see the pickled punk show, while the Swamis of Sophistry flummox you with feats of logical legerdemain.