Suppressed correlative
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The logical fallacy of suppressed correlative is a type of argument which tries to redefine a correlative (two mutually exclusive options) so that one alternative encompasses the other, i.e. making one alternative impossible.
Examples:
- Anne: "Ants are not small because they are large to bacteria."
- Bill: "However, bacteria are small."
- Anne: "No, because bacteria are large to viruses. Everything is large to something, so nothing is really small."
- Well, I would give money to the poor, but I believe that the world is so wonderful and rich that nobody can really be poor.
- All dogs are black when it is dark. Therefore, Lassie is a black dog because it is dark outside.
- Priest: "God is what science can't explain – you can explain how the body works, not why your ancestors survived and you are here and alive and not someone else." Atheist: "Well by that definition I suppose everyone believes in God!" (Once the priest has used a suppressed correlative to demonstrate that something must be true they will switch back to the standard definition: the priest, having gotten the atheist to say that by the given definition there must be a God, could say to the atheist that since belief in God has been ascertained, he should go to church, pray to Jesus, etc.)
This type of fallacy is often used in conjunction with one of the fallacies of definition.
