What’s that word for skipping parts of an argument? I guess there could be differnt words due to why you skip over it: assumption, error, previous arguments, perspective, etc. But I think there is some (Greek, most likely) word for when one passes over the connection in your argument that is more universal. Any ideas? I just can’t think of it! :smack: :smack:
Are you thinking of an enthymeme? That’s an unstated premise in an argument.
"If the gloves don’t fit,
(then OJ couldn’t possibly have committed the crime.
If OJ didn’t commit the crime,)
You must acquit."
That sort of thing?
That is not an unstated premise… the only premise in that argument was ‘the gloves don’t fit’ and it was stated.
I’m not quite sure what to call the unstated part of this argument… an unstated ‘modus ponens’ step??
Okay, I’m an idiot… those ‘if A then B’ statements are premises themselves as well… and they weren’t stated in their original form.
On the other hand… if ‘if A then B’ and ‘if B then C’ are both valid premises, there’s nothing wrong as such with conflating them and presenting them in the format ‘if A then C’. If someone challenges the validity of ‘if A then C’ then you can break it down and present your cites for the two parts of the premises. I suppose if you want to present the argument in as complete detail as possible then it makes sense to present the original premises and each derivation step… but that can definitely increase the size of your argument. :]
I thought that drhess was asking for the real word for the “Underwear Gnomes” missing-step problem. Everyone knows about them, right?
Get Rich Quick.
Step 1: Collect underwear
…
Step 3: Retire in splendor
I’m going to be richer than Underwear Gnomes when I roll out my Macintosh-compatible transmatter system. It’s all Filemaker-based, really easy once you think about it. FileMaker stores the input stream of encoded binary data in chunks of 2048 K data fields per record, in files of 2 GB each, named and referenced according to a calculated algorithm, on volumes of 2 TB each which are named and referenced according to the same algorithm, and so forth, an infinite sequence therefore capable of referencing an infinite amount of data. Just take one of those doohickeys that analyzes and converts physical data to/from a digital stream (any old brand or model will do), and plug it into a port, USB or FireWire or whatever, and you’re good to go.
Actually, those fancy “logical fallacy” names are usually Latin, but check out that cite and see if you can find what you’re looking for. Otherwise, you’ll have to give an actual example of what you’re talking about. The answer isn’t obvious from what you’ve posted so far.
Do you mean, simply, non sequitur? A does not follow from B?
You’re right. That’s the word. It’s the unstated part of a syllogism, or I think any argument in a lose sense that assumes that audience makes the next jump with you is an enthymeme.