Divine fallacy

The divine fallacy is an informal fallacy that often happens when people say something must be the result of superior, divine, alien or supernatural cause because it is unimaginable for it not to be so.[1] A similar fallacy, known as argument from incredulity, appeal to common sense, or personal incredulity,[2] asserts that because something is so incredible or difficult to imagine, it is wrong. Arguments from incredulity are called non sequiturs.[3] Arguments from incredulity can take the form:

  1. I cannot imagine how P could be true; therefore P must be false.
  2. I cannot imagine how P could be false; therefore P must be true.[4]

Arguments from incredulity happen when people make their inability to comprehend or make sense of a concept in their argument.[5]

References

  1. Sen, Madhucchanda (2011). An Introduction to Critical Thinking. Pearson Education India. Retrieved 2016-11-26.
  2. Carroll, Robert T. "divine fallacy (argument from incredulity)". The Skeptic's Dictionary. Retrieved 5 April 2013.
  3. Divine fallacy – European Society for General Semantics
  4. Personal incredulity – yourlogicalfallacyis.com
  5. "Toolkit for Thinking".


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