Toby asks…..
We have used some of your logic texts but have encountered an informal argument we thought may be a fallacy not covered in the books. We name it after the kid who uses it.
A certain camper wore the same t-shirt all week. When my Dear Husband, his counselor, told him on Thursday to change shirts, his reply was, “Why? This shirt was fine on Monday — you had no complaints on Tuesday — no problems on Wednesday, and now all of a sudden you are saying something is wrong with it?”
Is this an established fallacy we just are not catching? Thanks!!
Can someone name that fallacy?
Hello:
I will try to answer this question, but I am not a “Fallacy Detective”.
I think in this example the camper is doing an assumption (Lesson 13, The Fallacy detective). The camper assumed that since nobody told home about his t-shirt in previous days, nothing was wrong with wear it again and again.
What we do not know is if his assumption is correct or not. If his t-shirt is the same but he is watching it each day and it is clean and if there is not a rule in the work against wearing the same clothing each day I considered he is doing a right assumption. And he is in his right in asking why he must change it.
Now, if he is not watching his favorite t-shirt each day, he is making an incorrect assumption that the t-shirt smells the same as the first day. He will need more that logic to solve this problem, maybe he needs hygiene and urbanism lessons or maybe he needs visit the Dr. There is people that lose the sense of smell without notice.
Bye, bye
Hello:
Sorry my english, I’m still working on it.
I mean he needs “urbanity” lessons (not urbanism).
In the third line, must to say: nobody told “him” (not home, sorry again)
Bye, bye