In the last lecture we looked at one of 
the main fallacies of vacuity. 
That was begging the question. 
Recall that an argument begs the question 
whenever your justification for believing 
the premises are your justification for 
believing that the premises imply the 
conclusion. 
Depends on your already having a good 
reason to believe the conclusion. 
You have to already be justified in 
believing the conclusion in order to be 
justified in believing the premises, or 
believing that the argument from the 
premises to the conclusion is any good. 
And if that's the case, then the argument 
begs the question. 
But that's not only fallacy of acuity 
there is. 
There's another fallacy of acuity I want 
to talk about today. 
And that's what we're going to call 
circularity. 
An argument is circular just in case the 
conclusion of the argument appears as one 
of the premises of the argument. 
Now I know, you might think well wait a 
second. 
How could anyone be fool enough to make 
an argument that's circular or to fall 
for an argument that's circular. 
I mean, if the conclusion itself appears 
as one of the premises of the argument, 
Argument. 
Then isn't that an obvious problem. 
The argument isn't really doing any work. 
It's not getting you anywhere because the 
conclusion that you're trying to reach 
was already in there among your premises. 
So how could anyone be guilty of 
circularity in their reasoning? Normally 
people are guilty of circularity in their 
reasoning Because the circularity isn't 
obvious. 
And it's not obvious because the 
appearance of a proposition as the 
conclusion of the reasoning is far away 
spatially or temporally from its 
appearance as a premise in the reasoning. 
Let me give you an example of that 
distance to try to illustrate how 
Naturally it would be for someone to fall 
for circular reasoning. 
So suppose I argue as follows. 
The only way that we can protect 
ourselves from violent criminal offenders 
is to execute them because If we don't 
execute them, we leave them alive, then 
no matter where we put them, what prison 
cell we put them in or what distant 
island we put them on, they can escape, 
and the can come back and perpetrate 
violent criminal offensive yet again. 
Therefore. 
The only way to protect ourselves from 
violent criminal offenders, is to execute 
them. 
Now, notice the conclusion of that 
argument is the only way to protect 
ourselves from violent criminal offenders 
is to execute them. 
And what premise did I appeal to in 
reaching that conclusion? Well, one of 
the premises was this. 
If we leave them alive, then wherever we 
put them they could come back and 
perpetrate violent criminal offenses yet 
again. 
But what reason did I give you to believe 
that? What reason did I give you to 
believe the claim that if we leave them 
alive, then they could come back and 
perpetrate violent criminal offenses 
again? It looks like the only thing I 
said that could possibly give you a 
reason for believing that was the first 
statement that I made namely, the only 
way to protect ourselves from violent 
criminal offenders is to execute them. 
But that was the conclusion that I was 
arguing for. 
So it looks as if, I argued for that 
conclusion by appeal to a premise, and 
the only reason I gave you to believe 
that premise, was that very same 
statement that I was arguing for. 
In other words the conclusion appears as 
the premise, of an argument. 
For another premise which is itself the 
premise of an argument for the 
conclusion. 
That's circularity where the conclusion 
that you're arguing for appears as one of 
the premises in your argument for that 
conclusion. 
And that's a kind of circularity that 
people can fall for. 
Because the appearance of the proposition 
as a conclusion is distant from its 
appearance as a premise. 
They're separated by another premise. 
In addition to begging the question in 
circularity. 
There's another kind of fallacy of acuity 
that we're going to call self sealing. 
An argument is self-sealing, or as we'll 
sometimes say, as self-sealer. 
Just in case it's irrefutable by any 
possible evidence. 
There's no evidence that you could bring 
forward to show that the argument is 
unsuccessful. 
Let me give you an example of a 
self-sealing argument. 
Suppose I say other people have lived to 
be 100 years old and you might too. 
Okay. 
Now, even though that sounds like a 
conjunction, I was saying other people 
have lived to be 100 years old and you 
might too. Really, although it sounded 
like a conjunction, it was an insinuated 
argument. 
The idea was this. 
I first, bring up the fact, which 
admittedly is a fact, that other people 
have lived to be 100 years old. 
And then I suggest on the basis of that 
fact, I suggest as a conclusion to be 
inferred from that fact. 
That you might also live to be 100 years 
old. 
So that's an insinuated argument. 
Is that argument any good? Well, what 
evidence could you bring forward to show 
that that argument isn't any good. 
How could you bring forward evidence to 
show that it's not true that you might 
live to be 100 years old? Of course, if 
you don't live to be 100 years old, then 
I could say well, that just shows that 
you didn't actually live to be 100 years 
old. 
It didn't show that I was wrong when I 
said you might live to be 100 years old. 
It could still have been true that you 
might have lived to be 100 years old. 
Even though you didn't actually live to 
be 100 years old. 
So, what evidence could you possibly 
bring forward to show that it's not true 
that you might live to be 100 years old? 
What evidence could you possibly bring 
forward to show that the fact that other 
people have lived to be 100 years old 
doesn't support the claim that you might 
live to be 100 years old? This is an 
example of an argument that can't be 
refuted, can't be criticized by appeal to 
any evidence that you could bring 
forward, and because of that feature, the 
argument is one that we're going to call 
a self-sealer. 
Let me give you another example of a 
self-sealer. 
Suppose that I present you with a lot of 
evidence concerning the power of the 
automobile executives who live in 
Michigan. 
Right now. 
And I say on the basis of this evidence 
that the whole world, all if it's 
financial institutions, it's political 
institutions, and it's miliitary forces 
are controlled, secretly controlled, by a 
nefarious network of Michiganders. 
Now, you might wonder, well, aren't there 
some other people in the world, some 
non-Michiganders who have some say over 
the operation of our financial 
institutions, or Political institutions 
or our military forces. 
And I say, nope, nope. 
It's just that this network of powerful 
Michiganders is so covert, that they have 
planted evidence to the effect that there 
are some other non Michiganders who are 
responsible for some of the important 
things that happen in the world. 
But this evidence is all planted. 
This is all evidence that the 
Michiganders, have arranged for us to 
see, so that we'll be led off their path. 
In fact, it's these few Michiganders, who 
control all of the flow of money, and 
power and military force. 
In the world. 
Now, admittedly, you might be very 
skeptical about my contention. 
But, how are you going to refute me. 
How are you going to provide what I'm 
saying is false? Could you bring up 
evidence of some non-Michiganders who 
have some financial or political or 
military power? Well, if you do, I'll 
just say that evidence was planted by 
these powerful Michiganders. 
So my argument is a self-sealer. 
Because, no matter what evidence you 
offer to the contrary, I can counter your 
evidence. 
I can make some claim to the effect that 
the evidence that you've offered is 
misleading or irrelevant. 
That is another example of a self sealing 
argument. 
Now, let's consider some further examples 
of arguments. 
Which may or may not be self sealers. 
You decide. 
Finally, let me give you one more example 
of a self-sealing argument. 
The kind of self-sealing argument that I 
want to conclude by discussing is a kind 
of argument that commits both a falacy of 
accuity and also a falacy of ambiguity. 
Consider the following arguement. 
Suppose, I, describe to you various 
events that happened, and I give you an 
explaination of why they happened. 
And then I conclude, by saying, you see, 
everything happens for a reason, and I've 
supported that conclusion, by describing 
cases in which one or another thing Did 
happen for a reason. 
So I conclude by saying, everything 
happens for a reason. 
Now, suppose I then proceed to draw the 
further conclusion about some events that 
are taking place right now, I say see we 
might not know why these events are 
happening or what purpose they serve. 
But everything happens for a reason. 
And in time The reason why these things 
are happening will be disclosed. 
Okay, now notice what's happened. 
First of all, I've inoculated myself from 
counter evidence. 
So if you present me with counter 
evidence, let's say a year from now We 
still haven't found out what purpose was 
served by the events that are taking 
place right now. 
I could say okay. 
So, we still don't know what the reason 
was but there was a reason and we'll find 
out eventually. 
Well, I've just inoculated myself against 
any future evidence. 
Right? Because no matter how long. 
We continue to wait. 
I could still stay, yep we haven't found 
out what the reason was yet, let's wait 
some more. 
So, that's one way in which the argument 
is a self sealer. 
It's a self sealer because I've 
inoculated myself against refutation by 
counter evidence. 
But that argument also commits a fallacy 
of ambiguity. 
Ambiguity. 
When I was arguing that everything 
happens for a reason, I was giving 
examples of events that happened, because 
something caused them to happen. 
And it might be true that everything that 
happens is caused to happen. 
There was some cause or other of its 
happening. 
But then, after I reach the conclusion 
that everything happens for a reason. 
I then reinterpret the term "reason" to 
mean everything happens in the service of 
some other purpose, in the service of 
some larger purpose. 
So now when I say everything happens for 
a reason, I don't mean everything happens 
Because there is some cause or other of 
its occurrence. 
I mean, everything happens in the service 
of some larger purpose. 
And that's a totally different claim. 
So, here's a case of an argument that is 
both a self-sealer Right, it's 
irrefutable by counter evidence. 
And it also commits a fallacy of 
ambiguity. 
Right, it trades on 2 different meanings 
of the term, happens for a reason. 
Right, things could happen for a reason 
because something causes them to happen. 
Or things could happen for a reason 
because they serve some larger purpose. 
And this argument trades on those 2 
meanings.