Socratic Fallacy

The Socratic fallacy is one of the many smokescreens that are used to cover the fact that the reasoning is based on one of the three fallacies of Agrippa's trilemma. Whenever a logical fallacy is committed, the fallacy has its roots in Agrippa's trilemma. All human thought (without Divine revelation) is based on one of three unhappy possibilities. These three possibilities are infinite regress, circular reasoning, or axiomatic thinking. This problem is known as Agrippa's trilemma. Some have claimed that only logic and math can be known without Divine revelation; however, that is not true. There is no reason to trust either logic or math without Divine revelation. Science is also limited to the pragmatic because of the weakness on human reasoning, which is known as Agrippa's trilemma. This is a fallacy that superimposes another level of fallacy on top or one or more of the three fallacies of Agrippa's trilemma.

The Socratic fallacy occurs when a false claim is made that terms are required to be defined before examples of those terms can be given. This is not to say that it isn't vital that everyone is using the same definition of a given term.

Examples of the Socratic Fallacy

Rocky: "God speaks to me through my soul, my innermost mind."

Sandy: "You can't speak of either the soul or the mind until you can give a comprehensive definition."

The problem is one of circularity. We have to know enough to give a comprehensive definition before we can know anything. We know in part. Often, we don't know enough to really define a matter, but God reveals by degrees in unfolding revelation. This is true of natural things and of spiritual things. If we apply this logic to everything, then we can't talk about anything until we know everything about everything. However, when challenged, Sandy is likely to commit a special pleading fallacy to make exceptions for the things that he knows something about.

Not the Socratic Fallacy

Rocky: "Our point of disagreement is over the basis of thought. When we reason beyond physical observation, what is the valid way to do this. You believe that assumptions are valid. I believe that Divine revelation is valid."

Sandy: "Wait a minute. Define the word, assumption." (This is not the socratic fallacy.)

Rocky: "Made-up stuff. An assumption is a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof. It is something that cannot be verified or is not verified before accepting it as true or accepting it as certain to happen."

It's vital to know what an assumption is since college classes are often creating another broad definition for the word that includes testable, verifiable things. They mix the unverifiable assumptions that are true assumptions with tested and testable things, and then they imply that there is no difference. You will find an explanation of the problem with assumptions here, using an example from Berkeley.

Rocky: "You use the word, "science," but from the context, it seems like you are mixing a process that doesn't allow verification with another process that does allow verification and calling both of them science. Can you define the term as you understand it?"

Sandy: "Science is science. There are not different kinds of science. Science means a process of observation and experimentation plus a body of knowledge that includes all the traditionally held assumptions and opinions."

Rocky: "OK. I accept your definition for science and will try to use the word that way for our conversation, but I want to talk about what I will call "historical science," which is a subset of what you are defining as "science." Historical science, as I am defining it, consists of a forensic science that tries to look at things of the past that are unverifiable and untestable by without Divine revelation. Historical science operates in one of two ways. It can work by observing things in the present and using untestable assumptions to make up stories (hypothesis/theories) about what possibly might have happened in the past. It can also work by observing things in the present and using Divine revelation through the Bible to get the eye-witness account; from there it may make some loosely-held stories (hypothesis/theories) about what possibly might have happened in the past."