Undistributed middle
  • Jedothek
    18
    William Buckley was talking with Christopher Hitchens in 1984, you might be able to get it with

    https://www.google.com/search?q=buckley+hitchens&oq=buckley+hitchens&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMggIAxAAGBYYHtIBCTIyODE4ajBqNKgCALACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:4443daf0,vid:Atk7V3W6oUc,st:0

    or you could do a search on “buckley hitchens 1984 liberal crack-up.” Around 34:37 Hitchens says, “there’s an undistributed middle in your logic.”
    My question is: what is the undistributed middle?
    When I try to reconstruct what Buckley has just said, I get:

    All agents who call for suicidal measures are at fault.
    The left called for suicidal measures [to be effected in Iran in the last days of the Shah].
    Therefore the left is at fault,

    where of course the middle is distributed. How does Hitches understand Buckley and where is the fallacy? Hitchens could be mistaken of course, but he wasn’t stupid or dishonest, so what he said cannot be pure BS.
    What do you think?
    Jedothek Options
  • flannel jesus
    2.9k
    All agents who call for suicidal measures are at fault.
    The left called for suicidal measures [to be effected in Iran in the last days of the Shah].
    Therefore the left is at fault,     — Jedothek

    If this is truly the argument given, then I don't see an undistributed middle. Are you sure you got this part right?

    [edit] after having watched the clip from about a minute before your suggested timestamp to the point where he says it, I don't think that it's obvious at all that the logic you laid out here is the thing he's calling an undistributed middle. That being said, I'm not entirely sure what he is calling that.
    flannel jesus Options
  • jgill
    4k
    For those, like me, who didn't know: Fallacy of the undistributed middle
    jgill Options
  • Deleted User
    0
    This user has been deleted and all their posts removed.
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  • Jedothek
    18
    ↪flannel jesus
    As i suggested, that syllogism was only an attempt on my part to reconstruct Buckley's argument: I suspected it was irrelevant to Hitchens' reply because, as we both said, it contains no undistributed middle.

    I would appreciate any conjectures from folks as to what exactly was the argument from Buckley that Hitchens called fallacious.
    Jedothek Options
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