Tuesday, February 17, 2009

From titmouses to....humans?!? Hitler's Faulty Logic

among his many other 'accomplishments' or what ever you may call them, hitler wrote a book called Mein Kampf meaning My Struggle. in chapter 11 of this text, as well as many other chapters im sure, Hitler makes several points which are actually fallacies
1. according to hitler, different races mean different species, different levels of strength and dominancy. this fallacy can be considered 'begging the question', as he speaks on the subject as if the claim has already been proven to be true
2. hitler's conclusion that the mating of people of different races is comparable to mating of separate species (foxes do not mate with titmouses, so why should people of different color mate?) is a 'false analogy'. this is because, upon looking deeper, one may realize that skin color does not separate humans into dfifferent species-we are all in the same species which is bipedal primates.
3. a third fallacy in this excerpt from hitler's book ir found in the first sentence of the chapter. here, hitler says that these ideas he is proposing have always been right under our noses, but everyone is too ignorant to notice. this is an 'ad hominem' fallacy, as hitler is attacking the opponent rather than his argument.
4. another fallacy that can be found is 'faulty use of authority', as hitler refers to the Bible to support his argument. he says that we were created separate and we must stay that way, because it is mother nature and God who intend for us to be segregated into our own race, or supposed 'species'
overall, much of the logic in this chapter of Mein Kampf is not difficult to discredit. one must simply look and understand deductive and inductive logic, and fallacies.

2 comments: