Difference between revisions of "Reductio ad absurdum" - New World Encyclopedia

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Reductio ad absurdum, Latin for "reduction to the absurd," traceable back to the Greek ἡ εις άτοπον απαγωγη (hê eis átopon apagogê), "reduction to the impossible," is a form of argument where one provisionally assumes one or more claims, derives a contradiction from them, and then concludes that at least one of those claims must be false. Such arguments are intimately related to the notion of 'paradox'. In both cases, one is presented with a pair of claims that cannot both be true (a contradiction), but which cannot be easily rejected. A reductio argument, however, is specifically aimed at bringing someone to reject some belief. Paradoxes, on the other hand, can be raised without there being any belief in particular that is being targeted.

Origins

As a dialectical tool, reductio arguments date very far back. The so-called 'early' dialogues of the Greek philosopher Plato are believed to have been representative of the method of his teacher Socrates (who appears in those dialogues as the main character), a method that crucially employed reductio arguments. Typically, the dialogue would represent an interaction between Socrates and someone who advanced a certain claim or claims. Socrates would then convince the person that their claims (along with certain background assumptions) led to a contradiction, thereby showing that the claims could not be sustained. The dialogues typically end with Socrates' interlocutor making a hasty retreat (for the most famous example, see the Euthyphro).

Reductio arguments were also a focus of Aristotle, who is considered the father of logic. In addition to explicitly defending the Principle of Non-Contradiction (see below), Aristotle classified reductio arguments as instances of immediate inference (as opposed to the mediate inferences formalized by syllogisms). Book 8 of Aristotle's Topics describes the use of reductio arguments as the means by which formal debates were conducted in Aristotle's Academy, suggesting that such an approach was seen as the preferred way to refute an opponent's philosophical position.

An Example

Perhaps the most well-rehearsed reductio argument concerns the existence of an omnipotent God. Here is one rendering:

There exists a God who can perform any task. (Assumption)
Making a rock so heavy that it can't be lifted is a task. (Assumption)
If there could be some rock so heavy that it can't be lifted, lifting it would be a task. (Assumption)
God can make a rock so heavy that it can't be lifted. (From 1, 2)
There can be a rock so heavy that it can't be lifted. (From 4)
God can lift a rock so heavy that it can't be lifted. That is, it is true that God can lift such a rock, and false that God can lift such a rock. (From 1, 3, 5)
Therefore, there cannot exist a God who can perform any task. (from 6, which is a contradition)

Note that the last step rejects the first assumption, instead of one of the other two. The basis for doing this is that the first assumption appears less plausible than either the second or the third. This of course, can in principle be denied. George Mavrodes, for instance, has explicitly argued that 'making a rock so heavy it can't be lifted' and 'lifting a rock so heavy it can't be lifted' are not in fact tasks at all, since their description is self-contradictory.

As this illustrates, the fact that a contradiction follows from a set of assumptions is not a sufficient basis for deciding which assumption should be rejected (unless, of course, there is only one assumption). Sometimes the choice is relatively superficial (both of the above conclusions essentially amount to granting that God, if he exists, cannot perform tasks whose description is self-contradictory). But sometimes the choice is quite difficult (for an especially poignant case, see Derek Parfit's 'Mere Addition Paradox' in his Reasons and Persons).

Reliance on the Principle of Non-Contradiction

One of the assumptions of the reductio argument form is that claims which entail a contradiction entail an absurd or unacceptable result. This relies on the 'principle of non-contradiction,' which holds that for any claim 'p,' it cannot be the case both that p is true and p is false. With this principle, one can infer from the fact that some set of claims entail a contradictory result (p and not-p) to the fact that that set of claims entails something false (namely, the claim that p and not-p). Though the principle of non-contradiction has seemed absolutely undeniable to most philosophers (the Leibnizian eighteenth-century German philosopher Christian Wolff attempted to base an entire philosophical system on it), but some historical figures appear to have denied it (arguably, Heraclitus, Hegel and Meinong). In more recent years, using the name 'dialetheism,' philosophers such as Graham Priest and Richard Routley have argued that some contradictions are true (motivated by paradoxes such as that posed by the statement, "this sentence is not true").

If the law of non-contradiction is false, then it can be the case that some contradictions are true. In that case, at least some instances of reductio arguments will fail, because the assumed claims will fail to yield anything absurd. Despite this philosophical possibility, the law of non-contradiction, and so the formal legitimacy of all reductio arguments, are still almost universally accepted by logicians. In some logical systems, the reductio form has been used as a basis for introducing a negation operator.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Anderson, A. R. and N. D. Belnap Jr. 1975. Entailment: The Logic of Relevance and Necessity, vol. I. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Barnes, J. 2007. Truth, etc.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Barnes, Jonathan, ed. 1984. The Complete Works of Aristotle: Volume 1. Princeton: Princeton University Publishing.
Cooper, John M., ed. 1997. Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Kneale, M. and W. Kneale. 1962. The Development of Logic. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mavrodes, George. 1963. "Some Puzzles Concerning Omnipotence" in Philosophical Review, 72, 221-223.
Pafit, Derek. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

External links

All links retrieved December 7, 2022.

Stanford Encyclopedia entries:

General Philosophy Sources

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+{{Copyedited}}{{Paid}}{{Approved}}{{Images OK}}{{Submitted}}
-'''Reductio ad absurdum''', [[Latin]] for "reduction to the absurd", traceable back to the [[Greek language|Greek]] ''&eta;&#x0314; &epsilon;&iota;&sigmaf;  άτοπον &alpha;&pi;&alpha;&gamma;&omega;&gamma;&eta;'' (''hê eis átopon apagogê''), "reduction to the impossible", often used by [[Aristotle]], also known as an '''apagogical argument''', '''reductio ad impossibile''', or '''proof by contradiction''', is a type of [[logical argument]] where one assumes a claim for the sake of argument, derives an absurd or ridiculous outcome, and then concludes that the original assumption must have been wrong, as it led to an absurd result. It makes use of the [[law of non-contradiction]] - a statement  cannot be both true and false. In some cases it may also make use of the [[law of excluded middle]] - a statement must be either true or false.
+'''Reductio ad absurdum''', [[Latin language|Latin]] for "reduction to the absurd," traceable back to the Greek ''&eta;&#x0314; &epsilon;&iota;&sigmaf; άτοπον &alpha;&pi;&alpha;&gamma;&omega;&gamma;&eta;'' ''(hê eis átopon apagogê)'', "reduction to the impossible," is a form of argument where one provisionally assumes one or more claims, derives a contradiction from them, and then concludes that at least one of those claims must be false. Such arguments are intimately related to the notion of '[[paradox]]'. In both cases, one is presented with a pair of claims that cannot both be true (a contradiction), but which cannot be easily rejected. A ''reductio'' argument, however, is specifically aimed at bringing someone to reject some belief. Paradoxes, on the other hand, can be raised without there being any belief in particular that is being targeted.
+{{toc}}
+==Origins==
+As a dialectical tool, ''reductio'' arguments date very far back. The so-called 'early' dialogues of the Greek [[philosophy|philosopher]] [[Plato]] are believed to have been representative of the method of his teacher [[Socrates]] (who appears in those dialogues as the main character), a method that crucially employed ''reductio'' arguments. Typically, the dialogue would represent an interaction between Socrates and someone who advanced a certain claim or claims. Socrates would then convince the person that their claims (along with certain background assumptions) led to a contradiction, thereby showing that the claims could not be sustained. The dialogues typically end with Socrates' interlocutor making a hasty retreat (for the most famous example, see the ''Euthyphro'').
-In formal logic, ''reductio ad absurdum'' is used when a formal contradiction can be derived from a premise, allowing one to conclude that the premise is false.  If a contradiction is derived from a set of premises, this shows that at least one of the premises is false, but other means must be used to determine which one.
+''Reductio'' arguments were also a focus of [[Aristotle]], who is considered the father of [[logic]]. In addition to explicitly defending the Principle of Non-Contradiction (see below), Aristotle classified ''reductio'' arguments as instances of immediate inference (as opposed to the mediate inferences formalized by syllogisms). Book 8 of Aristotle's ''Topics'' describes the use of ''reductio'' arguments as the means by which formal debates were conducted in Aristotle's Academy, suggesting that such an approach was seen as the preferred way to refute an opponent's philosophical position.
-''Reductio ad absurdum'' is also often used to describe an argument where a conclusion is derived in the belief that everyone (or at least those being argued against) will accept that it is false or absurd. However, this is a weak form of ''reductio'', as the decision to reject the premise requires that the conclusion is accepted as being absurd. Although a formal contradiction is by definition absurd (unacceptable), a weak ''reductio ad absurdum'' argument can be rejected simply by accepting the purportedly absurd conclusion.
+==An Example==
+Perhaps the most well-rehearsed ''reductio'' argument concerns the existence of an omnipotent God. Here is one rendering:
-There is a fairly common misconception that ''reductio ad absurdum'' simply denotes "a silly argument" and is itself a [[logical fallacy]]. However, this is not correct; a properly constructed ''reductio'' constitutes a correct argument.
+# There exists a God who can perform any task. (Assumption)
+# Making a rock so heavy that it can't be lifted is a task. (Assumption)
+# If there could be some rock so heavy that it can't be lifted, lifting it would be a task. (Assumption)
+# God can make a rock so heavy that it can't be lifted. (From 1, 2)
+# There can be a rock so heavy that it can't be lifted. (From 4)
+# God can lift a rock so heavy that it can't be lifted. That is, it is true that God can lift such a rock, and false that God can lift such a rock. (From 1, 3, 5)
+# Therefore, there cannot exist a God who can perform any task. (from 6, which is a contradition)
-==Examples==
+Note that the last step rejects the first assumption, instead of one of the other two. The basis for doing this is that the first assumption appears less plausible than either the second or the third. This of course, can in principle be denied. George Mavrodes, for instance, has explicitly argued that 'making a rock so heavy it can't be lifted' and 'lifting a rock so heavy it can't be lifted' are not in fact tasks at all, since their description is self-contradictory.
-The following dialogue is an example of ''reductio ad absurdum'':
-:Mother - ''I don't want you getting a tattoo.''
+As this illustrates, the fact that a contradiction follows from a set of assumptions is not a sufficient basis for deciding which assumption should be rejected (unless, of course, there is only one assumption). Sometimes the choice is relatively superficial (both of the above conclusions essentially amount to granting that God, if he exists, cannot perform tasks whose description is self-contradictory). But sometimes the choice is quite difficult (for an especially poignant case, see Derek Parfit's 'Mere Addition Paradox' in his ''Reasons and Persons'').
-:Son - ''Why not?''
-:Mother - ''Because tattoos were used in the holocaust.''
-:Son - ''Okay, I'll never ride a train again, or take a shower, be naked, or speak German.''
-{{See also|Reductio ad Hitlerum}}
+==Reliance on the Principle of Non-Contradiction==
+One of the assumptions of the ''reductio'' argument form is that claims which entail a contradiction entail an absurd or unacceptable result. This relies on the 'principle of non-contradiction,' which holds that for any claim 'p,' it cannot be the case both that p is true and p is false. With this principle, one can infer from the fact that some set of claims entail a contradictory result (p and not-p) to the fact that that set of claims entails something false (namely, the claim that p and not-p). Though the principle of non-contradiction has seemed absolutely undeniable to most philosophers (the [[Leibniz|Leibnizian]] eighteenth-century [[Germany|German]] philosopher [[Christian Wolff]] attempted to base an entire philosophical system on it), but some historical figures appear to have denied it (arguably, [[Heraclitus]], [[Hegel]] and [[Meinong]]). In more recent years, using the name 'dialetheism,' philosophers such as Graham Priest and Richard Routley have argued that some contradictions are true (motivated by paradoxes such as that posed by the statement, "this sentence is not true").
+If the law of non-contradiction is false, then it can be the case that some contradictions are true. In that case, at least some instances of ''reductio'' arguments will fail, because the assumed claims will fail to yield anything absurd. Despite this philosophical possibility, the law of non-contradiction, and so the formal legitimacy of all ''reductio'' arguments, are still almost universally accepted by logicians. In some logical systems, the ''reductio'' form has been used as a basis for introducing a negation operator.
+==See also==
+*[[Paradox]]
-Another example:
+==References==
+* Anderson, A. R. and N. D. Belnap Jr. 1975. ''Entailment: The Logic of Relevance and Necessity'', vol. I. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
-:A - ''All beliefs are of equal validity and cannot be denied.''
+* Barnes, J. 2007. ''Truth, etc.''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-:B - ''If that's the case, then C is correct in his belief, even though C believes something that is considered to be wrong by most people, such as that [[Flat Earth|the Earth is flat]].''
+* Barnes, Jonathan, ed. 1984. ''The Complete Works of Aristotle: Volume 1.'' Princeton: Princeton University Publishing.
-:A - ''True.''
+* Cooper, John M., ed. 1997. ''Plato: Complete Works.'' Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
-:B - ''Then some beliefs can be denied.''
+* Kneale, M. and W. Kneale. 1962. ''The Development of Logic''. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
+* Mavrodes, George. 1963. "Some Puzzles Concerning Omnipotence" in ''Philosophical Review'', 72, 221-223.
-The following is a trickier reduction, but one which is stronger from the philosophical point of view because it does not rely on A's accepting that C's opinion is wrong:
+* Pafit, Derek. 1984. ''Reasons and Persons.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-: A - ''You should respect C's belief, for all beliefs are of equal validity and cannot be denied.''
-: B -
-:#''I deny that all beliefs are of equal validity.''
-:#''According to your statement, this belief of mine ('''''1''''') is valid, like all other beliefs.''
-:#''However, your statement also contradicts and invalidates mine, being the exact opposite of it.''
-:#'' '''''2''''' and '''''3''''' are incompatible, so your statement is logically absurd.''
-In each case, B has used a reduction to the absurd to argue his or her point.  The second example is also a version of the [[liar paradox]].
-Another very familiar example:
-:Mother - ''Why did you start smoking?''
-:Son - ''All my friends were doing it.''
-:Mother - ''You're saying that if all your friends jumped off a cliff, you would do that too?''
-Here, the mother refutes the son's justification by showing the absurdity of its consequences.
-A recent, fairly well-known example of ''reductio ad absurdum'' is Bobby Henderson's notion of the [[Flying Spaghetti Monster]], used to parody efforts by [[creationism|creationists]] and believers in [[intelligent design]] to teach such theories in science classes, instead of or in addition to [[evolution]]. His argument is that, given the arguments used by creationists and supporters of intelligent design, his lighthearted theory that a flying spaghetti monster created the world has an equally legitimate claim to a place in the science curriculum. This is a good example of the weaker form of ''reductio'' noted above, since it does not involve a formal contradiction. Someone could respond by saying that creationism and pastafarianism should indeed both be taught in schools; this position would strike most people as absurd (and this is Henderson's point), but it is, at least, internally consistent.
+==External links==
+All links retrieved December 7, 2022.
-Attempts to construct a valid ''reductio ad absurdum'' are sometimes vulnerable to degenerating into fallacious [[straw man]] and/or [[slippery slope]] arguments. For example:
+*Stanford Encyclopedia entries:
+** [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-ancient/ Ancient Logic]
-:A - ''I don't think the police should arrest teenagers for soft drug possession.''
+**[http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/ Aristotle's Logic]
-:B - ''So, you are basically arguing the police should not enforce the law and we should live in a society of violent chaos.''
+** [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dialetheism/ Dialetheism]
+===General Philosophy Sources===
-==In mathematics==
+*[http://plato.stanford.edu/ Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
+*[http://www.iep.utm.edu/ The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
-Say we wish to disprove proposition ''p''.  The procedure is to show that assuming ''p'' leads to a logical [[contradiction]].  Thus, according to the law of non-contradiction, ''p'' must be false.
+*[http://www.bu.edu/wcp/PaidArch.html Paideia Project Online]
+*[http://www.gutenberg.org/ Project Gutenberg]
-Say instead we wish to prove proposition ''p''. We can proceed by assuming "not ''p''" (i.e. that ''p'' is false), and show that it leads to a logical contradiction. Thus, according to the law of non-contradiction, "not ''p''" must be false, and so, according to the law of the excluded middle, ''p'' is true.
-In symbols:
-To disprove ''p'': one uses the tautology ''[p ^ (R ^ ~R)] → ~p'' where R is any proposition and the "^" symbol is taken to mean '''and'''. Assuming ''p'', one proves ''R'' and ''~R'', together they imply ''~p''.
-To prove ''p'': one uses the tautology ''[~p ^ (R ^ ~R)] →p'' where R is any proposition. Assuming ''~p'', one proves ''R'' and ''~R'', together they imply ''p''.
-For a simple example of the first kind, consider the proposition "there is no smallest rational number greater than 0". In a ''reductio ad absurdum'' argument, we would start by assuming the opposite: that there ''is'' a smallest rational number, say, ''r''<sub>0</sub>.
-Now let ''x'' = ''r''<sub>0</sub>/2. Then ''x'' is a rational number, and it's greater than 0; and ''x'' is smaller than ''r''<sub>0</sub>. (In the above symbolic argument, "x is the smallest rational number" would be R and "r (which is different from x) is the smallest rational number" would be R~".) But that contradicts our initial assumption that ''r''<sub>0</sub> was the ''smallest'' rational number. So we can conclude that the original proposition must be true - "there is no smallest rational number greater than 0".
-It is not uncommon to use this first type of argument with propositions such as the one above, concerning the ''non''-existence of some mathematical object. One assumes that such an object exists, and then proves that this would lead to a contradiction; thus, such an object does not exist. For other examples, see [[Irrational number#The square root of 2|proof that the square root of 2 is not rational]] and [[Cantor's diagonal argument]].
-On the other hand, it is also common to use arguments of the second type concerning the ''existence'' of some mathematical object. One assumes that the object doesn't exist, and then proves that this would lead to a contradiction; thus, such an object must exist. Although it is quite freely used in mathematical proofs, not every [[philosophy of mathematics|school of mathematical thought]] accepts this kind of argument as universally valid. In schools such as [[intuitionism]], the [[law of the excluded middle]] is not taken as true. From this way of thinking, there is a very significant difference between proving that something exists by showing that it would be absurd if it did not; and proving that something exists by constructing an actual example of such an object. These schools will still, however, accept arguments of the first kind concerning non-existence. A famous example of the second kind is [[Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer|Brouwer]]'s own proof of his [[Brouwer fixed point theorem|fixed point theorem]], which shows that it is impossible for certain fixed points not to exist, without being able to show how to obtain one in the general case.
-It is important to note that to form a valid proof, it must be demonstrated that the assumption being made for the sake of argument implies a property that is actually false in the mathematical system being used. The danger here is the logical fallacy of [[Argument from ignorance|argument from lack of imagination]], where it is proven that the assumption implies a property which ''looks'' false, but is not really ''proven'' to be false. Traditional (but incorrect!) examples of this fallacy include false proofs of [[Euclid]]'s ''fifth postulate'' (a.k.a. ''the [[parallel postulate]]'') from the other postulates.
-The reason these examples are not really examples of this fallacy is that the notion of proof was different in the [[19th century]]; (Euclidean) geometry was seen as being a 'true' reflection of physical reality, and so deducing a contradiction by concluding something physically implausible (like the angles of a triangle not being 180 degrees) was acceptable.  Doubts about the nature of the geometry of the universe led mathematicians such as [[Bolyai]], [[Carl Friedrich Gauss|Gauss]], [[Lobachevsky]], [[Riemann]], among others, to question and clarify what actually constituted 'geometry'.  Out of these men's work, resulted [[Non-Euclidean geometry]].
-For a further exposition of these misunderstandings see [[Morris Kline]], ''Mathematical Thought: from Ancient to Modern Times''.
-In [[mathematical logic]], the ''reductio ad absurdum'' is represented as:
-: if
-::<math>S \cup \{ p \} \vdash F</math>
-: then
-::<math>S  \vdash \neg p</math>
-or
-: if
-::<math>S \cup \{ \neg p \} \vdash F</math>
-: then
-::<math>S  \vdash p</math>
-In the above, ''p'' is the proposition we wish to prove or disprove; and ''S'' is a set of statements which are given as true - these could be, for example, the axioms of the theory we are working in, or earlier theorems we can build upon. We consider ''p'', or the negation of ''p'', in addition to ''S''; if this leads to a logical contradiction ''F'', then we can conclude that the statements in ''S'' lead to the negation of ''p'', or ''p'' itself, respectively.
-Note that the [[union (set theory)|set-theoretic union]], in some contexts closely related to [[logical disjunction]] (or), is used here for sets of statements in  such a way that it is more related to [[logical conjunction]] (and).
-In the words of [[G. H. Hardy]] (''[[A Mathematician's Apology]]''), "Reductio ad absurdum, which Euclid  loved so much, is one of a mathematician's finest weapons. It is a far finer gambit than any chess [[gambit]]: a [[chess]] player may offer the sacrifice of a pawn or even a piece, but a mathematician offers the game."
-==See also==
-*[[Reductio ad Hitlerum]]
-[[Category:logic]]
 [[Category:philosophy and religion]]
 [[Category:philosophy]]
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