Would love to see you & IP in an actual debate, but maybe on a more important topic

Thank you for working with this creator’s own arguments to explain this. This is the best explanation of the fallacy with relevant examples I have seen.

I do find many Christians have certain criteria that they have been taught is essential to being a Christian, and yet those criteria are not universal. You must be a trinitarian, must follow the KJV bible, must have been baptised, must be born again, must perform certain rituals or prayers. How important each criteria is seems to be completely subjective. When someone tells me they believe in Jesus, the bible and God, I'm happy to take them at their word and call them a Christian. The huge amount of variety within each of those categories means no two Christians believe exactly the same things, so it has to be considered a blanket term and not specific as fundamentalist types seem to demand.

The important take away for me here, is the reminder that you can make fallacious arguments for a correct conclusion. Just because your right doesn't make your argument sound, communication and sound argumentation are key.

"No TRUE Batchelor is Married".

Yeah, lots of people don't know how fallacies work. They don't address the truth of the premisses or conclusion but only the validity of an argument. My favourite example: 1. Water is wet 2. and grass is green 3. so Vladimir Putin is president of Russia. The only incorrect word here is "so".

This was fun to listen to. Took me back almost 50 years to a philosophy class I had in college. Keep the good work Dan!!

Best way I understand Dan is that the word "true" is the key factor Person A: an anime fan will love Dragon Ball Person B: I have a friend I watch anime with and he hates Dragon Ball Person A: a true anime fan will love Dragon Ball. That's how I understand it. I do get IPs response about not accepting it, but that doesn't mean that they can get along. Like an atheist and a Christian, they can get along, they may not see eye to eye in beliefs, but they can still be friends. Or like Mormons and Protestants, The Mormons I believe don't believe in consuming alcohol, but a Protestant may drink, the Mormon doesn't have to accept their ideology, but the protestant drinking is no more no less Christian than any other denomination. That's how I see it at least

Dan, why move right past the moving of the goalpost problem to get at whether or not this person asserts themself to have the correct definition ?

Trinitarianism is not even specifically mentioned in the New Testament. As Dan might say, only by renegotiating with the text can you come to the conclusion that belief the trinity is something that is required to qualify one as a true Christian. And if you’re even going to attempt to massage the modern conception of the trinity from the New Testament, you’re going to have to commit to some wildly eisegetical apologetics. Alright, Michael Jones, let’s see it.🤭

"My uncle Angus eats mushroom steaks."

If the evangelical gate keepers are right, the population of Heaven is one.

As an old academic debater, I really love your critiques of argument and the take-downs of informal fallacies most of all. I am always a little sad when people that don’t actually understand what they’re talking about come across so smug though, like the gentleman you are correcting

I vote for banning mentioning logical fallacies. Unless it’s professional philosophers talking among themselves. Seems to me most people either don’t know what they are or how to identify them correctly. They add an unnecessary layer of complexity to normal conversations. Imo it’s much better and clearer to just explain why one thinks the other person’s point is wrong or incorrect.

Dan himself commits a question-begging fallacy (i.e. flagrant circular reasoning) by invoking "all people who identify as Christian." But what is the definition of Christian? He's either getting the logic completely backwards or just projecting.

Wait, IP thinks that as long as an argument has a true conclusion, it's not invalid? What? :D

I love the passion for logic required to make this. Thank you!

Thank you for this follow up. I sorta got it in your previous video, but it really clicked this time around!

This was insanely helpful. I was asking similar questions after the last post and this really cleared up exactly what it means to commit a fallacy. Thanks!

Thanks Dan...pretty new to your channel and enjoying your rational breakdowns. I'm starting to understand that a lot of people mistake the basic premise of philosophy. In my own experience, I've always had it described in more esoteric/feel good terms and your videos are helping to make clear that it is quite the opposite and is more interested in being systematic and logical in its approach.

Aren't definitions arbitrary? Why argue about definitions at all?

First time I've ever disagreed with Dan. I don't care how someone identifies. Words have meanings.If you eat steak, you are not a vegan. Philosophy does tend to lead to nonsense. Similarly, anyone can call themselves a Christian. That doesn't make it so, not when there is a thing called lying. What an actual Christian is, is a more difficult question. If it's just an identity then it truly has no meaning, except a social one. I was brought up as a Christian, and I see the name used as a talisman by crooks who want to appear good. I think there needs to be a minimal set of beliefs that define a religion.

Would it be a fallacy if the argument was the following? “All Christians believe in the Trinity” “JW are Christian and they do not believe in the doctrine of a Trinity” “To be Christian requires believing in what is described in the Nicene Creed of 381. This creed requires the belief in the consubstantiality of the Father and Son. If JWs don’t believe this then they are not true Christians”

Bottom line: IP wants permission to be superior to persons who they probably don't even know

I remember Jesus breaking bread with tax collectors, prostitutes, he would hang out with and teach sinners. He washed the feet of the disciples and called us to do likewise. Being humble and being of service. I think some people missed the point. If God loves us unconditionally shouldn't we strive to love others likewise? A prerequisite of acceptance is not understanding or even liking a thing. That's still your brother or sister. A person could say they're the arch mage 33rd degree of the flying spaghetti monster. How does that effect me at all? I think some apologists need to refocus on more important things, y'know?

Thank you for this video Dan. It actually helped me understand No True Scotsman better and, well, more completely. As always I appriciate your videos very much. Keep up the good work!

i love that in one portion of the video, the “philosophy “ guy clearly explains what the fallacy is about, and still doesn’t understand his own logic

I would argue that he (and many conservative evangelicals) is not "arbitrarily" defining "Christian" this way. He is *authoritatively* defining "Christian" this way. He fundamentally believes (or at least acts like) that to disagree with him is to disagree with God. He believes that his thoughts are God's thoughts. From the outside, there is no difference between what he is asserting and what God is asserting. There is no humility. There is no reasoning together to figure out who or what God thinks. He doesn't just know what God wants, but to him what God thinks is indistinguishable from what he thinks.

Damn scholarly biblical internet beef is a sight to see 😬😂

There are actually extenuating circumstances when a vegan would eat steak, unless they are also a vegetarian. Dan makes similar points very well in this video. However, I couldn't possibly comment on whether vegans would put sugar on their porridge, even though I am a Scotsman and a vegetarian. I mean, no real Scottish vegetarian would ever use these ridiculous fallacies, anyway.

This kid: All "no true Scotsman" fallacies have an arbitrary definition. Dan: An arbitrary definition is not needed to commit "no true Scotsman" fallacy. This kid: All TRUE "no true Scotsman" fallacies have an arbitrary definition.

I always thought the No true Scotsman fallacy was very easy to understand. Now through Michael and Dan's back and forth I've learned so much about the nuances of it

This is a complete assumption, but Dan seems to be a bit more relative (and realistic) vs. the other guy with truth. Dan understands you can make arguments to prove who should be included in Christianity, but the other guy seems to think there is just one group of “true” Christians. Therefore, he doesn’t need an argument. He can just use the term “true” Christian as though it is already defined.

There seem to be three interesting problems that pops up when one tries to determine who is a "real" Christian. 1. (Most importantly): You are not the judge of that (we are sure, like Job's friends, to get it wrong) 2. What the Bible say? It often say contradictory things and operative words (like "believe") is notoriously many-faceted and how true and set in stone claim in the Bible are, is hard to determine when we cannot get affirmation from God himself (currently) on whether the claims in the Bible are from him or from the human authors. 3. Are you questioning who is SAVED or who is A DISCIPLE, as in "a good and true servant of Gods will" (this is not the same question). Even what the Bible mean by "saved" (when it uses the term) is hard to pin down (is it an earthly or heavenly association with God we are talking about?), Or is salvation UNIVERSAL or INDIVIDUAL (many are sure of the answer, but the Bible gives directives in BOTH directions).

It’s almost like inspiring philosophy doesn’t even think the fallacy exists.

Lol love this back and forth

circular logic works because circular logic works because circular logic works

Thank you Dan for doing this cuz I seen this guy debate many people many times and it doesn't comprehend the typical fallacies and this is a great example of you calling him out thank you

Maybe I missed the reason this came up but it feels really nitpicky. No true scotsman fallacy is really only an issue in discussions when someone starts with a category, and keeps altering it based on counterexamples. Changing or clarifying a categorization in itself isn't really a problem until you try holding both definitions simultaneously. Otherwise it's just kinda annoying but not an issue. All words and labels at the end of the day are arbitrary. What matters is that we're consistent and have a mutual understanding of what's being communicated.

I gotta admit that vegan argument would’ve got me. It was around 6:30 where the lightbulb finally went on and I see Dan’s side of it

I have learnt so much about fallacies, the true Scotsman fallacy, arbitrary redefinitions in arguments from this video. I love it and I can use all this in my work. Thanks Dan!!!

In other words, IP may be correct in saying that the identity of being a Christian entails a Trinitarian theology, but he hasn't done the work to establish that, hence he falls afoul of the no true Scotsman fallacy. Further, he will run into a fallacy of reason if he wants to impose Trinitarian theology on the Christian identity marker, as Christians before the third or fourth century would not have been Trinitarians, but IP would want at least some of them included in his tent of Christians as they are necessary for other features of his Christian identity.

There is no unvocality in Super Mario Brothers, BRO

I’m a progressive Christian who likes both Dan and IP and it feels like mom and dad are fighting about which church I should go to on Sunday.

This was such a great explanation of this issue. Wonderful teacher! Example of a fallacy that has a "true" conclusion based on false premises. Divorce is rampant in America. We only stand a 50 percent chance of survival. Therefore, we can't get married." This can happen in all types of syllagisms! I don't get why IP doesn't understand that "true" is a moving term. Refutation at its finest!

This whole situation is kind of funny. It started with the guy stating that he was not committing the No True Scotsman fallacy, then Dan agreed but corrected his definition of the fallacy, then the guy decided to argue about it anyway lol

Thank you for your work Dan, I enjoy your videos so very much.

Looking forward to an actual conversation between the 2 of you

I've enjoyed watching this back and forth, but I think a live conversation between you and Inspiring Philosophy could go really well. I don't expect you two to ever fully agree (since there is a bit of an underlying data vs dogma issue here), but just getting to the root of the disagreement would help to illustrate how meaning is constructed and negotiated in different contexts.

I’m excited for the response

I wasn't totally satisfied with your previous video, and I found this re-re-response more successful. Thanks for revisiting!

I think there are two pieces here. One is the _post hoc_ redefinition of the concept under discussion. That's in itself a no-no and something that famously invalidates a low of statistical interpretation in empirical science. The other, and more impressive, piece is the rhetorical use of the word “true” which is a shorthand that generalises over _all possible post hoc redefinitions_ and selects just the one(s) that will win the argument! Genius!

Can’t wait for the second response on circular reasoning. This was fascinating

No TRUE Super Mario Bros. fan would wear a shirt identifying Princess Toadstool as "Peach."

Exactly, some Vegans use leather products because they are more sustainable and have a lower negative impact on animal life

Interesting ❤❤❤

Thanks. Great job!

This is really helpful, I'm going to show it to my class on logical fallacies

Dear Dr Dan , I have been following you through your podcasts ever since I first saw your interview with John Dehlin on Mormon Stories. I think you are brilliant and very enjoyable. Do you know of and collaborate with Dr David Bokovoy?

Awesomeness.

"One true and living [Mario Game]" Excellent.

The scholar part of my brain: Dan is right about the no true Scotsman fallacy. The Eastern Orthodox part of my brain: man, I REALLY want a steak.

All of this also ignores that orthodox Christianity is certainly not what the earliest Christians believed. You start out with the religion of Jesus, and then after his death quickly move to the religion ABOUT Jesus, and at that point beliefs about Jesus are being developed, including various Christologies, conceptualizations of the afterlife, and accepted scripture. And each, sometimes wildly different, version of these Jesus based religions could be understood as Christian.

@4:03 What do you mean by perfect and imperfect vegan?

Makes sense

I don't think he misrepresented all three sources. He only misrepresented the primary source by Antony Flew. I read the other two (at least what's shown on the screen), and unlike the primary source, they don't claim that it's necessary for the redefinition to exclude the counter example by using words like "true," "genuine," or such. The first source by Stuart Hanscomb even says that it's also known as an ad hoc rescue, which shifts the focus to the arbitrary redefinition rather than the fixating on words like "true" or "genuine." Note how he is the only one to highlight the redefinition from being purely geographical to describing a specific attitude. The second source doesn't say anything about these words except in the examples. In my opinion, it'd be best to separate the two fallacies ad hoc rescue and no true Scottsman. First, while in many cases a no true Scottsman is an ad hoc rescue, notice how in the "no true democrats" example provided by the second source, an altercation was not made. However, the point is that by appending the word "true," even if not exclusive to the response, all potential counter examples could be ignored, and consequently untrained listeners could be deceived. Thus, it may be seen as an ad hoc rescue, though if that requires an explicit shift of definition, then the "no true Democrat" example cannot be sufficiently called an ad hoc rescue. I will also note that it is helpful to distinguish between true and by name if certain metaphysical assertions are taken to be true. For instance, accepting the Catholic worldview, one may consider themselves Christian, but we could say he's not a "true Christian," i.e, one who God would consider to be a humble servant, and that could be established via Catholic doctrines, and I don't believe that would be committing a true Scottsman fallacy since in this case the word "true" does not lead to an ad hoc rejection of counter examples, as the definition would have been well stipulated. To conclude, I believe IP and Dr. McClellan are covering two different fallacies, thanks to common errors found in most logic books (ironic, I know). I also believe the main way to avoid the fallacy is to simply make it clear whether we're using a stipulative or a lexical definition. The true Scottsman fallacy, as far as I understand, could only be made in examples where the argumenter intentionally confuses between what's lexically known and what's stipulative, whereas in the Catholic example I mentioned, no such confusion could occur. Let me know if I got anything wrong! Thanks

Thanks, this answered all my questions from the last video.

No matter how hard Inspiring Philosophy tries to define being a Christian based on personal beliefs or biases, it will always be logically flawed. Using the example of veganism, if we Google the definition of Christian, it's simply believing in Jesus and his teachings and God (the Father Jesus points to). So, while it's correct to say that no vegan eats meat, equating this to no Christian who doesn't believe in the Trinity not being a Christian is misleading and a false equivalence. A more accurate analogy would be to say that no vegan who works in a restaurant preparing meat is a true vegan, even though they themselves don't eat meat. Christianity traditionally revolves around the belief in Jesus and God, not exclusively on the acceptance of the Trinity. Insisting that only those who adhere to the Trinity are 'true' Christians parallels the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy, where definitions are manipulated to exclude individuals who do not meet a particular standard. Moreover, Jesus himself never explicitly stated that belief in the Trinity is a prerequisite for entering the kingdom of heaven."

You’d think a channel with philosophy in it’s name would understand the basics of fallacies

In the LGBT+ community, we have to allow for conflicts between identity and behavior, for example, a lesbian who is in a sexual relationship with a man. A good fictional study of the phenomenon is the setup for _Bob and Rose_ a British TV series by Russel T. Davies, in which a gay man and a straight woman fall in love, and they and everyone around them have to confront how that conflicts with identities and definitions. But LGBT+ identities are controversial and the need for the closet (for keeping desires and relationships clandestine) continues to exist. Indeed, bisexuals have often had to have two doors on the closet, expressing their gayness among gay associates and expressing heterosexual opinions among family and business colleagues. Lesbian communities have had to contend with gatekeeping by _gold star lesbians_ who've never engaged with men at all, as opposed to those who have before or sometimes still do. We sometimes have to remind people that the big index of definitions is a tool for understanding your own sexual and gender identity, and not something to use to judge others. And so it is with Christianity, though religious ministries are also fraught with gatekeeping, even though most of them teem with parishioners who do not fully accept the creeds and statements of faith as asserted by their church. Catholics in the developed world notoriously use birth control even when the Pope, CDF and USCCB demands they do not. And because definitions of _Christian_ vary from church to church, if not from individual to individual, those of us on the outside have to assume a Christian is anyone who identifies as one, no matter their behaviors or assertions. And yes, this lends itself to even atheist Christians who see Jesus as merely a man who did not perform miracles nor was resurrected. But then, cultural Catholics exist, who go to church not because they believe, but because it is a social occasion that is useful to them. As with conservative, feminist, communist, goth, Juggalo, gamer, etc. social identities are often so big as to include people whose opinions run contrary to (or are inconsistent with) commonly understood doctrine, and we cannot assume that just because someone identifies as a thing that we understand their positions. Often they align, but often enough they do not align, and if the LGBT+ community informs, any kind of assertion that someone is _not a real Republican_ or _not a valid rock-&-roller_ or _not truly gay_ is just gatekeeping. Everyone's identity is valid and has to be. And so it is for Christians, trinitarian or otherwise.

Google keeps thinking I want to watch Inspiring Philosophy.

Are there vegan Scotsmen?

I’m assuming that the Inspiring Philosophy channel is not run by trained philosophers, because, wow, he even misread the paragraphs he was using to try and defend his position. I have taught critical reasoning courses to undergraduates who understand the fallacy better than him.

Cool

The earliest christians including paul and the apostles , the patristic authors and apostolic fathers then are not christians because they dont believe in the trinity.. because the trinitarian doctrine was not invented yet during their time

I admire what you do. This requires patience and a good dose of teaching. The problem with people like Inspiring Philosophy or even WL Craig is this. They do not practice different logics. They do not practice the philosophical approach. This is why logic and philosophy are used as an indirect source of authority in the service of a rhetoric from which the critical aspect is excluded. Instead of examining the basis of their claims, they treat them as indisputable facts, ignoring that data is always constructed. So👍👏

Awesome fit

Love this video response

Okay, then what do you call it when you revise your generalization non-arbitrarily?

Just out of personal curiosity, is there a reason you refer to Michael as “they”? Not at a dig at you, but curious.

Disappointed that you didn't invoke the fallacy fallacy at 2m40

I'm glad you made this video, Dan. This clarification has helped me better understand the fallacy.

You two should just have a conversation. Response videos are petty.

My thing with Mormons , JW’s, and other Restorationist denominations isn’t even about the Trinity, but more that the reoccurring concept in the origin of these movements is that the original Church as described in the New Testament was “lost” in time, and that the faith leaders of each movement was brought forth to restore the Church to what it originally was during Antiquity. This is different than the Great Schism or even earlier splits in that there was understandably one church until theological and sometimes political differences lead to a split between them to no longer be in “union”. Of course each of these denominations have varying stances upon being the “the one true original church” but the Restoration movement leaders believed none of them were ever part of the church in the first place. I would understand why Christians who affirm the councils would think that Christians that believe that they were never part of the ancient church are “not Christians”

Good job.

In all these arguments and counter-arguments by Christian apologists, I still do not hear the most important thing: What is a TRUE Christian? I have asked this of people, both well-known apologists and pastors and theologians I've known personally, before, during, and after my time as a Christian, and still, in the many years I've been asking it, I have yet to receive any definition even a sizable minority agree upon that can stand up to the barest scrutiny.

So here's a question: do those progression steps have to be "seen" to be a "no true Scotsman" I have a real example in a conversation where I was arguing for inclusion of gay people (like myself) for being included. In the argument my friend brought up their "one gay friend" and then they paused and Said "well I guess I have two gay friends, but he's dating a guy" it was like a gut punch where I felt like she was making the fallacy by asserting that I somehow wasn't gay because I wasn't dating. But she didn't follow the steps.

You are great

Has IP ever reached out directly? Seems like a debate is in order....

I'm having a lot of fun imagining that thousands of years from now, archeologists from a far-flung planet will be combing through the archives of human internet and they'll recover just little snatches of this video along with some data about views, etc And their conclusion will be something like: "21st Century Earthlings were very concerned with clearly defining Veganism, and Dan McClellan was one of the great pontificators regarding the Vegan Identity Issue"

🤘

Because IP is invested in the necessary and sufficient features which to him are not "arbitrary," he seems to be hindered in conceiving of arbitrarily adding non-arbitrary, to him, features. In the sources used, the philosophers refer to the adding/changing of features as arbitrary (and often adverbally) whereas IP seems to have equivocated with arbitrariness (vs meaningfulness) of the features (adjectivally in his usage) themselves. Similarly, as you point out, he's not clearly differentiating between sound reasoning and sound conclusions and the relation between the two. I scrolled through some of the comments on IP's thread and similarly pondered about a general disinterest for this level of critical thought. And from there, I wondered about empathy. As such, I rarely aspire to engage in meaningful to me conversations with "true believers" about these matters.

My thing with Mormons , JW’s, and other Restorationist denominations isn’t even about the Trinity, but more that the reoccurring concept in the origin of these movements is that the original Church as described in the New Testament was “lost” in time (aka the Great Apostasy) and that the faith leaders of each movement was brought forth to restore the Church to what it originally was during Antiquity. This is different than the Great Schism or even earlier splits in that there was understandably one church until theological and sometimes political differences lead to a split between them to no longer be in “union”. Of course each of these denominations have varying stances upon being the “the one true original church” but the Restoration movement leaders believed none of them were ever part of the church in the first place. I would understand why Christians who affirm the councils would think that Christians that believe that they were never part of the ancient church are “not Christians”

Super Mario Bros. 3 was the greatest Super Mario game, but I like the shirt.

I don't know man. Inspiring Philosophy is a LOT more arrogant, so he must be right, right?

this was such a typical IP performance. I sometimes think he knows what he is doing but is just trying to "appear correct" to his audience but staying confident and hoping his audience is too dumb to know what is going on.

Get’em Dan 😂

"Arbitrarily arrogates the prerogative..." has a wonderful sound.

I would love to see a series of you responding to IP. I would pay many $$ for that.

the other way this would not be a fallacy is that if every person or group being referenced within the first statement "Christians", had come to an absolute agreement on what constituted being called a Christian, then if an additional supposed "Christian" group arose in the second statement they were added to the first statement and a reshuffling of the defining aspects were again agreed upon. You'd never get to the fallacy at all. The arbitrary aspect is introduced when you cut the inclusiveness and the 'definition' becomes 'dead'.