Anyone Speak Latin Out There?
R. Alex Whitlock
I have a question. When I was in Florida, I was watching an episode of West Wing where President Bartlett used a latin phrase to say "It is, therefore it is because of" meaning that corrolation is causation.

Anyone know the appropriate phrase for that?

Also, does anyone know what the opposite phrase would be, the one that means "It is, therefore it was always going to be"... meaning that there was no causation except perhaps fate.

Can anyone help me out here?
Posted to Audience Participation
 
 

Observations

 
Owen Courrèges wrote:
Do you mean the post hoc fallacy -- 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc?' It translates to 'after this, therefore because of this.' Accordingly, just because something occurs after something else, doesn't mean that there is causation.
8/21/2003
 
RAW wrote:
Yeah, that's what I was looking for. And I was looking for the inverse fallacy, because something happened, it was unpreventable.
8/21/2003
 
Owen Courrèges wrote:
Isn't that just a part of the slippery slope fallacy? It follows <a href="http://www.nizkor.org/featu... steps</a>:

1. Event X has occurred (or will or might occur).

2. Therefore event Y will inevitably happen.

The only difference between slippery slope and what you're outlining is that the slippery slope fallacy presumes a cause prior to arguing for inevitability.
8/21/2003
 
Donald wrote:
Can anyone translate this for me? "I can teach anyone the history, but I can not teach them to be a person." Thanks, I really appreciate it.
6/23/2005

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