Intro to Informal Logic/Fallacy Theory Lesson III
27 02 2008Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc, also called ‘fallacy of False Cause’
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc (PHEPH) is a fallacy in which the arguer draws an erroneous conclusion by correlating two events, especially when those events vary together, assuming one event is the cause of the other. Generally correlation is thought to reveal a causal direction, but when correlation is exaggerated and other possible causes are not taken into account, PHEPH has occurred.
Consider the following statements of Rufus Bardus of Macresco, ancient philosopher, physician, and Cassandran fashion consultant taken from his seminal work Braccae Tuae Aperiuntur. In which Bardus simultaneously created a ‘peras of fashion’ and established the foundations of Fabulosusism (worship of Fabulosus, god of hot pants) framed in Anaximander’s concept of apeiron.
Bardus evaluated a patient suffering severe low back pain and neurological symptoms several of his colleagues believed to be associated with a severe lumbar disc herniation. Over the course of a year of inactivity and several rounds of steroids and medications causing weight gain, his patient gained close to 50 pounds. Bardus claimed the following. “You have symptoms because you’re fat.” Implied in this statement from common knowledge of the time, fatness caused an imbalance of vital humors, which caused a variety of pains and illnesses.
This statement is an example of PHEPH in that Bardus improperly causally correlated pain and neurological symptoms with getting fat. When both events ultimately are the result of a third variable: A severe, untreated, broad based lateral lumbar disc herniation effacing multiple spinal nerve roots.
