Tuesday, November 25, 2014

More Monty Python

It has been brought to the attention of our classes that Monty Python is filled with logical fallacies, and I was shocked to see that this clip was not presented as a the prime example of a logical fallacy.

In this video king Arthur is asking on of the local villagers who lives in the castle that is in the distance. The villager uses a red herring to completely distract king Arthur from the original question and then the villager precedes to go on a long tangent about everything wrong with the English government. The villager then uses the logical fallacy ad nauseum by discussing the English government until Arthur is angered and leaves.

King Arthur also uses some logical fallacies. One logical fallacy that King Arthur commits is exerting his authority. When he becomes impatient with the villagers he begins stating that he is king of the britains and orders them to give him information. Arthur also brushes off the villager's ideas about government by oversimplifying and saying that he is king because a woman came out of a lake and gave him a sword.

Both King Arthur and the villager use logical fallacies upon meeting each other and end up making no progress in finding knights for the round table.

2 comments:

  1. Diego I really liked your example. I thought what they were doing was kind of complex, and wasn't really sure if it was just a red herring, or perhaps a non-sequitur. At any rate, the whole conversation is ridiculous, and is a great example of logical fallacy.

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  2. Interesting thoughts Diego, I saw this movie a while back and didn't think about it that way when I saw it.

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