Talk:If-by-whiskey

message: Is this ever actually a fallacy? If so, could we provide an example?
It seems to me that this is simply saying "If (some aspect of A) then B. If (some other aspect of A) then C."
:I don't think this is a logical fallacy. It is really saying, I think, "If person holds A to be true, and not B, then C. If person holds B to be true, and not A, then not C". It is not clear whether the two conditionals negate each other by the article's example, but they are apparently contradictory. In itself, this is not a logical fallacy, but a rational one. For it supposes that what the person believes determines an objective truth not (apparently) contingent on the person. Another example is: "If you believe there is a green monster, the locals of the village saw the green monster. If, however, you don't believe in the green monster, the locals only imagined the green monster." Rintrah 08:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The thing here is that the speech didn't exactly refer to two aspects or even two different meanings of "whiskey". It was talking about the connotations of the term, which are subjective and can't exactly be invoked in a logical argument. It could be considered an appeal to emotion. No matter whether you consider it to be good or bad, whiskey is still whiskey, so all the if-by-whiskey stuff was completely irrelevant. It fails to express any point of view whatsoever. Since both of the things he talked about were whiskey, he was essentially saying that a) he is against it and b) he is for it. How do you ban the "devil's brew" without banning the "oil of conversation"? You can't, since they are the same. They are both whiskey! This argument constitutes a contradiction and an appeal to emotion because a) it contradicts itself and b) it appeals to the audience's associations with the term "whiskey", trying to take care of both POVs. --WPholic [ talk ] 14:00, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is more of a rhetorical trick than an outright fallacy. It exploits the Golden Mean fallacy to make the speaker appear more reasonable than both sides, and presents the speaker's true position by inference. In this case it looks like he is arguing for legalisation of alcohol sales, but with regulation, but I have no knowledge of the context so couldn't say for sure. If this is true, then he is pretending to be an unbiased commentator but really arguing for one side of the debate. 77.103.132.143 (talk) 15:52, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think the "if-by-whisky" statement is actually a good thoughtful analysis...given that words have limited meaning, even his "no" has to be qualified. He just clarified his answer. I hope I formatted this reply correctly. 
67.163.163.206 21:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  When is this ever a fallacy? 

message: As laid out here this isn't even an argument, let alone a fallacy. Why is this here?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.228.132 (talk) 00:49, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's an informal "logical fallacy" in the same way other exceptionally bad fallacies are. There are plenty of well-known informal fallacies that barely qualify as arguments in the first place. For example, red herrings and ad hominem are both "fallacies," but they're fallacies for the reason that they don't push the debate in any direction, they avoid the debate entirely, or don't argue anything of consequence in the first place. I think if there is ground for its removal it is probably that "if-by-whiskey" is seemingly unused. I certainly have never heard of it before. --Strangejames (talk) 02:18, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not a fallacy 

message: People above question whether it is a fallacy. It certainly is, although the article doesn't explain why -- nor can it, unless someone locates a reliable source that does so. But it is a fallacy of contradiction: one cannot be both for and against something simultaneously. The specific nature of the fallacy here is that whiskey is only one thing, but is presented as if it were two different things by listing different sets of attributes for it. The argument is "if by whiskey you mean X, then I'm for it, but if by whiskey you mean Y, then I'm against it" ... but X = whiskey = Y ... they are all the same thing. Note that Bill Clinton's "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" is not and example of this fallacy, because he was referring to two different things -- similar to how "life is good" could mean either right now or generally. -- Jibal (talk) 09:18, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  It is a fallacy. 

message: I strongly come down on the side of “this is not a fallacy”, but agree that a fallacy is present — it is just being used as a rhetorical device (as was argued by others).
Yes, in it the author is claiming that two contradictory things are true, which implies a relativist fallacy. But that fallacy only pertains when there is actually a contradiction. This forces us to recognize that “true” doesn’t always mean the same thing. Using the word to mean objectively factual, someone concluding an argument about, say, the color of the sea could rely on an instance of a relativist fallacy: “You say the sea is green, I say it’s gray, and we’re both right”. To correct the fallacy, the arguer should instead note that the sea only has one factual color, but that it is being perceived differentially. [All of this is discussed in the article on relativist fallacy; not my original thinking.]
But there are other meanings of the word “true”, including “sincere; not deceitful” and “being or reflecting the essential or genuine character of something”. The article on relativist fallacy explicitly notes that “determining whether someone has committed a relativist fallacy” requires thinking through ideas such as differential perception.
If we examine the original speech in good faith, it is clear that the author is using parallel structures of highly emotional cherry-picked examples to lead to divergent conclusions. That parallelism of argumentation and example, along with the his reinforcement in his opening and closing paragraphs are what signal that this is ironic. Don’t believe me? William Safire used the word "satiric" and said the speech "purports to answer" in his analysis. That’s what makes this a clever rhetorical usage of the fallacy.
Okay, more: the speech is triggering cognitive dissonance in its audience. They understand, due to the careful presentation, that these two highly persuasive arguments can’t both be “true” in a factual sense — but both resonate as “true” in that “sincere” and “genuine” sense. The resolution to the dissonance is that this prompts the audience to understand that one thing can be good or bad, depending on context, which the examples amply provided. The humor of this ironic “straddle” is what caught Safire’s attention and makes this an exemplar of psychologically astute reasoning, not merely an example of a fallacy.
Jibal states baldly: one cannot be both for and against something simultaneously. That misses the point, which the speech is intended to illuminate: the speakers isn't claiming simultaneity: the litany of examples clearly show that the "being for" and "being against" are very highly contextual. What makes the speech significant is that this technique can be used to point out the same dichotomy, that apparently incongruent beliefs are compatible if it is realized that they are held by people experience something from different contexts, or even by the same person experiencing different contexts (imagine a doctor lecturing an alcoholic patient about how dangerous their drinking is, only to go home and enjoy a glass of wine with dinner). This is what Safire was pointing to, if you want an appeal to a pretty darn good authority. A lesser authority is the speaker himself, who crafted the speech carefully and was cognizant of the dissonance it would create in the audience. — MrRedwood (talk) 02:58, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: More on this question… 

message: on the subject of whether Mississippi should prohibit or legalize alcoholic beverages
Either the subject was whether to prohibit alcohol or not, if it weren't prohibited yet, or else was whether to legalize alcohol or not, if it had already been prohibited. The subject cannot have existed as stated, since that would require a preexisting state of both prohibition and legalization. Maybe the author likes to be lazy and not look up which it was, but don't pass the buck like this. --75.49.222.55 04:22, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which is it? 

message: Wikipedia's text has the following exact same text with this web page here:
: 1952 speech by Noah S. “Soggy” Sweat, Jr., a young lawmaker from the U.S. state of Mississippi, on the subject of whether Mississippi should continue to prohibit (which it did until 1966) or finally legalize alcoholic beverages  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.205.78.55 (talk) 04:25, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Which copied from which? AnonMoos (talk) 20:45, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible plagiarism?