Surf Wiki
Save to docs
philosophy

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Fallacy of assumption of causality based on sequence of events

Summary

Fallacy of assumption of causality based on sequence of events

the informal fallacy

Post hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin: 'after this, therefore because of this') is an informal fallacy that states "Since event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X." It is a fallacy in which an event is presumed to have been caused by a closely preceding event merely on the grounds of temporal succession. This type of reasoning is fallacious because mere temporal succession does not establish a causal connection. It is often shortened simply to post hoc fallacy. A logical fallacy of the questionable cause variety, it is subtly different from the fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc ('with this, therefore because of this'), in which two events occur simultaneously or the chronological ordering is insignificant or unknown. Post hoc is a logical fallacy in which one event seems to be the cause of a later event because it occurred earlier.

Post hoc is a particularly tempting error because correlation sometimes appears to suggest causality. The fallacy lies in a conclusion based solely on the order of events, rather than taking into account other factors potentially responsible for the result that might rule out the connection.

A simple example is "The rooster crows immediately before sunrise; therefore the rooster causes the sun to rise."

Pattern

The form of the post hoc fallacy is expressed as follows: :* X occurred, then Y occurred. :* Therefore, X caused Y.

When Y is undesirable, this pattern is often combined with the formal fallacy of denying the antecedent, assuming the logical inverse holds: believing that avoiding X will prevent Y.

Examples ==

  • A tenant moves into an apartment and the building's furnace develops a fault. The manager blames the tenant's arrival for the malfunction. One event merely followed the other, in the absence of causality.
  • Brazilian footballer Pelé blamed a dip in his playing performance on having given his playing shirt to a fan. His play recovered after a friend, sent to retrieve the shirt from the fan, returned a shirt claimed to be the original (though it was actually just the shirt Pelé had worn during his previous poor performance, as the original could not be tracked down).
  • Reporting of coincidental vaccine adverse events, where people have a health complaint after being vaccinated and assume it was caused by the vaccination.

Bibliography

  1. Woods, J. H., Walton, D. N. (1977). Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc.
  2. Mommsen, J. K. F. (2013). Wider Das Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc - Primary Source Edition. United States: BiblioLife.
  3. Woods, J., Walton, D. (2019). Fallacies: Selected Papers 1972–1982. Germany: De Gruyter.

References

References

  1. Grouse, Lawrence. (2016). "Post hoc ergo propter hoc". Journal of Thoracic Disease.
  2. "post hoc".
  3. (2015-10-09). "Correlation vs Causation".
  4. (24 March 2017). "Post hoc ergo propter hoc : some benefits of rationalization". Philosophical Explorations.
  5. Damer, T Edward. (1995). "Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments". Wadsworth Publishing.
  6. Macaskill, Sandy. (2009-02-25). "Top 10: Football superstitions to rival Arsenal's Kolo Toure". [[The Daily Telegraph.
  7. Manktelow, K. I.. (2012). "Thinking and Reasoning: An Introduction to the Psychology of Reason, Judgment and Decision Making". Psychology Press.
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

causal-fallacies latin-logical-phrases
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Post hoc ergo propter hoc — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report