“That’s a hypothesis contrary to fact. Mom’s favorite way to point out a failing argument,” my grown daughters like to tease with a little eye roll.
When I taught Rhetoric/The Art of Persuasive Writing, my favorite unit was the study of logical fallacies. I used to make my students not only memorize a list but come up with hypothetical illustrations. And bonus points if they could bring in an example from something they witnessed either on The News or in person out in the real world.
A most common extra credit point brought in was Ad Hominem. Who couldn’t come up with a situation from last night’s news where someone verbally attacked the person rather than address the argument at hand?
The Either/Or fallacy is a good one too. Either we do it this way or that catastrophe is going to happen.
People might know these breakdowns in logic without knowing they are called logical fallacies.
Even my mom used to discourage jumping on the bandwagon, not knowing she was pointing out a fallacy—a critical thinking skill that would come in handy to her adult daughter: Don’t follow something just because it’s popular.
Truth is, I rather enjoyed being different. I often chose the opposite of what was popular.
A vivid picture comes to mind of my all-girls high school religion class where we sat on chairs arranged in a circle for better discussion sessions. The popular shoe during the 80s (at least for the girls at the preppy school I attended) was the Topsider. During this one class period, I looked around at every student’s shoes. I was the only one who was not wearing Topsiders. And I was not embarrassed in the least. I rather liked that I didn’t jump on that bandwagon. I wiggled my feet around that circle proudly.
But the hypothesis contrary to fact is not as commonly known, and that’s why I like it. In fact, many people may not even agree that it is a crack in logic.
Instead, they believe it as truth when they say something like,
“If I had not gone to that party in college, I never would have met my spouse.”
“If I had taken an alternate route to work that day, I would not have wrecked my car.”
You see, in these cases, we cannot possibly know what would have happened if we had made a choice different from the one we did. Different from the fact that we already did wreck the car.
What if we took an alternate route and got into a different car accident and wrecked the car there?
What if we did not attend the party where we met our spouse, but we ran into him or her the next day at the grocery store?
We can’t say we would have never met him/her because we do not know that as fact.
My Book Club discussed Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty last week. The story is quite thought-provoking (and a little freaky at times). But, of course, we all debated whether we thought we could change our destiny or not.
The premise of the book is, If you knew your death date & how you were to die, would you change your life to try avoid that outcome?
Can you change your destiny?”
This book club brought up some questions related to my story that unfolds in my book, My Father’s Daughter. Many of us do not particularly like some of the trials we have had to face. Myself included.
If I had a way to change the situation described in my book, would I?
If I had the chance to go back in time & talk to my mom, would I try to stop her from making a life-changing decision?
As much as I have loved pointing out the hypothesis contrary to fact fallacy for my students, I have just experienced a little epiphany: sometimes it is not a fallacy after all to say, if this hadn’t happened, this other would not have occurred.
I know for sure that if my mom had not made the decision she did, I would not exist.
My children would not exist. My grandchildren would not exist.
So no, I wouldn’t change the situation if I were given the chance to. It made me who I am, unique as that may be.
It’s my story. My destiny. I can’t change it.
Maybe my story can help you accept yours.
My Father’s Daughter is available on 🔗 Amazon as well as other sites in case you want to dive into a story that will take you on a ride, sometimes a spinning one that forces out the dirt and leaves you with a strong sense of who you really are.
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Very thoughtful
It is so interesting to ponder why things happen as they do and if there is indeed an order to it all in the end. Thank you for sharing this!