By Ian Watson
Introduction: I’ve been wanting to write about the subject of how logic and comedy work together for a while now. I found an unexpected pleasure practicing the deductive forms and fallacies of classical logic by finding examples of them in news media, to produce this series of short articles whose purpose is to identify deductive forms and fallacies in YouTube clips of stand-up comedy.
My hope is to enhance my understanding of the nexus of logic and comedy, maybe even discover my own comedic “method” before launching a successful new career in stand-up! And hey—if that sounds absurd, then maybe I’m already getting somewhere!
Let's take a look at this short clip (1m. 45s) of Louis CK (circa 2013) as an example of how logic and comedy work together.
Below is an example of my practice work for deductive forms and fallacies.
Reductio ad absurdum:
Argument: Society should take care to accommodate children with nut allergies.
Assume opposing view: Society should not take care to accommodate children with nut allergies.
Arguing from the assumption, we’d be forced to eventually conclude: Society should collectively decide to take a year to passively allow nuts to kill children with nut allergies, thus allowing the problem to quickly resolve itself.
But this is an absurd solution.
Therefore, society should take care to accommodate children with nut allergies.
Dilemma:
Either society accommodates children with nut allergies, or society does not accommodate children with nut allergies.
If society accommodates children with nut allergies, then the cost of resisting natural selection will be practically incalculable.
If society doesn’t accommodate children with nut allergies, a significant segment of the world’s children will die within a year.
Therefore, either the cost of resisting natural selection will be practically incalculable, or a significant segment of the world’s children will die within a year.
Photo: Wix media
Video Clip Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEb5a-I0kyg&ab_channel=MA924618
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