(philosophy) An argument in favour of a right to abortion that appeals to a thought experiment in which a person with a rare blood type is kidnapped and plugged into a famous unconscious violinist with a fatal kidney ailment; if the violinist is unplugged, he will die, but if he stays plugged into the kidnappee for nine months, he will recover from his ailment. The argument assumes that in this hypothetical scenario, the kidnappee has the right to unplug themselves from the violinist at any time even if this will cause his death, because the violinist does not have a right to the kidnappee’s body.

An informal fallacy whereby a concept is explained in terms of the concept itself, recursively.

plural of homunculus argument

A flawed argument.

A proof, developed by Georg Cantor, to show that the set of real numbers is uncountably infinite.

(logic) Alternative form of argument form

Alternative form of pseudoargument

To believe an opinion has enough justification to sustain a debate about it, whether or not the opinion is ultimately true.

(theology, philosophy) A type of argument for the existence of God arguing that since every thing and event that begins at a point in time has a cause, there must be an uncaused first cause.

(philosophy, linguistics) Explanation and analysis—often considered controversial—of one or more concepts or linguistic terms by means of an exposition of their linguistic origins.