Trash Talk Tuesday: Circular Reasoning

Time once again for us martial arts bloggers to learn:
1) How NOT to make a case for or against someone or something
2) Why certain comments set our teeth on edge
3) How to stay focused when discussing our arts

TTTues
It’s Trash Talk Tuesday!

Just Curious:  Why do you do all those choreographed moves in Karate?

White Belt:  We do kata to improve our fighting.

Just Curious:  Uh, you’re not actually hitting anyone when you do that whatchamacallit…

White Belt:  Yeah, but kata improves our fighting because it’s good for our sparring.

It looks like White Belt is resorting to circular reasoning because he doesn’t know enough to explain why kata can help someone learn how to fight.  Let’s try another example of circular reasoning:

Sensei Rockum Sockum is a 12th degree black belt because he is the head of his own style, and he’s the head of his own style because he’s a 12th degree black belt!

GROAN!  I’m not sure pointing out the fallacy would do any good…

If you’d like to learn more, you can follow along in the book The Fallacy Detective by Nathaniel Bluedorn and Hans Bluedorn

Author: Joelle White

I began training in Karate in June of 2014 after a 27 year hiatus.

2 thoughts on “Trash Talk Tuesday: Circular Reasoning”

  1. Great post! I hope your and your family had a very Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year! 🙂 Take care, my friend.

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