The Gadarene Swine Fallacy

The Gadarene Swine Fallacy

While poking around online for information on toponymics indicating a personโ€™s homeland or place of origin, I happened across a reference to โ€œthe Gadarene Swine Fallacy.โ€

A web site calledย Philosophical Society defines the fallacy as follows: โ€œThe GSF is the fallacy of supposing that because a group is in the right formation, it is necessarily on the right course; and conversely, of supposing that because an individual has strayed from the group and isnโ€™t in formation, that he is off course.โ€ It then goes on to explain the Biblical origin of the name for this fallacy.

I had never come across this fallacy bearing this name before. I suspect that others interested in Biblical studies will find this as interesting and as amusing as I did.


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