English Explanatory Dictionary

kettle logic

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A rhetorical device involving the use of multiple arguments that are inconsistent with each other.

Word forms

kettle logic

Etymology

Calque of French logique du chaudron. The expression was used by Jacques Derrida in reference to a story related by Sigmund Freud, in which a man accused by his neighbour of having returned a kettle in a damaged condition offers three conflicting arguments: that he returned the kettle undamaged; that it was already damaged when he borrowed it; and that he never borrowed it in the first place.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on K Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary