Motte-and-Bailey Fallacy

en.wikipedia.org

15 pointsWillDaSilva6 comments

Finally I read the wikipedia article and see the medieval reference.

For awhile I have wished to see a different term used to call out this strategy. To me, "Motte and Bailey" sounds [has sounded] too much like the name of some obscure optical illusion, unlike something which must be understood.

And I can never remember which is the motte and which is the bailey.

"Fort and field fallacy"? "Attack and defense fallacy"?

Think of the motte as a moat - both are defensive territory around the castle (bailey).

That seems to be exactly the inverse of what's described by the Shackel quote in the Wikipedia article: "A Motte and Bailey castle is a medieval system of defence in which a stone tower on a mound (the Motte) is surrounded by an area of land (the Bailey) which in turn is encompassed by some sort of a barrier such as a ditch."

Ouch! I thought I was being clever with that mnenomic. I'm torn about whether to delete in order to prevent confusing others, or leave it up as a monument to my own error.

Leave it there! I was thinking your motte/moat mnemonic would be really handy as I re-read the article - but now I know the motte is definitely not the moat (actually the moat surrounding the bailey is implicit), it's the castle, so you've helped me to remember the model!

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