identifying type of trick logic yes-no question

[rob-38]

Apologies if this is basic stuff. I tried to search for the answer in the forum but without knowing the answer it is difficult to determine definitive search criteria for the question.

Could you please identify what would be the name for a specific type of question that appears at first to be a legitimate yes-no question but is really a logical trick question, specifically as illustrated in the first question in the following example:

> Person A expresses an opinion to person B who does not indicate agreement or disagreement.
> later Person C asks person A: "Did Person B agree with you -- yes or no?"
> Person A cannot really answer the question as "yes" or "no" because the former is not true and the latter leads to the unreasonable conclusion that Person B did not agree, when in fact Person B did not express an opinion.
> If person C had more rigorously asked "Did Person A express agreement with you?" then the answer would more legitimately be "no", with an emphasis on the word "express", although Person C could still be misled and wrongly conclude that Person B did not agree with Person A, and so a better answer to both the first and second question would still be "Person B did not express any opinion."

What I mean by the "name" of this type of question is for example some questions can be described as "rhetorical" questions, or some logical statements can be described as "tautologies". I am interested in a name or description that definitively characterizes the type of that first question above where, for example, lawyers can try to compel witnesses to answer yes or no, with the intended effect of misrepresenting the response when the lawyers summarize their conclusions.

Thanks in advance. -Rob

[tommywallach]

Hey Rob,

No question types are predicated on the type of argument made within them, but only on the way the QUESTION STEM is formed (the part below the prompt itself). So there is no answer to your question. No company I know of differentiates between question types in any way related to the content of the prompt itself. ALSO, I have personally never seen a question that hinges around that logical trap of both yes and no being unusable answers, based on the vague wording of the original yes or no question. Can you point to one?

-t

[rob-38]

1. No question types are predicated on the type of argument made within them, but only on the way the QUESTION STEM is formed
2. So there is no answer to your question.
3. No company I know of differentiates between question types in any way related to the content of the prompt itself.
4. never seen a question that hinges around that logical trap of both yes and no being unusable answers, based on the vague wording of the original yes or no question. Can you point to one?

Hi Tommy,
Thank you for your response.

I'll respond as per the above itemization of your comments:

1. I acknowledge that looking for a name for the type of question that I described is not the same thing as the categorization of question types based on their "question stem". In other words, the "question stem" that is used in my illustrative question would be "Did s/he agree that ...: but as you noted that is not the substantive part , for which I am looking for a category or characterization name. In some respects, I guess I am looking for a name for the type of logical (or illogical) argument that is being presented through that question and the resultant conclusion, but it is the logical nature of the question and context for which I am looking for a descriptive name. It may be esoteric, but I'm pretty sure that in the field of logic there would be a named characterization for the technique that is being employed.

2. With the above clarification of the different context for my question, hopefully someone will have encountered a descriptive name that could be applied to the type of question/argument that was illustrated.

3. The name for that type of question/argument would probably come from the field of logic and philosophy rather than from a company-defined categorization system.

4. The illustrative question that I provided in my original query is an example of one where neither a yes or no answer would seem to be explicitly correct But what is maybe more significant with regards to looking for a "name" for the type of question/argument is that the "no" answer might be argued as being a technically correct answer (although I'm not sure), and maybe it is the technique of converting that answer to an erroneous conclusion that is the problem. In other words, "Did s/he agree?" (i.e. meaning "did s/he say that she agreed?") and an answer of "no" (i.e. no opinion was expressed and so there was no expression of agreement) is converted to the conclusion "Okay, so you are saying she did not agree".

There is a subtle logic twist going on there, and I would sure like to put a reasonably definitive name to what is going on. Generic labels such as "deceptive" or "misleading" or "bad logic" just do not seem to convey the substance of the logical twist technique that is being used.

Maybe I should get away from looking for a name for the type of question and look for a name for the type of argument that is being used, without providing it in isolation in the form of a question statement. For example, I am looking for a name that identifies the type of logical flaw in the following statement:
"When I insisted that you answer yes or no as to whether s/he had agreed with you, you said no, and so obviously s/he did not agree with you".

Thanks ...Rob

[tommywallach]

Yes. What I'm saying Rob is that I know of no LSAT questions that test this, so I'm unsure why it's worth discussing. If you find one, let me know.

-t