The Fallacy of Own-Termism

13 June 2012, 1947 EDT

A standard critical argument in my field looks something like this:

1. Phenomenon X involves A assumptions about the world;
2. Approach Y contains assumptions inconsistent with A; therefore
3. Y cannot be used to understand X.

In some instances, and given some specific conditions, this can be a persuasive argument. But it is clearly not a priori true; articulated in the form above, I submit, it is a logical fallacy–one often found alongside, but distinct from, genetic fallacies.

Thus, I will call this the “own-termism fallacy” until someone finds a better–or, at least, preexisting–name for it.

UPDATE: some have asked me for an example. As I’ve written about, this kind of reasoning is extremely common in the “secular bias” literature, which often claims that “secular” theories and methods born of the enlightenment cannot possibly make sense of religious politics.

Dan Nexon

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.