Scholarly illogic
Who: Professor of Literature and Theology
What: Christian (Catholic)
Where: University of Cambridge
LISTEN TO PODCAST
AI transcript of the Radio 4 broadcast
Podcast script
Welcome to the Second TftD podcast. In this episode we dissect a TftD to expose all in it that is not factful or not reasonable.
This Second Thought podcast is in response to the BBC’s TftD from 19 April 2025. It was by Professor Michael Hurley. Our professor has the literature and theology chair at the University of Cambridge.
Logically, there is almost nothing wrong with this. Care has been taken to avoid the making of claims that are not, or cannot, be supported.
There are no factual errors. There are no instances of any fact being misrepresented, or a belief being presented as fact.
Here’s a taste of his broadcast:
HURLEY: Today—the day before Easter—goes even further in that direction. There is no liturgy at all. This is, indeed, the only day in the entire year when no Mass is celebrated. But tonight, churches will hold Easter vigils, when gradually light, scripture, song and words return to their services—culminating in a proclamation of Christ having risen from the dead. And with that news comes the triumphant reprise of the word hallelujah (literally, praise the Lord) after being dropped entirely from worship throughout Lent. It’s an eruption of joy after 40 days of penitence.
We’ll come back to that eruption of joy. For now, Michael’s deference to fact and logic are to be applauded. There are several regular presenters of TftD who demonstrate what is more akin to allergy than deference.
Indeed, if there were not, the Second Thought project would not exist.
Hurley does take a dip briefly into the waters of rosy retrospection, indulging in a view that the past was a nicer place. But even here, the many common logical errors this fallacy usually attracts are avoided.
HURLEY: In our busy, busy, information-overloaded modern world, it may be salutary for all of us, occasionally, to pause. To learn patience. And to imagine how silence itself may sometimes be eloquent. For 2.6 billion Christians around the world, however, this is especially true today. It’s an occasion for silent reflection on the belief that the rest is not silence— That death is not the final curtain.
Hurley does make one claim that is unsupported. His claim is that our world is over-loaded with information. While it is true that many inhabitants of our world today may believe they are over-loaded with information, this has been true of people in our world since the advent of books at around the beginning of the first millennium.
Even if an argument could be made that inhabitants (generally) of the world were over-loaded with information, it would remain inaccurate to suggest this was in anyway a new phenomenon (today’s world, our world, etc).
This is a subject for its own series of pods but briefly, every new technology, (books, printing, the telegraph, the pamphlet, TV, newspapers, email, mobile phones, the internet, smartphones) every new technology stokes a chorus of caution and concern with regard to information overload.
It turns out, we inevitably somehow cope. Again, and again, and again. Which rather gives lie to the notion that there is any over-loading. It seems that some also forget that between the ages of 5-16, by rule of law, we force feed our young citizens information in vastly higher volumes than tend to be the subject of the headline complaints. For the most part, we generally consider this loading of information into children to be a very good thing. None of these considerations, of course, has much effect on the standard bearers for caution and concern. For them, technology is a constant source of fuel for their doom-laden headlines and loud hailers.
To focus on Michael for making this transgression would, though, be harsh given contributors to TftD who cannot help but anchor themselves to the fallacious ice floe of information-overload. It seems to us only fair that a fuller exploration of these fallacies is saved when reporting on a broadcast of one of them.
In terms of facts and logic, that’s pretty much it for Hurley. There is, though, some coy flirtation with the logical fallacies of making appeals to fiction and to authority, which we believe Michael manages at the same time. He is certainly efficient. So, let’s take a look at that flirting.
Hurley fills much of his broadcast with a prelude on poignancy, Shakespeare, silence death and afterlife.
Hurley notes that Hamlet’s last words, “the rest is silence” suggest he felt there was nothing beyond his death. Then, he quotes Hamlet’s friend Horatio, “and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest’” as evidence that perhaps the opposite is true.
HURLEY: So when he says “the rest is silence,” he may be acknowledging that his time is up and that’s all there is. Only the hush of the audience remains. In his agonising musing—To be or not to be—he speculates about an afterlife. But perhaps the prospect of his own death has given him fresh clarity, to see that there is, in fact, nothing beyond. Maybe. But the opposite might also be true. What if “the rest is silence” is instead a final expression of faith in the form of letting go? That is, a finding calm in the peace of heaven? His friend Horatio’s parting words certainly seem to chime with this possibility: “And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,” he says.
He spends 270 words (nearly 60% of his broadcast) musing on the potential meaning of Hamlet’s ‘The rest is silence’.
As pointless speculation goes this it impressively pointless. Which I believe is something of a theme with this broadcast.
There is a case to be heard that Hurley isn’t seeking to convince anyone of anything and his exploration of whether Hamlet believed there was life after death is merely a bridge between his literary introduction and his theatrical closing.
That being the case, why waste everyone’s time with irrelevant nonsense. This is either a failure of coherence or it is that efficient combination of reasoning errors. Either way, we have an unacceptable fall from quality.
We suspect Michael did intend the listener to be left with a view that one or both of Hamlet and Horatio held a belief in an afterlife and that this was to be conflated his comments made on the Christian belief that death is not the final curtain.
So let’s explore it a little.
What these characters say on life after death is quite clearly evidence of nothing. If you were to cite their words as support for something beyond the circumstances of their invention, you’d be making an appeal to fiction. In quoting Shakespeare, though, Hurley can also be accused of making an argument from authority, rooted in the cultural and intellectual legacy of Will’s playwriting. I’d suggest it was no accident he chose Hamlet and not Batman.
Arguments from authority seek to support a position by drawing on some other supposed expert or leader. Typically, one who may have favour with a particular audience, but which doesn’t have expertise in the field under discussion.
My priest told me that vaccines are dangerous, so my children aren’t going to have any.
Tom Cruise says that we’ve got global warming all wrong and we don’t have to worry about carbon emissions.
Or perhaps that Shakespeare told me through the medium of Horatio that belief in an afterlife was reasonable.
Important to note the first two are invented examples. No shade is here being thrown at Tom. And, for once on this podcast, no shade is being thrown at priests.
Whatever your views on celebrity scientologists or clergy, neither can generally be considered expert in either immunisation or climate change.
Even when the authority is expert, it’s safe to be cautious. The motto of the venerable scientific institution, the Royal Society is, ‘On nobody’s word’. Or as Carl Sagan said, “Mistrust arguments from authority. … Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.”
Scientists have egos too. They make mistakes. They even sometimes try to cover them up. For the most part, though, science is better at wringing the truth from vaccine data than vicars and movie stars.
The appeal to fiction is similar to the argument from authority. Claiming for example that children, when unsupervised by adults, will decline to savagery, and then citing as evidence William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’, would be a clear appeal to fiction. The actual evidence suggests that survival instinct in prepubescent children is strong, leading to effective cooperation, appointment and assumption of appropriate leadership and protection of mutual interests. If William Golding were writing up real events, we’d have something of evidential merit. Given he wasn’t, it’s pure fiction that entertains a conjecture that children would behave in such a way. The irony here is that Golding was influenced by a story in which children behaved in a way that Golding felt was too shaped by colonial propaganda, and began considering how children would actually behave, perhaps influence by his crowd control experience as a teacher. He was wrong but his inspiration was well founded and it made great literature.
Hurley’s appeal to fiction is in his exploration of support for the Christian idea of an afterlife, specifically in the play Hamlet. This is fine, as long as the boundaries are respected and there is no implication of any general relevance of the thoughts of characters outside the play. Hurley fails to respect these boundaries. His context is Easter, a story of life after death. One that he clearly believes to be true. That being the case, the listener is owed precision from Hurley so the lines between fiction, belief and fact are unblurred.
Such, though, is the pervasiveness of Shakespeare in modern English, and esteem in which his works are (rightly) held, he provides a quotemine for anyone hoping a dash of literary genius will rub off on their own work, simply by quoting.
Hurley perfectly illustrates the ease with which you can lean on the works of great minds to support almost anything.
Should we choose to ignore the appeal to fiction itself, it still apparently doesn’t cross Hurley’s mind that Hamlet and Horatio could simultaneously have held very different views on afterlife. For this, we have a second clear reasoning error.
Given his erudition, I suspect that it did cross Hurley’s mind. If that were the case, the quotes were deliberately employed for manipulation of the listener. Much more interesting.
Perhaps all Hurley was doing was seeking to add some contemporary relevance to the supernatural tales of the gospels. When your subject is the birth of a Romo-Judean proto-religion, Shakespeare is comfortably in the realms of both the contemporary and, perhaps more conveniently, the credible.
There is structure in this broadcast, and it’s been written with care. It does, though, seem strangely pointless. More an exercise in rhetoric than an attempt to put rhetoric to work. Right at the end, for instance, he talks of the calm before the holy storm.
HURLEY: Today is a moment of intense, over-brimming dramatic suspense. The quiet before the holy storm.
Is this storm the return of the word hallelujah to church services after lent? Is it the eruption of joy following the penitence of lent?
Is it a reference to the apocalypse of the second coming of christ?
Each seems to us faintly ludicrous, given what went before.
Perhaps this is evidence of experience, that it’s less unpleasant to be accused of imprecision than for some logic troll to be given an easy target!
Second Thought podcast with Dan Beach 
Leave a comment