False Logic

Nabokov writes this silly logical fallacy in Pale Fire:

A syllogism: other men die; but I
Am not another; therefore I'll not die. 

Logic

Here Nabokov is intentionally misusing the syllogism of the form:

AGG
All P are M
This S is not M
\ This S is not P

ref: http://www.thelogician.net/2_future_logic/2_chapter_09.htm

Take 'P' as mortal, 'S' as I the narrator, and 'M' as other men. The logical reasoning then goes like this:

All mortals are other men.
This man, myself, is not other men.
I am immortal.

The first statement (major premise) is clearly the false one. Other men are all mortal, but not all mortals are other men. There is one mortal who is not another; that mortal is myself. Therefore the syllogism is false.

Or if you want to separate the truth of the premises from that of the validity of the logical deduction, you could say the syllogism is valid but its conclusion is false, since its major premise is false.

/sil'oh-jiz`*m/ Deductive reasoning in which a conclusion is derived from two premises. The conclusion necessarily follows from the premises so that, if these are true, the conclusion must be true, and the syllogism amounts to demonstration. To put it another way, the premises imply the conclusion.
For example, every virtue is laudable; kindness is a virtue; therefore kindness is laudable.
Strangely, a syllogism can still be true if the premises are false. Compare inference rule.
[Relationship between premises?]
(2009-10-28)
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © Denis Howe 2010 http://foldoc.org

Satire

I believe Nabokov is using this false syllogism to make fun of the hubris of man to attempt at the power of immortality. I wouldn't be surprised to hear false syllogisms like this intentionally used in politics. And sure enough, a book has been written about using these deceptive logic tricks in rhetoric to gain political sway.

The Art of Conversery (aka The Art of Being Right) by Arthur Schopenhauer is a satirical how-to treatise written in Germany in 1831 on directing a false, but seemingly plausible argument as an expedient way to deceive the masses, or discredit opponents. wiki. The author was a philosopher who reviled and wanted to expose this unethical practice to stop it. (I think contemporaries read his work with the opposite intention.)

Politics

The twenty-fourth strategy discussed by Schopenhauer is to 'State a False Syllogism' to attack the true statement from which your false conclusion illogically derives.

This trick consists in stating a false syllogism. Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from it other propositions which it does not contain and he does not in the least mean; nay, which are absurd or dangerous. It then looks as if his proposition gave rise to others which are inconsistent either with themselves or with some acknowledged truth, and so it appears to be indirectly refuted. This is the diversion, and it is another application of the fallacy non causae ut causae.

Applied to Nabokov's example, one would use the false syllogism to discredit the assertion that other men die.

 'Look, you're saying other men die. But I'm not another man... I won't die! That's absurd, of course I will die. So clearly you are wrong to claim that other men die.' 

This refutation is just as silly and easy to disbelieve as Nabokov's original assertion, but a tangled misdirection causes some confusion as to why exactly the argument is false. Applied to more ambiguous issues, the false conclusion might go undetected!

How bout something like:

'Look, you're saying our belligerent policies are killing our young men who go off to war. But I'm not a soldier... does that mean I won't get killed?!? I could just as easily get killed while driving! So it's ridiculous to suggest that we're putting soldiers in danger!'

We have a gut feeling that the fictitious politician, speaking above, is lying to us (beyond the simple fact that he is a politician), but it is less obvious how he is doing it. And if we happen to agree with the insanity he is spouting because we want to believe it, then perhaps we let him spread his conservative views on the radio like say, Rush Limbaugh.