These ideas are often used as axioms, which are definitions taken to be true (tautological assumptions), and cannot be used to test themselves, for doing so would lead to only two consequences: consistency (circular reasoning) or exception (self-contradiction).
The idea of the "Stolen Concept" is generally attributed to be first noted by Ayn Rand and then later supported by followers of Objectivism.
[3] An example of the stolen concept fallacy is anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's statement, "All property is theft".
While discussing the hierarchical nature of knowledge, Nathaniel Branden states, "Theft" is a concept that logically and genetically depends on the antecedent concept of "rightfully owned property"—and refers to the act of taking that property without the owner's consent.
Philosopher Hilary Putnam argues that some versions of the thought experiment would be inconsistent due to semantic externalism.
[8] It has been argued by advocates of libertarian free will that to call determinism a rational statement is doubly self-defeating.
[10] However, the (unregulated) tragedy of the commons and the (one-off) prisoner's dilemma are cases in which, on the one hand, it is rational for an individual to seek to take as much as possible even though to do so makes things worse for everybody,[clarification needed], and on the other hand, the behaviour remains rational even though it is ultimately self-defeating.
[17] For instance, identity theorists such as J. J. C. Smart, Ullin Place and E. G. Boring state that ideas exist materially as patterns of neural structure and activity.
[20][page needed] Alvin Plantinga argues in his evolutionary argument against naturalism that the combination of naturalism and evolution is "in a certain interesting way self-defeating" because if it were true there would be insufficient grounds to believe that human cognitive faculties are reliable.
In this particular case, it is the confluence of evolutionary theory and naturalism that, according to the argument, undermine the reason for believing themselves to be true.
Since Plantinga originally formulated the argument, a few theistic philosophers and Christian apologists have agreed.
The philosopher Anthony Kenny argues that the idea, "common to theists like Aquinas and Descartes and to an atheist like Russell" that "Rational belief [is] either self-evident or based directly or indirectly on what is evident" (which he termed "foundationalism" following Plantinga) is self-refuting on the basis that this idea is itself neither self-evident nor based directly or indirectly on what is evident and that the same applies to other formulations of such foundationalism.
[30][31] The cruder form of the argument concludes that since the relativist is calling relativism an absolute truth, it leads to a contradiction.