Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Steve H on September 06, 2017, 01:52:43 PM
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A special service for all the fallacy-nerds on here - no no, thats all right; no need to thank me.
Argumentum ad unpopulum - the belief that the unpopularity of your argument is evidence for it: "truth for ever on the scaffold, wrong for ever on the throne", and all that. Popular with those with a martyr-complex.
Linear argument - also know as "negatio principii", this is the opposite of the circular one, i.e. assuming the opposite of what you're trying to prove. Aquinas' "first cause" argument is the classic example. Everything that exists must have a pre-existant cause, but in order to avoid an infinite regression, there must be an uncaused causer. Spot the contradiction.
Argument from strength of conviction - the assumption that the strength of one's belief is evidence in favour of it. Committed by everone who has ever said "I really strongly believe that...", or "I am firmly convinced that...".
There may be more to follow, if I think of more. I fully expect some smart-arse to tell me that some or all of these already exist.
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Do you think it is wrong to point out when an argument contains a fallacy?
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No, just bloody tiresome, if the pointer-out just says "Godwin's law", "argumentum ad hominem", or whatever. it's just childish showing-off.
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No, just bloody tiresome, if the pointer-out just says "Godwin's law", "argumentum ad hominem", or whatever. it's just childish showing-off.
Really?
I just think it means we do not have to spend time discussing this argument, as it is logically wrong, and needs to be changed.
It should save time.
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Mr Gruntfuttock,
Why so disgruntled?
Posting like that won't please mod.
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No, just bloody tiresome, if the pointer-out just says "Godwin's law", "argumentum ad hominem", or whatever. it's just childish showing-off.
You forgot pretentious pseudo-intellectual bollocks.
That's what you normally say, anyway.
Something that I personally find childish, lumpen and show-offy in its own way, but there we are.
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*doffs cap to threat starter*
**exits room, bowing repeatedly in admiration**
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A special service for all the fallacy-nerds on here - no no, thats all right; no need to thank me.
Argumentum ad unpopulum - the belief that the unpopularity of your argument is evidence for it: "truth for ever on the scaffold, wrong for ever on the throne", and all that. Popular with those with a martyr-complex.
Linear argument - also know as "negatio principii", this is the opposite of the circular one, i.e. assuming the opposite of what you're trying to prove. Aquinas' "first cause" argument is the classic example. Everything that exists must have a pre-existant cause, but in oreder to avoid an infinite regression, there must be an uncaused causer. Spot the contradiction.
Argument from strength of conviction - the assumption that the strength of one's belief is evidence in favour of it. Committed by everone who has ever said "I really strongly believe that...", or "I am firmly convinced that...".
There may be more to follow, if I think of more. I fully expect some smart-arse to tell me that some or all of these already exist.
Re: Aquinus. What about the new forms of Thomistic argument vis
Everything WHICH HAS A BEGINNING must have a cause and hierarchical argument where there is a base and everything derives from that for example the actual and then the derived? In other words there is as yet no case that everything must be derived, or what gives dynamism to an infinite universe.
My experience of this board is that infinite regressions are OK as long as unconscious matter assumes the attributes of God......what causes the universe to be dynamic is an unsettled question.
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Really?
I just think it means we do not have to spend time discussing this argument, as it is logically wrong, and needs to be changed.
It should save time.
I'm not sure I saw a laddie on here talked down from declaring an NPF to declaring something as ''knocking on the door of an NPF''
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Re: Aquinus. What about the new forms of Thomistic argument vis
Everything WHICH HAS A BEGINNING must have a cause and hierarchical argument where there is a base and everything derives from that for example the actual and then the derived? In other words there is as yet no case that everything must be derived, or what gives dynamism to an infinite universe.
My experience of this board is that infinite regressions are OK as long as unconscious matter assumes the attributes of God......what causes the universe to be dynamic is an unsettled question.
This one always puzzles me, as things don't have beginnings. For example, I plant a seed, and it germinates. I suppose you could say that the cause of the seed is the parent plant, but also nutrition in the soil, water, and light of some kind. There is no single discrete cause, because everything is a transformation of energy from something else.
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*doffs cap to threat starter*
**exits room, bowing repeatedly in admiration**
Nice to know someone appreciates my qualities!
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Really?
I just think it means we do not have to spend time discussing this argument, as it is logically wrong, and needs to be changed.
It should save time.
It means we have to spend time dicussing whether it is indeed fallacious, so it doesn't save time. Point out what you think is fallacious reasoning by all means, but say why you think it is fallacious, don't just say "Flapdoodle's fallacy". "Argumentum ad thingumyjigium", or whatever. It isn't helpful.
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It means we have to spend time dicussing whether it is indeed fallacious, so it doesn't save time. Point out what you think is fallacious reasoning by all means, but say why you think it is fallacious, don't just say "Flapdoodle's fallacy". "Argumentum ad thingumyjigium", or whatever. It isn't helpful.
There's such a thing as Google. Look it up. Do your own work - we have.
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Most of the fallacies here are very well-worn. Incredulity, ad populum, non sequitur, ad hom, and so on. I suppose for new people they are puzzling, but I thought that they were often explained.
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No, just bloody tiresome, if the pointer-out just says "Godwin's law", "argumentum ad hominem", or whatever. it's just childish showing-off.
Godwin's Law isn't a fallacy.
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It means we have to spend time dicussing whether it is indeed fallacious, so it doesn't save time. Point out what you think is fallacious reasoning by all means, but say why you think it is fallacious, don't just say "Flapdoodle's fallacy". "Argumentum ad thingumyjigium", or whatever. It isn't helpful.
Explain how a fallacy can be debated.
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Explain how a fallacy can be debated.
Usually when somebody commits one and then denies that it is.
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Explain how a fallacy can be debated.
Whether or not an argument is indeed fallacious is what can be debated.
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Whether or not an argument is indeed fallacious is what can be debated.
If an argument contains a fallacy it falls.
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Whether or not an argument is indeed fallacious is what can be debated.
No, there's no debate. That implies a debatable matter. There's only somebody who doesn't understand why a fallacy is fallacious in the first place.
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If an argument contains a fallacy it falls.
Sigh... yes, but there may be some debate as to whether it really does contain a fallacy. I've read fundies trying to argue that the survival of the fittest is a circular argument. It isn't, of course.
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No, there's no debate. That implies a debatable matter. There's only somebody who doesn't understand why a fallacy is fallacious in the first place.
See above.
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See above.
That helps me, not you. That illustrates the case of people who know what a fallacy is correctly identifying something which is called one (by those who don't know, i.e. the fundies referred to) but actually isn't.
It's the mirror image of those same people correctly identifying a fallacy as a fallacy whenever one crops up (which in the case of this forum is about every ten to fifteen minutes at most), or what you usually insist on boorishly calling pretentious pseudo-intellectual childish showing-off bollocks.
If you're reasonably up to speed on some fairly basic and bog-standard logic then you understand what a fallacy is and (most importantly of all) why it's fallacious. This stuff isn't at all difficult and it's absolutely not obscure. It's not only easy; I would go further and say that it's fun, too.
Which then begets the question as to why so many ostensibly otherwise intelligent people continue to trot them out, not just over and over again, but over and over again even after it has been pointed out to them why their would-be argument is fallacious. It's a very curious psychological phenomenon - essentially a form of the Dunning-Kruger effect, I think, where some people overestimate (sometimes massively) their actual abilities or competence.
And of course plain old intellectual arrogance/bruised vanity at being told that they're wrong.