Author Topic: Some new logical fallacies  (Read 3151 times)

Steve H

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Some new logical fallacies
« on: September 06, 2017, 01:52:43 PM »
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.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 06:19:15 PM by J. Peasemold Gruntfuttock »
I came to realise that every time we recognise something human in creatures, we are also recognising something creaturely in ourselves. That is central to the rejection of human supremacism as the pernicious doctrine it is.
Robert Macfarlane

BeRational

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2017, 01:58:21 PM »
Do you think it is wrong to point out when an argument contains a fallacy?
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Steve H

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #2 on: September 06, 2017, 02:01:07 PM »
No, just bloody tiresome, if the pointer-out just says "Godwin's law", "argumentum ad hominem", or whatever. it's just childish showing-off.
I came to realise that every time we recognise something human in creatures, we are also recognising something creaturely in ourselves. That is central to the rejection of human supremacism as the pernicious doctrine it is.
Robert Macfarlane

BeRational

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #3 on: September 06, 2017, 02:02:51 PM »
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.

I see gullible people, everywhere!

Aruntraveller

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #4 on: September 06, 2017, 02:13:00 PM »
Mr Gruntfuttock,

Why so disgruntled?

Posting like that won't please mod.
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Shaker

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #5 on: September 06, 2017, 02:16:14 PM »
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.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 02:32:23 PM by Shaker »
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

JP

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2017, 03:33:58 PM »
*doffs cap to threat starter*

**exits room, bowing repeatedly in admiration**
How can something so perfect be so flawed.

Free Willy

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #7 on: September 06, 2017, 03:53:04 PM »
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.

Free Willy

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #8 on: September 06, 2017, 03:57:22 PM »
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''

wigginhall

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #9 on: September 06, 2017, 04:37:47 PM »
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.   
They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!

Steve H

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #10 on: September 06, 2017, 06:17:10 PM »
*doffs cap to threat starter*

**exits room, bowing repeatedly in admiration**
Nice to know someone appreciates my qualities!
I came to realise that every time we recognise something human in creatures, we are also recognising something creaturely in ourselves. That is central to the rejection of human supremacism as the pernicious doctrine it is.
Robert Macfarlane

Steve H

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #11 on: September 06, 2017, 06:23:02 PM »
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.
I came to realise that every time we recognise something human in creatures, we are also recognising something creaturely in ourselves. That is central to the rejection of human supremacism as the pernicious doctrine it is.
Robert Macfarlane

Shaker

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #12 on: September 06, 2017, 06:25:45 PM »
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.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

wigginhall

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #13 on: September 06, 2017, 07:12:23 PM »
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. 
They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!

jeremyp

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #14 on: September 06, 2017, 07:40:20 PM »
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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Rhiannon

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #15 on: September 06, 2017, 08:18:46 PM »
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.

Shaker

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #16 on: September 06, 2017, 08:42:32 PM »
Explain how a fallacy can be debated.
Usually when somebody commits one and then denies that it is.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Steve H

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #17 on: September 06, 2017, 09:57:50 PM »
Explain how a fallacy can be debated.
Whether or not an argument is indeed fallacious is what can be debated.
I came to realise that every time we recognise something human in creatures, we are also recognising something creaturely in ourselves. That is central to the rejection of human supremacism as the pernicious doctrine it is.
Robert Macfarlane

BeRational

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #18 on: September 06, 2017, 10:18:20 PM »
Whether or not an argument is indeed fallacious is what can be debated.

If an argument contains a fallacy it falls.
I see gullible people, everywhere!

Shaker

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #19 on: September 06, 2017, 10:18:36 PM »
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.
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Steve H

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #20 on: September 06, 2017, 10:33:07 PM »
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.
I came to realise that every time we recognise something human in creatures, we are also recognising something creaturely in ourselves. That is central to the rejection of human supremacism as the pernicious doctrine it is.
Robert Macfarlane

Steve H

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #21 on: September 06, 2017, 10:33:44 PM »
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.
I came to realise that every time we recognise something human in creatures, we are also recognising something creaturely in ourselves. That is central to the rejection of human supremacism as the pernicious doctrine it is.
Robert Macfarlane

Shaker

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Re: Some new logical fallacies
« Reply #22 on: September 06, 2017, 11:00:02 PM »
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.
« Last Edit: September 06, 2017, 11:16:04 PM by Shaker »
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.