Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

plover.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 134 posts

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#51

Post by Avshalom »

khyryk wrote: post #45
MDCore wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've fallen into the trap the article talks about, in expecting the woman in the story to be talking logically and therefore held to a high standard of discourse. People say over-the-top, outrageous things out of emotionality, when they may mean something far less or completely different. Instead of seeing the woman's statements as a logical argument, one should see them as the expressions of emotion that they are,…

Sorry, I don't think I'm going to be afforded the same courtesy if I start ranting about how all Valley girls are sluts because of my few experiences, for instance, even if it happens to be my genuine expression of emotion. Hoping that everyone's interpretation of certain emotions converges on something similar (and civil) is just asking for a clusterfuck.

Turns out you don't live in a vacuum ¡social context!

That said you can rest easily knowing that people would probably not attempt to convince you valley girls were not sluts by pointing out your logical fallacies.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#53

Post by aethertap »

dragonwriter wrote: post #42
bengillies wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not? Because, while it's a perfectly valid argument to make, technically winning an argument is different to actually winning an argument. If most people don't know what a logical fallacy is, then you may as well be referring to the argument from magic pixies and fairy dust fallacy: they won't care or understand what you're saying. At worst, they'll assume you have an unwelcome air superiority about you and the…

> If most people don't know what a logical fallacy is, then you may as well be referring to the argument from magic pixies and fairy dust fallacy: they won't care or understand what you're saying. At worst, they'll assume you have an unwelcome air superiority about you and they'll start to ignore everything else you say as well. That's important, if your concern is convincing general-audience third parties. In a foru…

Another simple reason I prefer not to name fallacies is that it leaves an unsupported assertion out there (namely, that whatever it was is in fact a fallacy). I usually engage in a debate mostly for my own benefit, to improve my thinking on something. I find that chasing down and understanding exactly why something does or does not qualify as an instance of a given fallacy is beneficial for that end, and it keeps me from making hasty judgments about what really is a fallacy in a given context.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#54

Post by zorpner »

kmm wrote: post #44

First, I just knew this was going to be about sexism. It's not because your feelings are hurt, that you receive intellectual immunity. If you are making a generalisation about an entire community, consisting of thousands to millions of people, you're going to need to justify that! You're free to say you've encountered some sexist people and I sympathise with that, sexism is terrible. But do not accuse me of being sex…

> But do not accuse me of being sexist.

But you are. So am I -- we all are. Our culture and society are so riddled with pervasive sexism that we all exhibit sexist behavior at baseline, and the responsible thing to do is try and identify it within ourselves so that we can determine how best to negate it. If someone were truly lacking sexism, that would be an extraordinary claim, and would require extraordinary evidence to demonstrate. And if you'll forgive me for saying so -- that's not about to come from someone who says things like "I just knew this was going to be about sexism."

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#55

Post by dragonwriter »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #32

I'm surprised that neither the article nor the comments here mention the "principle of charity". I read about this early in my study of logic and philosophy. It basically says that, if your objective is to discover truth rather than to win a debate, you ought to grant the best possible interpretation of the speaker's statement instead of focusing on narrow and literal interpretations which contain obvious logical fal…

The principle of charity is important but also can be dangerous if taken too far, particularly, it can avoid productive discussion by what amounts to a version of the strawman fallacy where instead of inventing something that the other person didn't say shaped by one's own preconceptions to argue against, you are inventing something that the other person didn't say shaped by one's own preconceptions to agree with, which is clearly an impediment, rather than a boon, to the productive interchange of ideas.

Beyond deciding how to resolve obvious ambiguities where it can readily provide a best interpretation which it is most likely was actually intended by the speaker (the Caesar example in the Wikipedia article is a good one for this), the principle of charity is best applied cautiously to form a hypothesis of what the other speaker may have intended that can be verified through a clarification request.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#56

Post by rwj »

mindcrime wrote: post #11

Humans typically communicate in a way that resists shallow logical analysis. In a real conversation, people use words rather than terms, make utterances rather than sentences, and employ a wider variety of inference methods than modus ponens. A great deal of what is communicated and inferred in a conversation depends on context; the speakers and audience, their history, their shared knowledge and confidences, the fee…

Logical fallacies can be misused. They can be applied incorrectly, or used to shut down discussion. I therefore sympathise with the point that the OP is trying to make. However, does it then follow that logical errors should be given a pass? Does this somehow make muddled thinking valid or persuasive?

The correct course of action is to raise standards on all sides. If a logical fallacy is incorrectly used, then the criticism should be criticized. Mutual progress comes from refining thought on both sides, not allowing errors to go unchecked.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#57

Post by jlgreco »

samatman wrote: post #17
Nursie wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with his assessment of the misuse of the term ad-hominem too. An ad-hom fallacy is "your argument is wrong because you're an immoral moron", not "your argument is wrong for these reasons, you immoral moron". The latter is not very nice and probably shouldn't be encouraged, but it's not an ad-hominem because the insult is not part of the argument, just an unpleasant aside.

Ad-hom is often invoked against arguments of the form "So-and-so advocated that position and look what happened". This is actually argument from consequence and is useful, Godwin be damned.

While we are on the topic, the whole "Godwin" shit drives me batty. Yes, I get that "You won't let me go to the dance with Timmy? You are Hitler!" is not cool, but for the most part in mature discussion that is not what is happening right before somebody starts hysterically screaming "GODWIN!"

If history is to be considered important, it is because we think we can learn from it. However our ability to do so is cut short if we reject any allusion to history in which magnitude and severity are mismatched.

For example: If you kick a small village of several dozen in Africa out of their homes to make room for a pipeline, that is not equivalent to the 'Trail of Tears', but there sure as hell are valid comparisons to be made nevertheless. However the overly enthusiastic "Godwinists" would have us believe any comparison between the two would be uncalled for.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#58

Post by Avshalom »

kmm wrote: post #44

First, I just knew this was going to be about sexism. It's not because your feelings are hurt, that you receive intellectual immunity. If you are making a generalisation about an entire community, consisting of thousands to millions of people, you're going to need to justify that! You're free to say you've encountered some sexist people and I sympathise with that, sexism is terrible. But do not accuse me of being sex…

It's no more about sexism than it is about book reviews.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#59

Post by jonnathanson »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #32

I'm surprised that neither the article nor the comments here mention the "principle of charity". I read about this early in my study of logic and philosophy. It basically says that, if your objective is to discover truth rather than to win a debate, you ought to grant the best possible interpretation of the speaker's statement instead of focusing on narrow and literal interpretations which contain obvious logical fal…

Most people start from the (ostensibly reasonable) assumption that you can't win an argument on the internet. It doesn't matter how cogent, how thought-provoking, how thoroughly researched and meticulously cited your position may be. You're not convincing the other side of anything. At best you can "win the crowd" in the Gladiator sense of the term.

And this is what encourages most of the fallacy-citing, semantics nitpicking, and prosaic grandstanding seen in pseudo-sophisticated internet arguments. People aren't trying to convince the other side of anything in particular; they're trying to convince the audience -- oftentimes, more imagined than actual -- of their intellectual superiority.

People these days join conversations, by default, in fight-or-flight mode. They presume hostility is lurking in every response, or, conversely, that responding to a post necessitates correcting it in some way. If more of them assumed good intent until proven otherwise, they wouldn't rush headlong into internet arguments.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#60

Post by papsosouid »

realtalker wrote: post #22

This seems to have been prompted by the criticism he recieved for this appalling piece of work: http://plover.net/~bonds/nolongeraskeptic.html#islamophobia

Wow. Apart from how terrible that is, I am pretty impressed at the hypocrisy. "Stop using logic to try to shut down discussion. On an unrelated note, stop talking because misogyny/islamophobia/SJW nonsense."
Post reply on HN