Random Thoughts Thread

[Montmorency]

Two of the most deeply-misunderstood logical fallacies are the "Ad Hominem" and the "No True Scotsman".


1. Ad Hominem

Calling someone a name does not automatically have any bearing whatsoever on one's arguments. Unless one explicitly predicates those arguments on some individual possessing some (presumably bad) trait(s), in which case the user is open to attack just in case it can be shown that the ad hominem is actually false or invalid.

You are a killer, therefore the political views you hold must be wrong.

Fallacy?

You are a killer, therefore you must hold wrong political views.

Fallacy?

You are a killer, therefore you love Hitler

Fallacy?

It is perfectly possible, though likely false, that membership in the set of killers should in itself entail membership in the set of Hitler-lovers. Thus the statement is not fallacious by the Ad Hominem.

Bonus: The same standards of relevance and possibility apply to the "Tu Quoque" fallacy, another oft-misunderstood fallacy.


2. No True Scotsman

This fallacy is one of equivocal or circular post-hoc reasoning. It does not comprehensively invalidate statements of the form "No 'legitimate' X..." or "An entity A can not be of Set X if it is a member of Set Y".

A: Is he a Scotsman? No Scotsman can jump.

B: He is a Scotsman based on multiple independent criteria, yet he can jump.

A: In that case those independent criteria must be wrong or irrelevant, as no true Scotsman can jump.

Fallacy?

A: Is he a Scotsman? No Scotsman can jump.

B: Yes, and he can jump.

A: In that case, he can't be a true Scotsman, as no true Scotsman can jump.

Fallacy?

In this case, the burden is on B to elucidate other factors that determine or preclude membership in the set of Scotsmen. Otherwise, all we have is B's unsupported affirmation of some entity's membership in both the set of Scotsmen and the set of people who can jump.

To make it even clearer, here's a fallacious argument obviously based on equivocation:

A: Is he a Scotsman? No Scotsman can jump.

B: Yes, and he can jump.

A: But he just beat that black guy in basketball, so clearly he can jump, and therefore is not a true Scotsman.

Ultimately, it would probably be best if in almost-all cases people just stopped referencing fallacies in their discussions at all.

[Fragony]

Awesome, just heard that my mate's daughther is going to the thai-boxing world championship. Next year she will have a much harder time because of her age, but this she could just haul in.

[Beskar]

Two of the most deeply-misunderstood logical fallacies are the "Ad Hominem" and the "No True Scotsman"...

I had a good understanding of the concepts, then I read your post. Now I am confused.

[Montmorency]

That's sig-worthy.

[A Nerd]

I think one of my cats has a cavity. Off to the vet with she today. Hooray! Well, not really, but what must get done shall.

[Husar]

Ultimately, it would probably be best if in almost-all cases people just stopped referencing fallacies in their discussions at all.

I don't remember coming across any of those fallacies in the Germosphere/Germanosphere. It might be because I'm not discussing philosophy and politics as much in German, but I think I mostly saw these here on the .org, which is part of the Anglosphere.
Therefore this despicable behavior must be yet another trait of the imperialistic Anglo-man.

[Crandar]

Seems that the 2013 Modding Awards are up in Total War Center. Nice to see abit less categories than the competition of 2012, as some of them were so obscure that the victor was dependent on his connections.
Anyway, can't say I have played many of the mods listed, except for the DarthMod, which has provided me with a breath-taking experience, considering the awfully broken AI of Napoleon and Empire, so the guy has definiteley my vote.
Actually, the greatest problem of those games was that the retarded AI had migrated to other, mediocre mods, like TGW, making them rather annoying to play, unfortunately, despite their over-ambitious planning.

[A Nerd]

I brought my cat in to the vet. Apparently she has gingivitis. I tried to tell her to brush and floss regularly but she apparently didn't. Anyway, the vet did some blood work and she told me my cat might have feline AIDS which can cause gingivitis. She was fixed when I adopted her several years ago so I don't know where she could have picked that disease up if indeed she does posess it. I am going to have her teeth pulled to cure the gingivitis but I don't know what else is required for her good health. Quite the ordeal.

[Brandy Blue]

Poor kitty.

[A Nerd]

Poor kitty indeed. She is hungry and I am at a loss as to what to feed her. I have tried several different things in hopes that she will eat it and suffer little pain, but nothing works. The vet hospital is taking too long to give me a quote for surgery. Then I can make the appointment. What she eats after that I don't know.

[Fragony]

Have you tried cat-milk? They can survive on that alone it's really nutricious.