I voted 'agree' to the OP, because despite protestations that it would take up precious space; I can't see how it could take up more precious space than the reams of drivel that make up much of what is posted on this forum. — Janus

When did you become so sensible? Maybe I just missed it before. Anyway, I like this you.

(And yes, I do judge sensibleness on a scale with myself at the top and we-both-know-who at the bottom). :wink:

But who cares, really. — Baden

*raises hand*

If the fallacies were deliberately woven into the text I suppose it could be something interesting; a kind of novelty; but could it be philosophically interesting? — Janus

Apparently whether or not something is philosophically interesting is entirely a matter of StreetlightX's opinion, so you're asking the wrong person.

Shall we do a poll? — Baden

That's a terrible idea! (Now everyone will think that it's a good idea).

Seriously, someone should sticky a topic on logic terminology. — Michael

Great idea, only this time we've switched roles, with you being ironic and me being sincere. (Oh wait, that was @Baden. Whatever, you're all the same to me. Everything's a goat anyway).

So something could be philosophically interesting, even if it were riddled with fallacies? :confused: — Janus

I can see it being interesting like a puzzle. Making an argument riddled with fallacies is like mixing up the colours of a Rubik's cube and then placing that cube somewhere as a kind of open invitation to solve it.

:rofl:

Ad hominem. — fdrake

Do do do-do-do

Fallacy of trying to be wittier than me.

Your doubt is countered by the fact that you're wrong. — Michael

I doubt that. :grin:

(I'm setting you up, here. Go ahead and say it).

What happened to the minimalism that was mentioned earlier? That's too much, and it's just kind of a needless replica of the resources section, and if it was hidden away from the front page, then it would undermine the whole point of increasing awareness.

I doubt anyone would read it so it’s a waste of space. — Michael

That you doubt that anyone would read it, and therefore think that it’s a waste of space, is countered by my lack of such doubt, which leads me to conclude otherwise.

We've got the resources section of the Learner centre. We could pin there maybe. — Baden

Yeah, let's pin it where it won't be seen by most people. Great idea.

Which is to say -- I don't think it would change our penchant for making mistakes in thinking to have a list pinned up. I think all it would accomplish would be to endorse the bad use of fallacies. So I voted no. — Moliere

It wouldn't endorse the bad use - at least not explicitly. That would be an unintended consequence, and I agree that it would be bad. That's why, of course, here of all places, there would be an emphasis on learning them, and learning how to correctly identify them, and learning how to do so appropriately.

Cool. I'll try not to spoil the suspense by telling you jamalrob said no. :up: — Baden

He also got in a few subtle digs, and acted as though he's superior. The irony is that he sees it in others, and disapproves, but apparently doesn't see it in himself. At least I'm self-aware. I'm even self-aware of the super duper irony this could be.

Or I'm misinterpreting what he said and making it all about me. Whatever, he has plausible deniability, the cunning fox. :lol:

Those who think philosophy turns on fallacies have yet to leave the play-pen. — StreetlightX

It's patronizing and overbearing and has a whiff of... Let's just say it has a whiff of Sapientia about it :razz: — SophistiCat

Yeah, let's read emotional things into it and name call and sling mud and make it personal. That kind of stuff is so much more reasonable.

Ok, I'll just wait 'til you work your way through every reply then... :ok: — Baden

Alright, alright! I'll catch up first, then reply to whatever you're referring to. :grin:

Basic idea is OK by me if that's what people want. — Baden

Need I remind you that the British people wanted Brexit, which you strongly disagree with, a significant enough number of the American people wanted Trump, who you strongly disagree with, and that you take lots of actions here in your role as an administrator without deferring to what the people of this forum want?

:roll:

We're not going to overwhelm the guidelines with a list of fallacies and their explanations, but we could possibly put a link to a list of fallacies in there. Although that may be a compromise that pleases no-one. — Baden

Do it! That's better than nothing, at least.

Maybe have it in the already pinned post as an addition to what's already pinned there? — Christoffer

It's hopeless. The site staff will band together and keep coming up with reasons to reject it, no matter what you say. I should know better than most: I was one of them for a couple of years.

:shade:

If you want to learn about logical fallacies, take an introductory course in logic, or do some reading. It's a good idea. — Metaphysician Undercover

How did @Janus word it? Ah, that's it: "egregious projection".

At least you seem to have moved on from much of your illogic to focus on trivial semantics. That's progress of a sort, I suppose. Let's just agree to disagree, as I don't really care about your opinion on the semantics here, and it doesn't seem worth arguing over. If your semantics is anything like your illogic, then it will leave much to be desired.

Before science there were humans that perceived blue things. Before geometry there were humans that perceived equi-sided formations. — Mww

Agree.

Even if we can say truthfully the scientific or geometric properties resided in the objects before we knew of them, we can truthfully only say so after the discovery of it. — Mww

No, because that erroneously rules out speaking unconfirmed truths. If I knew enough to make a prediction or a guess about the properties of blue objects or geometric shapes, then I could speak unconfirmed truths about them. For example, if I knew that the colour blue consists in visible light from within a certain range of wavelength, and I knew that we could measure wavelengths in nanometres, then I could make a complete guess and say that the colour blue has a range of between 450 and 495 nanometres, and if I said that, then I would be speaking a truth prior to the discovery of that fact.

But if I didn't know enough to make a prediction or guess of that sort, then yes, I wouldn't be able to truthfully say stuff like that. But so what? How is that supposedly relevant?

Unconfirmed truths are important in this context, because that, in combination with other things, enables me to reasonably say that there would exist a rock if we all died, and, in my argument with you-know-who, that it could be the case that there's a rock that's 10cm in length, despite it not having been measured.

So you've fallen prey to his kind of illogic, have you? I thought that you were better than that.

Blue things were blue long before wavelengths and frequencies were determinable, or even practically necessary. Square things were square long before geometers determined what it means to be square. — Mww

This is a misuse of "determine", another error which Metaphysician Undercover has made prior to you making it. If you want to say it right, then you should use "discover" instead. The properties of a thing are what determines what it is. If a segment of visible light has the properties required for being blue, then it's blue. If a shape has the properties required for being a square, then it's a square. That's what determines. If I don't know that, then I haven't discovered it. And if I want to discover it, and I think I know how, then that's what I'll have to do in order to find out.

Because these things were perceived beforehand, the specific properties for these things are not required for them to be understood. — Mww

To what extent?! Obviously lacking knowledge of subsequent discoveries means that they didn't understand them to the extent that we do.

That is the same as saying the real parts of these things are not required for the understanding of them, for the knowing of them for what they are merely by means of their appearance. — Mww

That's a load of rubbish. If I only knew of the appearance of the colour blue, then I would only have an incomplete understanding. I wouldn't understand that the colour blue is visible light within a certain range of wavelength.

A gal who wants a shade of blue for the nursery doesn’t give a crap about the frequency of it, and the guy setting tile in the hallway doesn’t give a crap about the fact of four equal angles, but both of them know what they want from each of those things, have an expectation from these things because of their appearance and NOT from their respective properties. — Mww

But I don't give a crap about knowledge for limited practical purposes in this context. I've explained the irrelevance of this before, yet here you are bringing it up again, as though it were otherwise. This discussion is about knowledge and truth. It is not confined to your agenda of what's practical! If you want to talk about what's practical, then create a separate discussion! This isn't something that's going to change over time for no apparent reason, so please try to remember the appropriate context.

There is no suspicion in claiming to be a realist, the negation of which is absurd, but the denial of idealism which necessarily accompanies it, is highly suspicious. As long as an otherwise normally functioning human thinks, he is an idealist of some kind. Simply knowing something about blue and squares and all the rest, that cannot be derived, nor does not need to be derived, from its physical properties presupposes a source of knowledge having nothing to do with the empirical realism, that being merely the occassion. — Mww

What? That's a load of nonsense. I'm not an idealist. And knowing something about things like the colour blue, like how it appears, without knowing the science, is completely irrelevant. Okay, people can know some stuff about some stuff without knowing everything about that stuff. Okay, people can know enough for practical purposes. I never denied that, but I certainly deny the relevance of you bringing that up in this context.

Ok. So if some properties are measured, some meaning follows necessarily from those measurements, but the meaning itself is not a measurement. If that is true, then how can we tell whether the meaning belongs to the measurement or to the EMR? Just like if we measure the sides of a four-sided geometric figure and the measurements provide the same units means the figure is a square, does “square” reside in the figure or the equal measures? — Mww

What? A square is a shape that has four equal sides and four equal angles. So if there's a shape that has four equal sides and four equal angles, then it's a square. It's the shape that has those properties. Regarding the meaning, that's covered by the aforementioned. The first sentence empresses the meaning. Why would measurement even come into this? That seems irrelevant to me. The first two sentences are sufficient for determining whether or not there's a square, which would be a relevant line of inquiry. If a relevant line of inquiry was something like, "How can we know what length the sides of the square are?", then measurement would be relevant.

:lol: :up:

I voted no. My fear would be that pinned rules would not appear as helpful and educational, but they would be viewed as pedantic rules that must be adhered to or face the consequences of being chastised for failing to read and understand the fundamental rules of logic this board apparently is prioritizing. — Hanover

Finally, some criticism worth taking on board. I knew it would come from someone like you. That's possible. Though I think that we could counteract that to some extent with the way that we word it. We'd just need to word it in a sort of "Helpful Tips" way, rather than a "These are the rules of logic you must follow or else!" way.

I believe the idea is that the less pinned, the better. There's only so much real estate, and we want to save it for discussion. Fallacies and biases would be nice and all, but a bit of a luxury that we don't really need. — StreetlightX

It's one more item, and it would be very helpful and relevant. I get the minimalism, but it doesn't have to be so extreme that one more pinned item is unthinkable. That would leave plenty of room for discussions! The whole rest of the page. It would barely have an impact on that at all.

The full argument may not be there yet. But I think we should be able to say that the good has something to do with (sentient) life and well-being. A kicked puppy is not a happy puppy.
— Andrew M

An approach that might work is looking at capabilities. Martha Nausbaum. Usable stuff. — Banno

That's all pretty obvious. It's additional claims and where you take this which could be problematic. Phrases like "has to do with", "looking at", and "usable" would need to be drawn out.

Morality is an abstraction (or pattern or form), not a concrete particular like the above things. However it is an abstraction over particulars and natural processes and so is similarly natural. As a familiar example of a natural abstraction, consider the center of mass in physics.

The particulars in the case of morality are actions like murdering people and kicking puppies. These actions occur in the natural world.

So the issue, I think, is not one of natural versus artificial, but of whether there is a natural moral standard that is well-motivated (and useful) versus standards that are artificial (or subjective).

Which is where Schelling points come in. But I'll leave it there for now in case you disagree with any of the above. — Andrew M

Things in nature have a centre of mass, and that's objective. It doesn't even seem to make sense to say that things in nature have a morality. Objectively? Whereabouts on a rock is a rock's morality? And a natural moral standard seems completely unsubstantiated and a leap in logic, assuming that even makes sense and is not a category error.

I accept that there is a sense in which everything is natural, but not if you make a mutually exclusive distinction between natural and artificial, which is a useful distinction. Suggesting that everything is natural, on the other hand, is not very useful at all. When you brought up monetary value earlier, that's an example of something artificial. Morality, at the very least, definitely has an artificial aspect. We came up with "good" and "bad", moral language, moral rules, moral principles, etc. We came up with moral concepts. If you point to behaviour, and to acts, like, say, kicking a puppy, then that's all you're pointing to: behaviour, actions, a puppy, a person. Where's the morality to be found there, independently, as though it has a place in nature? That strikes me as absurd. If we dissect the kicked puppy, will we discover wrongness inside of it? How could we even test your theory? If I objectively examine kicking puppies, I do not find morality there. I would only find things that you can find in things like physics and biology, like the physics of movement and the biology of canines. I would necessarily have to take into my account subjectivity to find morality stuff. You just seem to be projecting, to be anthropomorphising.

The issue is not whether there is a natural moral standard that is well-motivated and useful versus standards that are artificial or subjective. That's getting ahead of yourself. Well-motivated and useful is irrelevant at this stage where the very suggestion that there's a natural moral standard is in question. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

The evidence of those implicit values is that a model assuming them makes successful predictions (and, in addition, is explanatory). Suppose that Bob has a bottle of water and a bottle of poison on the bench and that he is thirsty. The bottles are clearly identified. I predict that Bob will drink from the bottle of water, not the bottle of poison. I would predict this, even without knowing Bob or asking him what his preferences are. — Andrew M

That's not evidence in support of your claims where there is disagreement. We know that most people value their lives, so Bob will probably choose the water over the poison. That's implicit, sure. As in, Bob hasn't made this explicit, and he doesn't need to for us to accurately predict his behaviour. But I don't think that anyone will disagree with you about that.

Here's the disagreement. What Bob values is just what Bob values. You haven't shown that this is evidence of a value independent of what it is behind the human valuing, namely preference and feeling. Bob probably gets enjoyment out of his life and is not suicidal. Otherwise, he might well choose the poison.

A := some "is" statement;
B := some "ought" statement;
The disjunction AvB is either an "is" statement or an "ought" statement. — Nicholas Ferreira

Asserting the disjunction itself would be to assert an "is" statement. It says that it is true that either A is true or B is true. And unless both A and B are false, then the statement is true.

If (AvB) is an "is" statement, then consider this:
1. (AvB) ["is" statement]
2. ¬A ["is" statement]
2. ∴ B (1,2, disjunctive syllogism) ["ought" statement] — Nicholas Ferreira

The form is valid. But can "ought" statements rightly be used in this way to begin with? Some people do not think that they're sufficiently like "is" statements. Some people think that they're not truth-apt.

Furthermore, if we can't make this derivation because they are from separate domains, different "kingdoms" of statements, then we couldn't derive "is" statements from "ought" statements too. But this argument shows that we actually can:
1. John ought to go to school
2. Kids and only kids ought to go to school
3. Therefore, John is a kid.
Is this wrong? — Nicholas Ferreira

It doesn't seem wrong, but it could be deceptive. I'm not sure. But for that reason alone, I'd say that it's a good argument. It's challenging.

So there's no good reason not to do this? People are maybe just fucking with me: let's vote "Disagree" just to mess with him!

Okay, very funny, guys. :clap:

I'll try a poem next time. Anything to alleviate the boredom of watching a bunch of folks make desperate efforts to not think in a remotely interesting way.

It's at least amusing that the two criticisms of the idea of problematizing the subject(ive)/object(ive) distinction re morality are:

1) That's ridiculous!
2) That's trivially obvious! — Baden

Ah, I see what you're doing. This is "payback". I made fun of your diagram by purposefully acting as though I had grossly misunderstood it, and you're now doing the same thing with my criticism of your criticism of the subjective-objective distinction.

Do you genuinely disagree with me, though? And if so, what's the significance of our disagreement? Earlier, you said that we were talking past each other. And I said that you were missing the point. Are you sure that we can't come to a reasonable agreement about the subjective-objective distinction?

Do you accept that some "things" are subjective and some "things" are objective? Like, say, judgement and rocks?

The rock is not "of a certain length" until the length has been ascertained. To say that it is, is contradiction plain and simple. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nope, not by my logic, plain and simple. By your logic, plain and simple. Your logic is bad logic which I reject. This is one of your fundamental errors: confusing your logic for mine. And it should be obvious to anyone with even a very basic understanding of logic what you're doing wrong here, yet, let me guess: you want me to explain the problem to you? That first sentence of yours in the quote above: do you know what we call that when it is part of an argument? That's right: a premise! And whose premise is it? Is it yours? Is it mine? Is it a premise that we both agree on? Bearing this in mind, whose logic leads to contradiction? Does my logic internally lead to contradiction? Yes or no?

Let me know if you've figured it out.

If you really believe that it is "of a certain length", then tell me who is certain of the length? — Metaphysician Undercover

Very funny. I'm guessing that you don't see why that's a funny question to ask me, and you'll expect me to explain it to you, like you expect me to explain everything, no matter how simple or obvious it is to anyone with half a brain. Nah. I don't think so. Try to figure it out for yourself. It is not good that you need to be spoon fed everything, like a little baby.

What are you supposing here, that the rock is certain of its own length? — Metaphysician Undercover

Wow. Just... wow. This is astounding.

So would a realist say some EMR has the property of 450nm, along with the property of 630THz, and the property “blue”? — Mww

I wouldn't say that last part. That it has the property of being 450nm and 630THz means that it's blue.

Cheers, I thought we might have some visual learners among the critics here, but... — Baden

Wait, I think I get it. Morality is a badly drawn cone?

I agree, but we're all sort of restricted to the word here; because it's not "reinventing the wheel", which we should think, but some abstraction of the symbol of hammer and wheel, better thought "..." or "silent", not with the word additive. — kill jepetto

That we're all sort of restricted to the word is not a bad thing. You can do more complex things with words. You'd just be reinventing the wheel, meaning that you'd be creating an inferior language for one we already have.

It would be a terrible idea to replace the keyboard I'm using with a pictogram. The pictogram was one of the earliest forms of language for a reason. That was 3000 years ago. We've come a long way since then. Our development lead to the English language. Imagine Shakespeare in pictogram! :lol:

Have you ever heard the idiom, "reinventing the wheel"? Maybe that one could be symbolised with a hammer in combination with a wheel. (Or maybe we could just say it).