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Old 2009-10-03, 01:45   Link #2322
Cipher
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Quote:
Originally Posted by Proto View Post
Maybe we should start by clarifying this point, and making clear what Ascaloth has been trying to do with you all this time, since you seem to be oblivious as to what he's trying to do.

No, not all questions or reasonings are valid. Before we can start discussing and pondering about x or y philosophical issue, we have first assert the logical validity of our premises. Why is this important you ask? Because if our premises are illogical, our whole reasoning will be shaky, just like a castle whose foundations are weak.

This is where this whole fallacy issue comes in. Fallacies and the such are reasonings which have already been demonstrated to be wrong, no matter what form they take. As such, if it is demonstrated that your argument falls under a certain fallacy, it doesn't matter what you try to do, since your foundation is false, everything that directly stems from that foundations crumbles down.

Let's put forward one of the most common examples out there. Suppose that someone starts talking in favor of a certain candidate. However, that someone has had certain problems with the law in the past. As such, in order to discredit the candidate and his supporter you start personally attacking this supporter by making public all his dark past, hoping that that will destroy all his credibility.

However, this is known as an ad hominem fallacy (against the man fallacy). You are not really attacking the person arguments in favor of the candidate, you are only distracting everyone's attention from the real issue. As such, your whole reasoning, that people shouldn't support that candidate because his supporter is a dubious person falls to the ground, if that is your sole string of reasoning, because it is not logically sound.

It is the same case here. You are trying to reason and derive a certain cause by analyzing the consequence. However, as we talked before that is not possible, as per the affirming the consequent fallacy. It is known that if A implies B, this does not mean that we can derive B from A.

The important lesson we can learn from here is that if someone says that you are committing a logical fallacy with your arguments, you either have two options. You either demonstrate that you are not committing that logical fallacy, or you have to rethink your arguments in such a way that your arguments are logically sound.


[/educational capsule]
I was trying to create *peaceful* discussions(experimentation and/ or observations and/or study) by using questions, not arguments. ( I've learned *from a certain person* how its more effective).

But this is very irrelevant to the thread, I suggest a revert in discussion.
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