Does anyone understand logical fallacies?

Hammersmith

Member
It was put to me, that most of all my beliefs are based on second hand information, the majority of which, I could not, nor could I ever verify without arguments to authority and a number of other fallaciously illogical reasonings.

Am I wrong in thinking you can't dismiss evidence just because there is an authoritative chain?

Surely that is a paradox? Are there scenarios where logical suppositions, such as arguments to authority or the like, is not aplicable?

Open question. Please explain your answer.
 
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Hammersmith

Member
In another hypothetical situation, I can prove that i have been lied to (and mistreated) by my teacher. Infact, historically it has happened many times.
Is it inconsistent reasoning for me to suggest, that the credibility of that teacher doesn't diminish, just because my teacher has lied to me previously?
 

NanoGadget

Well-Known Member
It was put to me, that most of all my beliefs are based on second hand information, the majority of which, I could not, nor could I ever verify without arguments to authority and a number of other fallaciously illogical reasonings.

Am I wrong in thinking you can't dismiss evidence just because there is an authoritative chain?

Surely that is a paradox? Are there scenarios where logical suppositions, such as arguments to authority or the like, is not aplicable?

Open question. Please explain your answer.
I dug this up from a discussion i had about this a couple months ago. I really wish I could remember the website because it was a good resource. I feel like this is the part people neglect when discussing Appeal to Authority.

"Be very careful not to confuse "deferring to an authority on the issue" with the appeal to authority fallacy. Remember, a fallacy is an error in reasoning. Dismissing the council of legitimate experts and authorities turns good skepticism into denialism. The appeal to authority is a fallacy in argumentation, but deferring to an authority is a reliable heuristic that we all use virtually every day on issues of relatively little importance. There is always a chance that any authority can be wrong, that’s why the critical thinker accepts facts provisionally. It is not at all unreasonable (or an error in reasoning) to accept information as provisionally true by credible authorities. Of course, the reasonableness is moderated by the claim being made (i.e., how extraordinary, how important) and the authority (how credible, how relevant to the claim)."
 

Icu420

Active Member
In general if a belief is held on account of authority and is not otherwise established as a truth, then it may be true or not.

Whether it should be dismissed without further evidence depends on the nature of the proposition being natural or extraordinary as the extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

The claim that one's beliefs can not be verified, if true, doesn't necessarily mean that one can't rightfully go beyond the foremost wrong view which is that the claim may or may not be true but that only if the claim can be falsified by contradiction.

If the claim can neither be falsified nor verified then one is limited to the foremost wrong view.

In another hypothetical situation, I can prove that i have been lied to (and mistreated) by my teacher. Infact, historically it has happened many times.
Is it inconsistent reasoning for me to suggest, that the credibility of that teacher doesn't diminish, just because my teacher has lied to me previously?
I am not sure what else would diminish one's credibility if not being observed to not be credible.

It does not however establish that he is not credible in a particular circumstance and it does not necessarily mean that he is particularly prone to being dishonest but if his claim may or may not be truthful then the foremost wrong view should be weighted towards it not being true.

It is like throwing a dice which may or may not be loaded. As the frequency of throws increases so does one's confidence as to whether there is a deviation from the norm, however due to the probability distribution one can never tell if one is being incredibly unlucky or is working with a loaded dice as the probability of a certain outcome never goes to zero but only gets closer to zero as in infinite series of 1/6*1/6*1/6... and one's view should thus be weighted accordingly.

It is literally impossible to throw the dice infinite amount of times and it is like if one had the power to jump infinitely far one couldn't jump to infinite distance because one wouldn't land and that isn't what jumping is, likewise when it comes to being able to teleport to any uncapped distance, one has to resolve on a finite distance because otherwise it's not an instance of teleportation.
 
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