Unimportant 'Language Missuses' 2: Mother May II

[Fyraltari]

The only correct language is early homonid grunting sounds.

Reformist trash. True language purists use pheromones.

[Peelee]

Reformist trash. True language purists use pheromones.

Clubs over the head are the purest form of communication.

[DavidSh]

Clubs over the head are the purest form of communication.

I would prefer diamonds, thank you very much.

[Peelee]

I would prefer diamonds, thank you very much.

Fine. Clubs over the head are the purest form of diamonds.

[Vinyadan]

Whenever I read stuff like "corruption" referred to language change, I want to strangle the speaker.

[Xuc Xac]

Whenever I read stuff like "corruption" referred to language change, I want to strangle the speaker.

Because they're talking while you're trying to read? Is that distraction really annoying enough to kill someone for it?

[Vinyadan]

Because they're talking while you're trying to read? Is that distraction really annoying enough to kill someone for it?

I think I wrote that because it was in a SMBC comic, so I read it, but I could see the speaker.

[Willie the Duck]

I doubt that's the real explanation though. The impression I got was that it meant they were asking ("begging") for their conclusion to be included as one of the initial assumptions

In my mind, they both sound equally like a stretch. So far as our searches have born fruit, there doesn't seem to be a 'real explanation' better than "16th century translator's rendering of Aristotle's 'petitio principii,' which would more accurately have been 'assume the conclusion.'"

[Bohandas]

I know it's a mistranslation. That was just my thinking as to how they got to that particular mistranslation and how it stuck. In terms of English it is, as I said before, absolute nonsense.

[veti]

In my mind, they both sound equally like a stretch. So far as our searches have born fruit, there doesn't seem to be a 'real explanation' better than "16th century translator's rendering of Aristotle's 'petitio principii,' which would more accurately have been 'assume the conclusion.'"

Waitaminute, Aristotle wrote in Latin?

[Peelee]

Waitaminute, Aristotle wrote in Latin?

After Sophocles wrote Oedipus Rex, Greeks writing in Latin just became the popular thing to do.

[Rockphed]

(in general, I don't like to refer to logical fallacies by name, because people very frequently use them in a way that gives the impression that they're expecting someone to stop the debate and dock their opponent ten points or something).

The reason people act as if logical fallacies are bad arguments, is because they are bad arguments. If you are begging the the question, you are talking non-sense. The reason begging the question is excentionally bad, is because on the surface it sounds persuasive, but it's actually nonsense.

Just because someone uses a bad argument does not mean their conclusion is wrong. Implying that it is is even its own sort of logical fallacy.

I think you are misunderstanding lesser_minion's point. It is the people throwing around the accusation of committing a logical fallacy that they are trying not to be, because they feel those are the people who still think they are in high school debate. While the formalized logical fallacies are genuine argumentation mistakes, and pointing them out in the logical argumentation of others is a plausible way of showing that perhaps someone else's argument isn't as thought-out as they think, declaring someone else's argument to be a fallacy also often seems to be done by people who only think they have a rock solid argument and why doesn't everyone else see it?, or at least those of us who frequent the internet have all met that guy at one point or another.

The point about logical fallacies is that they only happen if you are arguing illogically. So yes it's a trap an argument can drive into, and if you drive into it you have invalidated your argument. Logic is basically arithmentic for language, if you've generated a logical fallacy, you've argued something that's similar to, but usually a lot more complex than, saying that 2 + 2 = 5 (maybe more like 250 + 249 is exactly = 500).

Right, but it's a legitimate trap by the rules of argument, and if you've triggered it, your argument is mistaken. It may be that you misspoke due to ignorance of the rules of argument, but ignorance is not immunity, and if your argument is inherently illogical (that is, if the basic structure of it is illogical, rather than some phrase of it being badly worded by mistake), then people shouldn't agree with you because you are wrong.

Most of the time we don't need to go deeply into logic (and it's as deep as maths if you really want to dive in), but being aware of the basics is essential if you have any interest in arguing, like being aware of basic arithmetic is necessary to shopping.

Logic is only part of one of the 3 pillars of rhetoric: logos. The other 2, pathos and ethos, do not depend at all on logical argument. Now, pointing out that someone is arguing illogically can undermine their connection with the audience (pathos) or their personal credibility (ethos), but it is not guaranteed to do so. Also, if you do so without actually showing better logical progression, you fall into the aforementioned fallacy that just because someone's logic is bad does not mean that their conclusion is wrong.

[georgie_leech]

Also, if you do so without actually showing better logical progression, you fall into the aforementioned fallacy that just because someone's logic is bad does not mean that their conclusion is wrong.

My go-to example:

"Flat Earthers are bad.
Bad people are wrong.
Therefore, the earth isn't flat."

Blatant ad hominem, hints of non-sequitor, yet the Earth stubbornly refuses to contort itself to make the conclusion wrong.

[Vinyadan]

My go-to example:

"Flat Earthers are bad.
Bad people are wrong.
Therefore, the earth isn't flat."

Blatant ad hominem, hints of non-sequitor, yet the Earth stubbornly refuses to contort itself to make the conclusion wrong.

I like how this can be a haiku

Man with a blue plate
the horse stumbles on its rider
Night on the South Pole.

[halfeye]

Just because someone uses a bad argument does not mean their conclusion is wrong. Implying that it is is even its own sort of logical fallacy.

It does mean that their conclusion isn't proved from their assumptions.

You can argue anything from anything, it's only the logical arguments that prove anything, and even those only prove stuff if the assumptions are true.

If you don't mind not proving what you are asserting, you can say any rubbish, but people who are interested in the truth will probably call you out on it.

[Rockphed]

It does mean that their conclusion isn't proved from their assumptions.

You can argue anything from anything, it's only the logical arguments that prove anything, and even those only prove stuff if the assumptions are true.

If you don't mind not proving what you are asserting, you can say any rubbish, but people who are interested in the truth will probably call you out on it.

If you assert that people are wrong simply because their logic is bad, you are engaging in just as much magical thinking as the people engaging in logical fallacies. Furthermore, the only people who are interested in "the truth" are philosophers. The proper result of a real debate is correct action. You will, if you pay any attention to politics, notice that pretty much everyone engages in lying about what is going on because they think the lies are close enough to the truth to pass muster and that the truth will support their chosen actions anyway. Simply calling out such people for engaging in logical fallacy will get you nowhere. If you want to derail their rhetoric, and thus change the way people react to their ideas, you need to also show where their logic should lead. After all, politicians lying is nothing new, but politicians using facts that, when logically followed, highlight option B as better than option A while clamoring for option A to be followed tend to do less well in their next election.

[veti]

If you want to derail their rhetoric, and thus change the way people react to their ideas, you need to also show where their logic should lead. After all, politicians lying is nothing new, but politicians using facts that, when logically followed, highlight option B as better than option A while clamoring for option A to be followed tend to do less well in their next election.

That little word "should" is under appreciated. It does a lot of work in arguments, carries a tremendous deal of weight, but it is hardly ever acknowledged for what it is.

In logic, "should" suggests a test. "If my premises are correct, then Thing A should also be true, therefore if we check for the existence of A, we can infer something about the possibility that our premise is true."

But in rhetoric it means something quite different. It means "The world would be a better place if this were true." Which, of course, assumes that you and your audience share a common understanding of what makes the world "better". Therefore it's a word that only works on people who already see you as on their side. Others will hear it as haranguing, or worse, threatening.

[halfeye]

If you assert that people are wrong simply because their logic is bad, you are engaging in just as much magical thinking as the people engaging in logical fallacies.

I don't think I said that in the post you quoted.

If someone's logic is bad, then whatever they were trying to prove, wasn't proved by what they said in the section of what they said that was illogical.

If you want to argue that what someone said was true despite them saying it in an illogical way, then you need to find a way to say it that makes logical sense, and that is based on true assumptions.

[Willie the Duck]

Waitaminute, Aristotle wrote in Latin?

Ha! I didn't even notice that! Looks like there is a missed step. Aristotle would have started with τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς αἰτεῖν, "asking for the initial thing." I am guessing that Prior Analytics must have been widely available in Latin for it to be mistranslated into English.

[Vinyadan]

Ha! I didn't even notice that! Looks like there is a missed step. Aristotle would have started with τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς αἰτεῖν, "asking for the initial thing." I am guessing that Prior Analytics must have been widely available in Latin for it to be mistranslated into English.

Most of Aristotle's works weren't available to the Latin West for a long time. They were translated to Latin in the XII-XIII century, in Venice and in Spain (famously by king Alfonso el Sabio = the Wise, who had the Arab versions translated into Latin). Both Prior Analytics and Sophistical Refutations (the two works where the petitio principii is discussed) were among them. After that, they were pretty much everywhere.

Oddly enough, the Arab world, which had put a lot of thought on Aristotle during the previous centuries, stopped studying his work around the same time these translations were made, while the West adopted Ibn Rushd's commentaries on Aristotle, who wouldn't really impact the Arab world until the XIX century.

[Bohandas]

I just remembered another common misuse that really bugs me.

In the settings of several mobile applications that I've used there's an option to choose whether to save files to "internal memory" or the "SD card", but this is not what the setting actually does. The "internal memory" setting saves the files to a portion of internal memory that I can't navigate to in other programs without root level access and the "SD card" setting saves the files to a portion of internal memory that I CAN navigate to in other programs without root level access, but neither option actually saves to the SD card