another false fallacy
Feb. 21st, 2021 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacI wish to make an addition to my list of false fallacies: that is, things that are commonly cited as fallacies but maybe aren't.
One of my classic examples is the tu quoque, in the form of pointing out that your challenger doesn't abide by the consequences of their argument. This is called a logical fallacy of argument because it doesn't prove wrong what it's arguing against. What this criticism misses is that the tu quoque is not intended as proof. It's triage. What it says is not "You didn't apply your own argument to yourself, therefore it's wrong" but "You obviously don't really believe your own argument, so why should I give it consideration?"
Another form of the tu quoque is when the challenger points out you've made the same mistake you're accusing them of. You should admit your own errors, but you can also say, "I know I'm prone to it; that's why it's easy for me to see it in others." (C.S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters on this principle, criticizing no sin that he didn't recognize in himself.)
Another is "moving the goalposts." You make a statement, others challenge it, you change what your statement means. What may actually be happening here is that the challenger has misunderstood the original statement. The "change" in what it means is actually a clarification of what it originally meant, and it only looks like a change to the challenger because of their mistaken idea of what it meant.
Another possibility is that the original statement was badly phrased, and left open possibilities its maker didn't intend. Again, they're clarifying what they really meant all along, not changing it.
My latest addition is sealioning. This is defined as asking supposedly clarifying questions in bad faith to provoke an argument. It shouldn't be too surprising that if the questioner really doesn't understand, and needs an explanation in a different mode from that the others are prepared to give, or missed the earlier explanations somewhere far up a complicated thread, or the answerers consider the answer so obvious they're unwilling to expound on it, then the questioner will be falsely accused of sealioning.
One of my classic examples is the tu quoque, in the form of pointing out that your challenger doesn't abide by the consequences of their argument. This is called a logical fallacy of argument because it doesn't prove wrong what it's arguing against. What this criticism misses is that the tu quoque is not intended as proof. It's triage. What it says is not "You didn't apply your own argument to yourself, therefore it's wrong" but "You obviously don't really believe your own argument, so why should I give it consideration?"
Another form of the tu quoque is when the challenger points out you've made the same mistake you're accusing them of. You should admit your own errors, but you can also say, "I know I'm prone to it; that's why it's easy for me to see it in others." (C.S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters on this principle, criticizing no sin that he didn't recognize in himself.)
Another is "moving the goalposts." You make a statement, others challenge it, you change what your statement means. What may actually be happening here is that the challenger has misunderstood the original statement. The "change" in what it means is actually a clarification of what it originally meant, and it only looks like a change to the challenger because of their mistaken idea of what it meant.
Another possibility is that the original statement was badly phrased, and left open possibilities its maker didn't intend. Again, they're clarifying what they really meant all along, not changing it.
My latest addition is sealioning. This is defined as asking supposedly clarifying questions in bad faith to provoke an argument. It shouldn't be too surprising that if the questioner really doesn't understand, and needs an explanation in a different mode from that the others are prepared to give, or missed the earlier explanations somewhere far up a complicated thread, or the answerers consider the answer so obvious they're unwilling to expound on it, then the questioner will be falsely accused of sealioning.
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Date: 2021-02-22 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-22 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-22 05:19 pm (UTC)However! Can your apologist friend tell the difference between hiders, on the one hand, and seekers who are genuinely puzzled by the answers and seek further clarification? Or seekers who have read hider propaganda and want to know what the answers are? Because those are the kinds of seekers who get mistaken for hiders, i.e. sealions.
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Date: 2021-02-22 05:25 pm (UTC)Honestly, I don't know how well M. can discern the difference. I have only seen him "at work" on internet boards, where such things tend to be rather exaggerated and easier to tell.
Stay healthy,
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
*"Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it. But there it is." -- *Winston Churchill
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Date: 2021-02-22 07:42 pm (UTC)What chance does that give me, then? All right then, I AM the Messiah!
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Date: 2021-02-24 04:22 pm (UTC)Looking at the original comic, if you replace "sea lions" with "Jews" then it seems that the sea lion is in the right. If you replace it with "racists" then the sea lion is in the wrong. So it's not actually a guide to anything!
no subject
Date: 2021-02-24 04:24 pm (UTC)http://wondermark.com/2014-errata/
But it means that (a) his choice of an animal's unchosen nature is one that works badly and (b) it's clearly unclear, as he ended up having to do an errata for it!