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Can you tell us how it fits the definition of a No True Scotsman?
by albedoa 8y ago
Can you tell us how it fits the definition of a No True Scotsman?
- pasabagi 8y agoI'm not him - but it's obviously something close, if not full NTS. Real implementations always differ from ideals, so it's always possible to take a divergence and say it makes the implementation antithetical to the ideal. That's the heart of the fallacy. To counter, you'd have to identify the heart of the Strong Towns idea, the 'spirit', and demonstrate how the implementation violates that spirit.
- albedoa 8y agoYou don't think incrementalism is at the heart of the Strong Towns idea?
- pasabagi 8y agoI've no opinion. All I'm saying is, if you don't give strong evidence that it is at the idea's heart, then the argument is No-True-Scotsman. Like a lot of fallacies, there's a rather subtle ground between fallacious reasoning and legitimate argument, and I think NTS is basically in a class of problems like the ship of Theseus, that play on the distinction we commonly draw between the identity of a thing, and the thing itself.
- albedoa 8y ago> it's obviously something close, if not full NTS. > I've no opinion. Well this is a confusing line. Anyway, in addition to the other evidence provided in this thread, here is part of the Strong Towns mission statement[1]: Enduring prosperity for our communities cannot be artificially created from the outside but must be built from within, incrementally over time. 1. https://www.strongtowns.org/mission/ https://www.strongtowns.org/mission/
- mercutio2 8y agoCriticizing a specifically incorrect caricature of the tenets of an organization by pointing out the actual tenets of the organization is about as far from No True Scotsman as I can imagine.
- village-idiot 8y agoIt's actually a strawman, ironically enough.
- jkoudys 8y ago"No True Scotsman" is second only to ad-hominem on the list of frequently misidentified fallacies in comments sections.