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His point is built atop a tradition going back at least as far as ancient Greece to the formal discovery of what we call logic. In these times it was discovered

His point is built atop a tradition going back at least as far as ancient Greece to the formal discovery of what we call logic. In these times it was discovered that you could separate the contents of an argument from the argument itself and reason about the logical structure of the argument independent of what was being talked about. A technique called "refutation by substitution" came out of this thinking. If you take an argument structure, boil it down to its essential point, than rewrite the argument with different symbols you know more about you can very easily check whether the structure is valid. What you did, when you pointed out that his obviously wrong conclusion was wrong and asked him to defend it in order to be proved right is called a straw man. His point was that the conclusion was wrong and so insisting he defend it makes it very clear that you have poor comprehension of the logical tradition in which his comment is rooted.

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
The notable difference being this is not ancient Greece and the two commenters above are not Socrates and a Sophist opponet, say. Also, you're jumping to conclusions. The OP did something that is indeed very common on HN. You concluded that what they did was based on an ancient tradition of logic. Quite a big jump there.
- JoshCole 4y ago
  > The notable difference being this is not ancient Greece and the two commenters above are not Socrates and a Sophist opponet, say. Who cares if they aren't people from ancient Greece? I said it was a tradition rooted in logic, not that they were from Greece. As educated people in the modern world, we are taught about logic. You should know this better than most; a lot better, actually. Which goes to show how reasonable it is that people on this forum would be expected to understand points rooted in logic. That said, it is Aristotle you ought to have referenced, "Aristotle sets the stage for all later theories of analogical reasoning. In his theoretical reflections on analogy and in his most judicious examples, we find a sober account that lays the foundation both for the commonsense guidelines noted above and for more sophisticated analyses." [1] "Aristotle proves invalidity by constructing counterexamples. This is very much in the spirit of modern logical theory: all that it takes to show that a certain form is invalid is a single instance of that form with true premises and a false conclusion. However, Aristotle states his results not by saying that certain premise-conclusion combinations are invalid but by saying that certain premise pairs do not “syllogize”: that is, that, given the pair in question, examples can be constructed in which premises of that form are true and a conclusion of any of the four possible forms is false." [2] > Also, you're jumping to conclusions. The alternative conclusion is that the person is too stupid to realize that obviously false claims are false, but simultaneously believes that making false claims with bad logic will mean that when they say "you get my point" they will be found to be convincing. That is an extremely implausible conclusion. It seems to me that the way to get to that conclusion is to dismiss people with prejudice on the basis of "I logic, they rhetoric" and to me at least that seems against the spirit of the Hacker News guidelines. So I don't think I made a big leap. I think I chose to assume good faith. [1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-analogy/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-analogy/ [2]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/#DisCouTer https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/#DisCouTe...
  - YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
    Sorry for upsetting you.
    - JoshCole 4y ago
      You're forgiven, so don't worry about it, but you didn't upset me. I was just providing more evidence about my reasoning that the use of counterexample via substitution really does go as far back as ancient Greece, why that still applies to modern people and explaining why it seems more plausible to assume the original poster was employing a refutation technique than to assume otherwise.

YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago

The notable difference being this is not ancient Greece and the two commenters above are not Socrates and a Sophist opponet, say. Also, you're jumping to conclusions. The OP did something that is indeed very common on HN. You concluded that what they did was based on an ancient tradition of logic. Quite a big jump there.

JoshCole 4y ago
> The notable difference being this is not ancient Greece and the two commenters above are not Socrates and a Sophist opponet, say. Who cares if they aren't people from ancient Greece? I said it was a tradition rooted in logic, not that they were from Greece. As educated people in the modern world, we are taught about logic. You should know this better than most; a lot better, actually. Which goes to show how reasonable it is that people on this forum would be expected to understand points rooted in logic. That said, it is Aristotle you ought to have referenced, "Aristotle sets the stage for all later theories of analogical reasoning. In his theoretical reflections on analogy and in his most judicious examples, we find a sober account that lays the foundation both for the commonsense guidelines noted above and for more sophisticated analyses." [1] "Aristotle proves invalidity by constructing counterexamples. This is very much in the spirit of modern logical theory: all that it takes to show that a certain form is invalid is a single instance of that form with true premises and a false conclusion. However, Aristotle states his results not by saying that certain premise-conclusion combinations are invalid but by saying that certain premise pairs do not “syllogize”: that is, that, given the pair in question, examples can be constructed in which premises of that form are true and a conclusion of any of the four possible forms is false." [2] > Also, you're jumping to conclusions. The alternative conclusion is that the person is too stupid to realize that obviously false claims are false, but simultaneously believes that making false claims with bad logic will mean that when they say "you get my point" they will be found to be convincing. That is an extremely implausible conclusion. It seems to me that the way to get to that conclusion is to dismiss people with prejudice on the basis of "I logic, they rhetoric" and to me at least that seems against the spirit of the Hacker News guidelines. So I don't think I made a big leap. I think I chose to assume good faith. [1]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-analogy/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-analogy/ [2]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/#DisCouTer https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/#DisCouTe...
- YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
  Sorry for upsetting you.
  - JoshCole 4y ago
    You're forgiven, so don't worry about it, but you didn't upset me. I was just providing more evidence about my reasoning that the use of counterexample via substitution really does go as far back as ancient Greece, why that still applies to modern people and explaining why it seems more plausible to assume the original poster was employing a refutation technique than to assume otherwise.