> 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 pe

> 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...