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According to the "fallacy" people? What? There is no fallacy standards body that arbitrates normative definitions of fallacies. Fallacies are what they are beca

According to the "fallacy" people? What? There is no fallacy standards body that arbitrates normative definitions of fallacies. Fallacies are what they are because they describe faults in reasoning: they describe the terms under which a conclusion does not follow from the premises given. The argument from authority, argumentum ad auctoritatem, is a well-known and well-understood fallacy. Take the GGP's scenario: I am sick, and there is a doctor who has prescribed treatment or a cure. By virtue of being a doctor, it's implied that they are a medical expert. Going to a doctor and trusting him is not the same as going to Joe the Plumber and asking him for medical advice. So if I, being a layman, believe that the doctor is actually a doctor (and thus, an expert) and I have no contrary knowledge to refute the doctor's claim, there is nothing that prevents me from trusting his prescription provided I have no reason to believe he is biased or his prescription goes against the consensus of the greater medical community on my sickness. That last part is key, and how trusting a doctor when you are sick is not an appeal to authority. If the doctor in question is an expert in the field and expert consensus agrees on a treatment or cure, I can get a second, or third, or fourth opinion from other expert doctors and get the same answer. So by trusting a doctor, I'm not willy-nilly putting faith in someone else. Rather, I'm using inductive reasoning to make a reasonably valid conclusion. One could refute any of the premises—that the doctor isn't really an expert, or that there really isn't consensus, or that the doctor isn't really impartial—and that's fine, but if I have every reason to believe that the doctor is, in fact, an unbiased expert and representative of consensus (or, conversely, no reason to believe that he isn't any of those things), I am justified in believing what he says.

coldtea 13y ago
>According to the "fallacy" people? What? There is no fallacy standards body that arbitrates normative definitions of fallacies. Only there is. The fallacies are what they are because people listed them, gave them fancy latin names, put them up on the internet, and argue about them. Average Joe doesn't use fallacy listings. Neither he maintains them. The "fallacy" thing is mostly confined in the "sceptic" / "more logical than thou" communities on the intertubes. (Of course the starting origin of the fallacies is in actual philosophers and logicians). As for the "argument from authority", Wikipedia backs me up on this one (If I'm allowed to appeal to its authority): >Fallacious arguments from authority often are the result of failing to meet at least one of the required two conditions (legitimate expertise and expert consensus) structurally required in the forms of a statistical syllogism.[1][2] First, when the inference fails to meet the first condition (inexpert authority), it is an appeal to inappropriate authority, which occurs when an inference relies upon a person or a group without relevant expertise or knowledge of the subject matter under discussion. This is what I said exactly, that in that case you do have a fallacy, but it's actually "appeal to non-authority" (in Wikipedia: "to inappropriate authority"). >Second, because the argument from authority is an inductive-reasoning argument — wherein is implied that the truth of the conclusion cannot be guaranteed by the truth of the premises — it also is fallacious to assert that the conclusion must be true.[2] Such a determinative assertion is a logical non sequitur, because, although the inductive argument might have merit — either probabilistic or statistical — the conclusion does not follow unconditionally, in the sense of being logically necessary. This is the gist of the other thing I said. Even if the criteria of expertise, non bias, consensus, etc, are met, it is still a fallacy to think that the appeal to authority necessary implies truth. E.g in your example: X is a doctor. X is unbiased. X believes Y on the matter. The medical consensus is Y on the matter. Therefore Y is true. Is a fallacy. Consider how the medical community thought of a lot of BS in the past as true, which later was found wrong.

coldtea 13y ago

>According to the "fallacy" people? What? There is no fallacy standards body that arbitrates normative definitions of fallacies. Only there is. The fallacies are what they are because people listed them, gave them fancy latin names, put them up on the internet, and argue about them. Average Joe doesn't use fallacy listings. Neither he maintains them. The "fallacy" thing is mostly confined in the "sceptic" / "more logical than thou" communities on the intertubes. (Of course the starting origin of the fallacies is in actual philosophers and logicians). As for the "argument from authority", Wikipedia backs me up on this one (If I'm allowed to appeal to its authority): >Fallacious arguments from authority often are the result of failing to meet at least one of the required two conditions (legitimate expertise and expert consensus) structurally required in the forms of a statistical syllogism.[1][2] First, when the inference fails to meet the first condition (inexpert authority), it is an appeal to inappropriate authority, which occurs when an inference relies upon a person or a group without relevant expertise or knowledge of the subject matter under discussion. This is what I said exactly, that in that case you do have a fallacy, but it's actually "appeal to non-authority" (in Wikipedia: "to inappropriate authority"). >Second, because the argument from authority is an inductive-reasoning argument — wherein is implied that the truth of the conclusion cannot be guaranteed by the truth of the premises — it also is fallacious to assert that the conclusion must be true.[2] Such a determinative assertion is a logical non sequitur, because, although the inductive argument might have merit — either probabilistic or statistical — the conclusion does not follow unconditionally, in the sense of being logically necessary. This is the gist of the other thing I said. Even if the criteria of expertise, non bias, consensus, etc, are met, it is still a fallacy to think that the appeal to authority necessary implies truth. E.g in your example: X is a doctor. X is unbiased. X believes Y on the matter. The medical consensus is Y on the matter. Therefore Y is true. Is a fallacy. Consider how the medical community thought of a lot of BS in the past as true, which later was found wrong.