dougsmith - 09 January 2009 11:48 AM

It can be, but it can also devolve into a straw man argument. E.g., with the fallacy from authority, one can use an authority figure as a premise in an argument without claiming that literally everything that authority figures say is true.

It is because an argument from an authority, when it is not fallacious, is not a deductive argument - it is an inductive one. A straw man would not come at the stage of deciding whether to add the additional premise or not - it can comes when one puts an inductive one as a deductive one.

Agree?

I don’t follow.

dougsmith - 09 January 2009 12:53 PM

I don’t follow.

My idea is that when I say “X said so” and X is an expert, then I take his words as evidence for that so and so is true.

Other evidence has to be considered.

When I commit a fallacy and say “X said so”, not thinking whether who is X and does he have any knowledge of the topic, then I do not use his words as evidence, but I assume psychologically that everything he says on the topic is true.

Am I clearer?

I still don’t follow. In your second case, if you aren’t considering whether X has any knowledge of the topic, you can’t be committing the relevant fallacy. The fallacy is one of accepting something on authority, right?

dougsmith - 11 January 2009 08:50 AM

I still don’t follow. In your second case, if you aren’t considering whether X has any knowledge of the topic, you can’t be committing the relevant fallacy. The fallacy is one of accepting something on authority, right?

Right, more specifically “accepting something blindly on authority”. I am using my buddhist priest as a reason why so and so is true, without considering if he has any real, researched knowledge on the subject.

OK, but we’ve really left behind the issue about logical fallacies now. The distinction between your buddhist priest and Albert Einstein when they tell you about physics isn’t a difference of logic. It’s a difference of credibility.

dougsmith - 11 January 2009 09:22 AM

OK, but we’ve really left behind the issue about logical fallacies now. The distinction between your buddhist priest and Albert Einstein when they tell you about physics isn’t a difference of logic. It’s a difference of credibility.

I think that there is a difference of _approaches_.

When I take Einstein as an absolute authority, I don’t regard his views as evidence - which might be contradicted by additional evidence.

So the proper way to formalize such an attitude would be “all albert says is true”.