Moving the Goal Posts. (also known as: gravity game, raising the bar, argument by demanding impossible perfection [form of]) Description: Demanding from an opponent that he or she address more and more points, after the initial counter-argument has been satisfied, refusing to conceded or accept the opponent’s argument.
Logical Form: Issue A has been raised, and adequately answered. Issue B is then raised, and adequately answered. Issue Z is then raised, and adequately answered. (despite all issues adequately answered, the opponent refuses to conceded or accept the argument. Example #1: Ken: There has to be an objective morality, because otherwise terms like “right” and “wrong” would be meaningless, since they have no foundation for comparison. Rob: The terms “right” and “wrong” are based on cultural norms, which do have a subjective foundation -- one that changes as the moral sphere of the culture changes.
Ken: But without an objective morality, we would all be lost morally as a race. Rob: Many would say that we are. The Appeal to Ignorance. Critical Thinking: What is the Fallacy of Appeal to Ignorance? Part of critical thinking is learning to recognize-and avoid falling prey to-common logical fallacies.
One of these fallacies is called appeal to ignorance . And no, appeal to ignorance isn't an accusation that a person putting forth a certain argument is "ignorant. " It's not just a bit of name calling. An appeal to ignorance is an argument form whereby the only grounds offered for accepting a certain claim are that there are insufficient reasons to disbelieve it.
Let's look at some examples to make this clearer: * Premise: Delaney doesn't have an alibi that proves he wasn't at the scene of the crime. * Conclusion: Delaney was at the scene of the crime. * Premise: There have been no sightings or other evidence to indicate there is a planet between Earth and Mars. * Conclusion: There is no planet between Earth and Mars. * Premise: No one has ever proven that reincarnation is false. Argument from ignorance. Argument from ignorance (Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance stands for "lack of evidence to the contrary"), is a fallacy in informal logic.
It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to prove the proposition satisfactorily to be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four, truefalseunknown between true or falsebeing unknowable (among the first three).[1] In debates, appeals to ignorance are sometimes used in an attempt to shift the burden of proof. Overview[edit] Basic argument[edit] Such arguments attempt to exploit the facts that (a) true things can never be disproven and (b) false things can never be proven. Null result[edit] Backfire effect. Backfire effect.
Fractal wrongness. Not even wrong. Not even wrong refers to any statement, argument or explanation that can be neither correct nor incorrect, because it fails to meet the criteria by which correctness and incorrectness are determined.
As a more formal fallacy, it refers to the fine art of generating an ostensibly "correct" conclusion, but from premises known to be wrong or inapplicable. The phrase implies that not only is someone not making a valid point in a discussion, but they don't even understand the nature of the discussion itself, or the things that need to be understood in order to participate.
[edit] Origin The phrase apparently originates with physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who used the phrase (in the form "Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch! " — "That is not only not right, it is not even wrong! ") [edit] Form If you look up "not even wrong" in the dictionary, or at least RationalWiki, you will find Deepak Chopra's face.
Logic. Logic (from the Ancient Greek: λογική, logike)[1] is the branch of philosophy concerned with the use and study of valid reasoning.[2][3] The study of logic also features prominently in mathematics and computer science.
Logic is often divided into three parts: inductive reasoning, abductive reasoning, and deductive reasoning. Module: Basic logic. The term "logic" is often used in many different ways.
It is sometimes understood broadly as the systematic study of the principles of good reasoning. As such logic is not very different from critical thinking. But sometimes "logic" is understood more narrowly as what we might call "deductive logic". Roughly speaking, deductive logic is mainly about the consistency of statements and beliefs, as well as the validity of arguments. These are the topics we shall investigate in the following modules. Tutorials in this module Modules on formal logic.
Cognitive bias. Burden of proof. Fallacy. Critical thinking. Eyewitness.