On 11/23/2011 06:48 PM, Horace Heffner wrote:
An appeal to authority, regardless the credentials of the authority,
can only affect one's judgement of the probability of truth. It is
thus non-Aristotelian. It is a sales tool. It is not a logical
That's an important distinction, and probably the key to resolve the issue:
Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, even when the authority is
valid, for the
simple reason that it's not a logically valid way to win an argument.
Aristotle identified a general form of logical fallacy which he called
/Ignoratio elenchi/ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi>,
which amounts
to "ignorance of what is a refutation", that is, it amounts to not less
than ignorance of the rules of logic.
Appeal to authority, ad hominem attacks, red herrings, etc. are all
forms of ignoratio elenchi.
Instead of addressing the issue in discussion with logical arguments,
the responder tries to avoid it by diverse means.
That is not to say that appeal to authority can be and in fact is a
valid or useful argumentative technique or resource. It's only
that it isn't valid in the strict sense of the rules of logic, and it's
therefore, a logical fallacy.
argument, and thus can not be either valid or invalid, as the
application of modus ponens or other logical inferences can be. It
is not possible to take a set of true premises, apply only an appeal
to authority argument, and from that determine a new premise that is
known to be true or false. There are plenty of examples of a single
scientist being considered wrong when no other authority agreed,
only to have time pass until most authorities agreed . The
validity or invalidity of a logical argument is forever. The
perception of truth can be fleeting.
The "fallacies" noted here:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html
merely demonstrate various kinds of mistaken assumptions that an
appeal to authority may embody. However, none of these mistakes can
be made and yet an appeal to authority argument can result in a false
conclusion simply because all authorities on a subject can be wrong
on a given point at a given time.
That's my personal opinion anyway. Maybe a reference to an expert
opinion on that can be found. 8^)))
On Nov 23, 2011, at 11:08 AM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
I am sorry to be a pedant but you people are using the term "appeal
to authority" to mean the opposite of what it should mean. I have
mentioned this before. Here's the definition:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html
"Also Known as: Fallacious Appeal to Authority, Misuse of
Authority, Irrelevant Authority . . .
. . . This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not
a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A
is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the
argument will be fallacious."
For example, we have Mary Yugo claiming that she is something of an
expert in calorimetry. She has designed and tested calorimeters. If
that is true, that makes her a legitimate authority on the subject.
If she cites herself when making a technical claim that is not a
fallacious appeal to authority. It is a valid appeal.
The problem is that she has not revealed her identity, so we cannot
judge whether she is actually an authority. We have to take her
word for it. That is okay but not very satisfactory. In any case,
that does not make this a fallacious appeal to authority; it makes
it an incomplete or unverified appeal.
She wrote:
If the arguments stand on their own, why would you need an identity?
The answer is you do not need an identity, but having a valid
authority does bolster a claim.
I'm sure I don't need to remind you that relying on the identity of
someone who supports a claim as evidence for the claim is the
logical fallacy of "appeal to authority".
No, it is not. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It would only be an appeal to
authority fallacy if the person you cite is not actually an authority.
A statement by an authority may be wrong but we should give it
weight. It is more likely to be correct then a statement by a
nonexpert or amateur.
It can be difficult to know who is actually an authority. Many
people who make pronouncements about cold fusion consider
themselves authorities but it often turns out they know nothing
about the subject. The book, "The Experts Speak" is a cynical
compendium of quotes that turned out to be mistakes. This book is
an attempt to discredit experts. However, most of these quotes are
from people who were not experts; but only thought they were. The
real experts in most cases were correct.
- Jed
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
