(October 4, 2011 at 5:05 pm)fr0d0 Wrote: A bare assertion to you, an assertion strongly backed up with reason to me.
Was I not clear enough? In the example given there was no substantiation of the claim. Any time a premise is put forth someone is fully justified in requesting that the premise be supported, if it is not, as was the case in the example, the premise is merely an assertion and the argument commits the "Bare Assertion" fallacy resulting in the argument being unsound
Quote:Your endeavour in exploring a subject is to scrutinize it for evidence. Those of us who understand and acknowledge that evidence oblige by explaining it to you.... so it is never a case of their being no evidence, but of there being evidence that isn't understood or accepted by yourself.
Whether or not I am ignorant of the evidence for the premise in DP's example IS NOT THE POINT, in the example given THERE WAS NO ARGUMENT/EVIDENCE PROVIDED thus it was a fallacious argument, the onus is on the person making the claim to provide the evidence and in the example no such evidence was presented. I even offered an example to clarify that this has nothing to do with my position vs your position, that of someone 2000 years ago making an argument with the assertion "Subatomic particles exist" prior to their being sufficient argument/evidence for it.
Quote:If you fail to understand the premise then that is hardly reason to classify it as fallacy. It is what it is: a lack of understanding of the subject.
Whether or not there is evidence for the premise is an entirely different issue, it DOES NOT change the fact that in the given example the premise was asserted without consideration for the evidence.
If you want to make a case for the premise please do feel free, I would be interested to hear it.
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