[Serious] 'Counterargument - immediate fresh argument'---a forum game.

[Porcupine]

Actually, the conclusion could be true

I agree that the conclusion could be true but the argument is still unsound because it's invalid. The conclusion doesn't follow from the premises and that is they key issue with the argument.

It's also logically possible for the premises, which seem obvious, to be false. But, nevertheless whether the premises are true or not ... the conclusion doesn't follow whether the conclusion is true or not. Because while not all valid arguments have to be sound all sound arguments do have to at least be valid. Hence, the argument is unsound because it is invalid.

Your argument about ideals fails because it doesn’t make the case that idealism is more plausible that the other three, it merely asserts it.

I agree that the argument fails if by 'fails' you mean that it is a very question-begging because it doesn't really bother to demonstrate anything. However, the conclusion does follow from the premises if the premises is true so if you accept the premises then the conclusion is necessarily true. So the question would still be whether you accept the premises or not. But I take you to be implicitly saying that you either reject both of them or one of them because at least one of them is not demonstrated. So then I would take the approach to just be okay with the unhelpfulness because I'd slowly offer further arguments. The next step for me would be to provide an argument that argues for premise 1. And if you're still unconvinced then I will keep taking s step back until we get into something that is, as it were, more meaty. Eventually you would either accept my argument or we would start to find it impossible to understand each other, or we would end up at a stand-off where we both had highly intuitive fundamental axioms that we accepted that differed from each other and we wouldn't budge from. Even if the axiom itself was one of intense agnosticism or unknowability.

If premise 1 was eventually accepted after many steps back I would then apply the same process to premise 2. That's how I work. It's a slow process but it's how I like to get to the truth. Slow and steady wins the race as long as the race takes place. (Fast and steady may be ideal but it tends to be more difficult to pull off. The more quickly you move the easier it is to crash ... or at least to miss a turn).

So, while my argument fails in and of itself, in isolation, due to question-begging ... it may not fail when used in combination with further arguments that eventually justify its premises.

An interesting thing about the question-begging 'fallacy' is that it's not a formal fallacy. It's an informal fallacy. Why? Because it ultimately involves redundancy and a lack of demonstration, in isolation, but it doesn't actually necessarily make any mistakes of invalidity or unsoundness. One question-begging argument is totally useless. But many question-begging arguments, taken together, if they are formally sound and valid---and if they point, relate and refer to each other---may be able to de-beg each other's questions, as it were.


Anyway, back to the game!

Another one:

If I have three cats, I also have two dogs.
I have three cats.
Therefore, I have two dogs.

Boru

I'd just reject premise 1. Premise 2 may be true but even if you have both three cats and two dogs .... you don't have two dogs because you have three cats. Well, I mean, even if somehow the reason why you decided to buy two dogs was because you bought three cats, got sick of owning only cats, and so you decided to have a dog, but you weren't satisfied with one, so you moved onto two ... even if that were true ... when I say that you don't have two dogs because you have three cats I mean that having two dogs doesn't logically entail necessarily having three cats.

So while I would accept premise 2 depending on whether you have three cats or not ... I wouldn't accept premise 1 even if you have three cats and two dogs because I would reject it on the grounds of the antecedent not necessarily logically entailing the consequent.

The argument is, hence, valid but unsound because premise 1 is false at least due to the illogical relationship between its if-then inference. In other words: premise 1 contains a false inference.

Okay, another argument:

Premise 1: If I am human then I am mortal.
Premise 2: I am mortal.
Conclusion: Therefore, I am human.