Science and religion

[jstrodel]

He is arguing from the authority of a dictionary definition.

By that very logic, you shouldn't be here at all typing anything. Everything you type is found in the dictionary you have just argued as a fallacy.

No, you don't know what you are talking about. Words are self evident symbols. Yes, it is true, when you use a word that has a negative connotation to it that describes something, when you apply the word where it has a negative connotation, you are invoking the authority of the word.

For instance, if you said "that is censorship!" with the statement intending to confer blame on the description, you are arguing from the authority of the badness of censorship which is not self evident that it is wrong.

The thing is, in ordinary language, you do not necessarily prove everything that you write. You argue from common sense subjects that have varying weights attached to them.

When you come to a philosophical proof of something, such as disproving miracles, you don't typically rely on ordinary language definitions of miracles, especially overtly hostile definitions.

To argue for something, you go from self evident truths to conclusions. It is not self evident that ordinary language words that are linked to culturally blameworthy categories are wrong. It is also not self evident that the metaphysics implicit in the dictionary definition should be accepted, or that the concept of a miracle has any relationship to what was posted.

The way that you define a term has a lot to do with its evidential status. People that are serious about learning about the world will learn about the deceptive nature of language and will try and free themselves from phoney ideas and cheap tricks and seek to penetrate beyond the symbols of words and into what the words signify, which is the external world the words represent.

The dictionary proof does nothing of this.