RE: AF Hall of Fallacies
May 29, 2013 at 11:14 pm
(This post was last modified: May 29, 2013 at 11:17 pm by Rayaan.)
(May 28, 2013 at 3:53 am)Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote: Essentially: you've removed emotional cause/justification/explanation from being reasoning, you've removed fake logic as cause/justification/explanation from being reasoning. That is to say: unless it uses logic (correctly), it cannot be considered as a cause, a justification, or an explanation for anything, and still be declared 'reasoning'.
I didn't intend to give that impression, though, because I've already stated before that reasoning is much bigger than logic. I agree with you that there is much more to human reasoning than just formal and symbolic logic. Our emotions, justification, and experiences are also embedded in the process of our reasoning.
And yeah, the act of reasoning can be very subject sometimes, whereas logic is much more objective because it is based on certain rules.
That being said, I realized that my earlier statement "if something is illogical, then it has to be unreasonable" needs a little more clarification of what I meant. I said that because we know whether or not something is logical by using reason. If a statement is illogical (and we know it), or if it's a logical fallacy (and we know it), then it's not reasonable to use those illogical arguments in order to support something.
You can use your own reasons in order to explain something that you believe in, yes, but it would be unreasonable to use illogical arguments (while you yourself knowing that they are illogical) in order to explain and/or support your beliefs.
By "illogical," I simply mean something which is against logic. There are some things which are reasonable, but not "illogical" ... because logic does not apply to them.
Let's look at one of the examples that you used:
(May 28, 2013 at 3:53 am)Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote: Sometimes women get hired because the person's opinion on them is better because they're pretty(er than a man also applying, say: they fancy her), sometimes women do not get hired because the person's opinion on them is that they have to demonstrate that they're better than an equally talented man <sexist economical reasons, and the like... not logical, but reasoning of the employer nonetheless>.
So, an employer hires a women because he has a better opinion of her, i.e. he thinks that she is pretty and sexy.
You said that's not logical - but I disagree. Why? Because logic plays no role here in the first place. That was only an opinion. And there is no right or wrong to it, so it won't be accurate to consider it "illogical." It's only an opinion, a reasoning.
It won't be illogical unless the man has made a claim of absolute truth such as: "Hey, that girl is very pretty, therefore she must be smart!"
Do you know whether or not he is using that kind of logic? ^ No.
Maybe he just thinks that she is smart - based on her looks - but you can't say that that opinion is "illogical" because there is no evidence of him making a claim of absolute truth on the matter nor of making any illogical arguments. And because there is no right or wrong to his opinion.
(May 28, 2013 at 3:53 am)Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote: *Not my actual opinion, but nothing about it is unreasoned: I've explained why arabs aren't sexy ('cause you dirty).
But isn't that subjective (i.e. that Arabs aren't sexy)?
And where you said "cause you dirty," it won't be correct if the "you" was written in reference to me, since I am not an Arab, in case if you didn't know.
I don't consider myself to be that sexy actually ... but it's not like I really care about that, unlike you, hehe.
There are other aspects of myself that I value more than my sexiness.
(May 28, 2013 at 3:53 am)Violet Lilly Blossom Wrote: Unless your point is that 'people do things for illogical reasons', you probably shouldn't be saying that I'm confirming your point.
My point is that you can't call something "illogical" when the action/decision/idea of a person had no application of logic to begin with, and is ... wait for it ... irrelevant to logic. The example that you gave about hiring women falls under "No logic was involved" as opposed to "illogical." It was just a subjective decision, a reasoning. There is no right or wrong involved here - nothing logical/illogical about it - because the issue is purely subjective.
For it to be illogical, it has to be proven wrong, which can only be done if there is evidence of a truth claim.