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The concept of "impossibility" is actually quite complex, and requires a decent philosophical understanding. I wouldn't fault people for poor reasoning by claiming "impossibility" most of the time when "extremely difficult" would be more accurate or even factually correct. Also, to be a fallacy, it would have to occur within the context of an argument, and then it would just be a false premise: 1. It is impossible to reuse rockets. The flaw here is with premise 1 and the fact that it is false. Again, false premise, lack of understanding of what is possible or not, exaggeration, or perhaps just pathological pessimism, but I wouldn't call it fallacious. I can see claims of impossibility being used as rhetorical devices in persuasion or manipulation, which borders on fallacies like the argument by gibberish — a form of gaslighting. The difference is, with the argument from gibberish, the real fallacy is when the interlocutor unreasonably conflates the gibberish for a "good reason" and with claims of impossibility, the interlocutor is essentially just being lied to. |
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answered on Wednesday, Jul 28, 2021 07:28:57 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD | |||||
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