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Exaggerating the importance of outliers, or overinclusivityA problem of definition that sometimes arises is when people try to be overinclusive, and try and include the outliers in the definition in order to change the definition. An example could be: "Humans have 5 fingers on each hand, and 5 toes on each foot" "Well some people have polydactyly, and some have birth defects, so to be exact, you have to say that humans can have anywhere between 8 and 12 fingers in total"
This is not about anecdotal evidence, but the point here is that the outliers are so rare, that's it's not worth including them in the definition, or the definition would become so broad as to basically be meaningless. This is also different from the appeal to definition, because here an active attempt is made to disregard the dictionary in favor of completely changing the definition to benefit the arguer. What fallacy would this be? Or is it a new one? |
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asked on Tuesday, Nov 03, 2020 06:49:26 PM by Mr. Brinstar | ||||
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Claims are constantly being made, many of which are confusing, ambiguous, too general to be of value, exaggerated, unfalsifiable, and suggest a dichotomy when no such dichotomy exists. Good critical thinking requires a thorough understanding of the claim before attempting to determine its veracity. Good communication requires the ability to make clear, precise, explicit claims, or “strong” claims. The rules of reason in this book provide the framework for obtaining this understanding and ability.
This book / online course is about the the eleven rules of reason for making and evaluating claims. Each covered in detail in the book.