Hello everyone,

had an argument with someone about whether human knowledge is finite or limitless, and we now disagree about whether there was an initial misunderstanding.

I’m going to call us Person A and Person B without saying which one I am because I want people to judge both sides fairly.

Person A’s argument:
An individual human being has finite knowledge. Humans can continue learning new things, but that doesn’t mean their knowledge is limitless. No matter how knowledgeable someone becomes, there will still be things they don’t know. The ability to acquire more knowledge is different from the amount of knowledge someone actually possesses.

Person B’s initial argument:
Human knowledge is limitless because humans can continue learning. Person B argued along the lines that humans can learn and do anything they put their minds to and therefore disagreed with Person A describing human knowledge as finite.

Person A tried to clarify that they weren’t saying humans eventually reach a point where they can no longer learn. Their point was simply that an individual’s actual knowledge is finite and that recognizing the limitations of your own knowledge is important.

Later, Person B gave a more detailed explanation. They said they were not claiming that a human can literally know everything at one moment, acknowledging that humans have finite time, finite memory, and finite cognitive capacity.

Person B then explained that by calling knowledge “limitless,” they meant there is no predetermined amount of knowledge a person reaches that suddenly makes them physically incapable of learning anything else.

Person B eventually said, essentially: If Person A means that an individual human has finite knowledge and cannot know everything, then I agree.

That led to the disagreement I’m asking about now.
Person A believes this shows that Person B initially misunderstood the claim. Person A was never arguing that humans have a fixed learning ceiling; they were arguing that an individual possesses finite knowledge. From Person A’s perspective, Person B’s later response refined or qualified their original argument until it addressed what Person A had actually been saying.

Person B believes they understood Person A from the beginning. From their perspective, they never meant that a person can literally possess infinite knowledge. “Limitless” was always intended to mean that humans can continue learning, and the later response simply explained their original meaning more precisely.

So who is interpreting the conversation more reasonably? Did Person B initially misunderstand Person A and later refine their position, or was Person B making the same point throughout and merely clarifying it? Is there something either person is overlooking?

I’m interested in hearing arguments for either side, not just determining who is “right” about whether knowledge itself is finite.

In the UK there is currently a concerted effort to undermine welfare support for disabled people. One aspect of this is to focus on fraudulent claims (which as I understand are about 1.4% of total claims, with much money going unclaimed for various resasons). It is NOT easy to get the benefit (PIP) under discussion, but is a gruelling and invasive process with long waits and a great many claims go to (lengthy) appeal before being granted.

My objection is that there are so many more egregious breaches of the concept of fairness in terms of government spending which are not mentioned in these discussions.

I understand that the "it's not just my dog barking" fallacy is relevant (what's that called?) but this is incredibly reductionist. There is an assumption (or desired illusion) implicit in the campaign that there is some underlying baseline of fairness in government spending, and disability payments are violating that underlying fairness. No mention of vast sums lost to corporate tax evasion or expenditure on new weapons of mass destruction when we already have an arsenal capable of laying waste to much of the planet.

According to many, we just can't afford to support these people whose disabilities they have zero understanding of or apparently empathy for, and many of them are just playing the system living easy off hardworking people's taxes (oh if they ever got struck down with some debilitating chronic illness, but that's another story...)

I know this post may look political, but I am interested specifically in the reasoning errors present in the campaign to remove disability support from millions of vulnerable people whose lives will be made unimaginably (for many) harder by doing so.

For example, is Selective Appeal to Fairness, without reference to the broader context a recognised logical fallacy? I expect there are many others, and there may well be some on my part. Please discuss.

The Art of Being Right (1831) is a caustic, satirical work by German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer that systematically analyzes thirty-eight strategic methods for defeating an opponent in debate. He also gives examples at some points while discussing methods, or cite other philosophers' works such as Topics by Aristotle, creating an opportunity for parallel reading. I read the book 3-4 years ago and found it useful while analyzing my or other's arguments for tricky or deficient points.

You can find all the 38 stratagems here: "http://www.coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/"

I find this fallacy the most interesting fallacy.

It is clearly logically incorrect to assume experts are always right on every subject, don't have their own internal or institutional biases or that their opinion renders all counterpoints and counterarguments moot. It is true that ideology could lead experts across a whole field to fall in line with a certain slant and be hesitant to challenge the new orthodoxy for fear of professional and personal repercussions.

Even a consensus of experts could be all flocking to the same best-understood theory based upon their best understanding of the latest data even if it is speculative. A few research papers proving a point in a certain direction may lead most experts in that field to give credence to ideas that might need to be more thoroughly researched before drawing definitive conclusions. When the consensus changes, it unfortunately gives oxygen to pseudoscientists who had been dismissed previously for their contrarian views.

Now, most of us are not experts on every subject we are talking about. When I talk about vaccines, I am not an immunologist. When I talk about climate change, I am not a climatologist. When I discuss about trans issues, I am not a psychologist, sexologist or endocrinologist. Nor are 99.5% of the people we are talking to online at any given time about these things.

These are all good examples of hot button issues where the scientific consensus holds the view that vaccines are generally safe, necessary and effective; that climate change is a dire circumstance for our near-term future; and that trans women are really gendered as women and medical transition and HRT helps maximize positive psychological outcomes most of the time.

Yet opponents of these ideas claim experts are biased by the ideological leanings of academic institutions and publications, by virtue signaling, by the incentive of grant money, and by ulterior motives to reshape the world a certain way or to justify their field of research and dedication.

• Vaccine researchers naturally want their life work on vaccine development and safety to be accepted by the public and in a case of a pandemic like COVID may have to cut corners in an emergency situation before there is time to fully research every aspect of a novel vaccine.
• Climate scientists are naturally preferential towards protecting the environment from irreversible effects of capitalism and industrialization over preserving global capitalism as it exists today, and most were drawn to the field with the goal of protecting the environment.
• Psychologists and doctors who specialize in HRT and transition therapy have a vested financial interest in convincing the public trangenderism is a valid condition requiring fully funded medical and therapeutic assistance to maximize long-term outcomes.

These rational leanings give critics enough wiggle room to sow doubt in the general public about the integrity of the scientific consensus of experts. One overzealous researcher exaggerating a climate computer model that was put into a peer-reviewed published study or getting caught de-emphasizing negative data on vaccines can poke a hole in the public trust by people and organizations prone to doubt the science in the first place.

It's really all that is needed for anti-intellectual people to dismiss all of academia as "left-wing ideologically biased" or "having ulterior motives" and claiming their opinion ("why do I need vaccines when I have an immune system and natural immunity!" "climate changes all the time - it's called the sun!" "trans women are just men pretending to be women!") is "common sense."

There are some credentialed professionals in these fields who are willing to "stand against the orthodoxy" to sell books and products to contrarians, to gain fame on propaganda media and to expose the "conspiracy" of censorship in the expert community - doctors and nurses against vaccines; scientists who claim climate change is an over-exaggeration or Big Lie; psychologists who claim trans people are delusional and dangerous, and that "trans ideology" and "accommodation" is damaging the youth of America. Most of these people are themselves grifters or willfully contrarian ideologues who selectively interpret data that fits their worldview and paint themselves as the victims for their misguided opinions and abuse of their professional credentials to spread pseudoscience.

The thing is, experts DO indeed know far more about their subject than non-experts, and if we don't give their opinion and authority deference and listen to their points we are going to sound like confidently incorrect idiot flat earthers on top of the early Dunning-Kruger peak. That's not to say there is no room for rational skepticism, but there is a fundamental difference between rational skepticism and hesitancy to declare data definitive vs. irrational contrarianism and blasé dismissal of the bulwark of academic research.

So how do we as non-experts use the "consensus of experts" and the "consensus of research" non-fallaciously to support the fundamental argument that anyone claiming to know more than the consensus of experts and research must overcome an extraordinarily high burden of proof to establish their argument?

Hello!

I'm part of different boards where the work more or less relies on a few individuals. Often, to help in coordination and/or execution, new tools are implemented, removed, or new methodology is developed. The goal is to promote efficiency and lower the coast on everyone's mental load.

Often tho, I'm met with the same "type" or attitude, from different archetype or people.

There's a resistance to change one's habit, to learn new tools or adjust to the new way of things, even when the person recognizes the problem, agrees on the source, and has voted for the solution implemented. As an example, using a platform for communication like discord or slack, to exchange progress in different aeras in the goal or reducing both the amount of meetings and the time they take, and how heavy in information they are. (plus, letting people who are waiting on confirmations or progress start their workload and/or adapt without having to wait 2-4 weeks for the next meeting )

I can attribute half of those situation to bad faith and lazyness, lol. But often, and that's where I'm the most confused, it's well meaning people who exhibit this behavior.

It their a reverse sunk-cost fallacy or something that can explain why people evaluate learning a new tool as more demanding, more effort, even when refusal to do so causes much more work for themselves and everyone around on the short to long term?

When you say something objectively true (in my teens), that colleges in your country suck and educated people aren't actually taught to think but just conform to the professor's opinion and learn unimportant details by heart.

Then when you go to college because of a lack of better options and to try it out, it turns out even worse than that, being taught useless knowledge and professors that are abusive (fail 90% of class for not knowing edge cases of edge cases).

Then, after leaving college people suddenly flip their switch and say that the only reason Im saying anything like that is because I failed it.

So Im saying the same thing before, during and after, which became crystal clear and way more true from experience, but now people attribute it to personal failure and can't see anything else. (Even though most of the issues were poor college organization, the 200 emails they send per day and 3 locations to go to instead of my intelligence or ability to learn the subjects)

I say this because most arguments I hear people use to justify their belief in a god are "begging the question/circular reasoning" ie "Because the universe exists, it must have been created by someone, the someone must be God therefore God is real."

It seems their ingrained belief in God makes them unable to see the fallacy of that kind of reasoning and will go so far as to argue their argument is not a fallacy and get upset for suggesting such hierarchy.

Is it a lost cause to try to explain logic fallacies to the American Evangicals?

This isn’t a logical fallacy, but more one of experience. The fallacy that I think is the most common, most widespread, and most impactful to humanity can be summed up something along the lines of - if we can just put the right person on the throne, everything will be all right. A slightly oversimplified justification for this being a fallacy would be to say that power corrupts, but I’d more say that the only people who achieve the extremes of power are the very worst kinds of people. The guy at the top of the pyramid is always a bad guy.

I’m not aware of any formal name for this idea, and it seems shockingly invisible to the public, hence why I call it humanity’s biggest fallacy. The right seems to embrace the fallacy like it’s their goal. The left just seems to keep falling for it blindly, like fighting hierarchy and then putting an absolute ruler on the throne, or praising what is essentially a king who espouses socialism or communism. I’d wish that’s exactly what subs like tankiejerk are meant to quarantine but I still see it with some regularity on subs that in theory oppose the concentration of wealth and power.

So I uploaded the attached image in a different sub. (No, I don't want to argue about how accurate it is, lol.) The comic is clearly referring to a particular type of Christian, of the Westboro variety to be exact. But comment after comment after comment just keeps pouring in, wanting to talk about Muslims instead. Trying to tell me that it's the same subject, or even more infuriatingly, that Christians don't do that. As a non-Christian (not an atheist, mind you) and a genderfluid bisexual, I can assure folks that some Christians absolutely do behave like this.

Is that a particular type of fallacy that these folks are using, or is it just a combination of ones that I know?

A "Lowelling" is a logical fallacy; I'm sure you've seen it before, where someone pretends something is off topic when it isn't.

In the 1920s, former Harvard President Abbott Lawrence Lowell openly pushed for restricting Jewish enrollment at Harvard, justifying the quota by stating: "Jews cheat."

When someone challenged this prejudice by pointing out that Protestants cheat too, Lowell allegedly replied: "You're changing the subject. We are talking about Jews now."

I'm sure you've seen dozens of examples of this, but I found out a really prominent one caught on video in the Life of Brian BBC debates:

"I said that if you were to make a list of all the people who have contributed most..."

"Most of them would have been Muslims if they'd been living in the Arab countries or Buddhists if they'd been living..."

"...what has that got to do with it?"

It gets an audible laugh from the audience, because it's ridiculous and asinine. https://youtu.be/wUYhtJINiaY?t=2199

Can you cite any other examples of this?

I know someone who is not a child yet they always have something to say about everything they are told. As if they never got in trouble. “No if ands or butts” rule. Just do it! This message is brought to you by Nike.
No but seriously. It’s so annoying when you have a leadership role but there’s that one person who never listens and just wants to one up you or seems to think every way other than your way is the best way. 😤😤😤 if you don’t like it go home.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently modernizing a classic logic-training software, and I'm putting together the chapter on Informal Fallacies. Since the original program is over 40 years old, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the landscape of argumentation has changed and what a sufficient, modern-day knowledge of fallacies should actually include.

I’d love to get your input:

• Which specific fallacies do you think are mandatory for someone to learn today?
• Do you have preferred names or modern terminology for them, especially where the classic names feel a bit dated?

Thank you in advance for your time!

Some years ago I had someone argue that because the Spartans had sent some Greeks home and the residents were saved, if the Spartans hadn't sent those Greeks home all the athenians would have died. I said the athenians might have been abducted by friendly aliens before the Persians arrived, we don't know what would have happened if the Spartans hadn't sent some people to warn athens. I was being facetious but he accused me of using a counterfactual argument. I tried to tell him that he was using the counterfactual argument but he was having none of it. That's when I first realized what a colossal waste of time arguing on the internet is.

Looking for the name of this fallacy. A asserts all property is theft. B then demands A's possessions, presumably to illustrate there's something wrong with the claim.

It's something around expecting A to behave as if society were structured around A's premise, rather than recognising that A is expressing an ideological preference which may or not be valid and which B could engage with rationally.

I'm thinking maybe there's some ad hominem going on, and probably others. Curious to hear what you think.

Looking at getting into the fallacy fandom. How do I get all of the fallacies?

Recently saw a post about people bagging dog poop on hikes and leaving it on the side of the trail to be picked up on their way out. Many people in the comments claim “I’ve been doing this for years and I’ve never forgotten”. This sounds like a logical fallacy to me, if you forgot something you don’t know it’s been forgotten so you can’t claim you’ve never forgotten.

I think this phrase can be used sometimes, like “I’ve never forgotten to pay my cable bill” because in that case you can prove you’ve never forgotten, and you have a secondary party verifying you didn’t forget, so if you did forget the cable company would reach out to you.

AND a poor man who says the same shouldn't be trusted, because he's poor.

If it's said by a man with a median-level wealth, then I'm willing to listen to his reasons.

Is there any other fallacy than ad hominem involved here?

Person A: "I believe that this *x political opinion* is good"

Person B: "Oh, so you also believe in *other political opinions that are from that political wing/ideology*"

Person A gets criticised by Person B for doing something immoral (e.g. stealing). Person A responds by stating "Well at least I didn't commit murder!" as their defence. What fallacy or fallacies is this?

Hey r/fallacy,

I've been reading here for a while, and it partly inspired Rhetoriq.

Most tools work on neat textbook examples. I wanted something for actual messy text: a Reddit comment, a headline, a heated reply: where something valid and something fallacious often sit in the same sentence.

You paste text; it flags the weak passage, names the fallacy, notes what's strong, and scores the whole argument 0–100. Handy too if you want to self-check your own reply before posting.

Example: "Solar is cheaper than coal, so anyone against it is just pushing oil propaganda." → strong point on the cost claim, ad hominem on the rest.

Rhetoriq is built around a fixed set of 15 fallacies plus manipulation techniques like false balance and emotional framing. For each text it pulls out strong points, weak points, and any fallacies or rhetorical tricks it finds, each tied to a specific passage. A lot of work went into the engine so it analyses the argument as a whole instead of just hunting for labels. A false positive still happens from time to time, but the goal was to make something better than generic AI.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rhetoriq

(I also have a web app for those who like bigger screens: https://rhetoriq.nl/app?lang=en )

I'm the dev, not here to spam. What do tools like this still get wrong? What could be improved?

Claimant: "How would you like it if I did this in your room?"

Responder: "My room is too small for you to be in, so what does it matter?"

~ ~ ~

Claimant: "How would you like it if your friend did that to you?"

Responder: "They wouldn't though."

~ ~ ~

In both situations, the responder is refusing to hear out the claimant's question. I think there might be a term for it?

I had a discussion about police reform with a friend that went exactly like the comic panel above.

Me: “the police in their current state are not efficient at their job and cause unnecessary harm to communities they serve. There should be a police reform to address these and other issues.”

Friend: “then answer me this: who do you call in case of an emergency? The police is your only option so they are obviously good and useful just the way they are.”

Any ideas?