Ah... the last argument of the fallen.
Philosophers have known for millenia the fallacy of the Argument from Authority.
Modern amateur polemicists are just catching up.
It's latest manifestation takes the form of the deference to a "study", as final or definitive truth or support to the argument.
"I must be right, if a study supports my argument." thinks the arguer.
However, the simplest retort is to counter-argue, "Studies have shown the opposite".
Yes, It is almost true that for every study's conclusion, a contradicting study's conclusion can be found.
Thus ends the potency of the argument form authority, where "a study" or "studies" are the claimed authority.
But this contradictive approach needs to be made clearer to naive polemicists.
You cannot end an argument by the lazy claims of a study being the final word.
To acheive the goal of your argument, to win the argument, to convince by intellectual force the opponent's argument, you will fail if you choose the argument from authority.
The argument from authority begs the question. The question remains.
By choosing this tactic, you are revealing yourself as a charlatan, whose previous argument was so weak, as to be abandoned in favour of "God says so."
No comments:
Post a Comment