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Kyocus t1_itvhok5 wrote

Reply to comment by LukeFromPhilly in Logical positivism does not dispense with metaphysics, as it aimed to. It merely proposes a different kind of metaphysics, in which natural sciences take the privileged position once occupied by rationalist metaphysics. by IAI_Admin

The fallacy fallacy is a dumb fallacy, because the purpose of the initial claim is to hold up an idea as true. If the claim is a fallacy, then there is no longer direct support for the idea, which directly leads to having no support to believe such a thing. The fallacy fallacy is just Gin Rummy in The Boondocks rambling: "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", yeah no shit, but you don't go believing there are invisible Russian elves in your oven heating things for you, because you don't have EVIDENCE they're there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVQB1TVcD2k

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LukeFromPhilly t1_itvjijg wrote

The fallacy fallacy doesn't apply to arguments that are indeed fallacies but rather that appear to be fallacies.

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Kyocus t1_itvowb8 wrote

No it's not, it's literally as I described it, which is why it's stupid.

from Wikipedia: "Argument from fallacy (also known as the fallacy fallacy) – the assumption that, if a particular argument for a "conclusion" is fallacious, then the conclusion by itself is false."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy

My point being that the fallacy fallacy is a red herring that leads you away from good epistemology, because the truth of a claim arrived at from a fallacy is irrelevant until substantiated regardless.

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LukeFromPhilly t1_itvqxge wrote

Ah, I didn't realize "fallacy fallacy" was actually an established term, I was just being cheeky. The definition I gave was just me stating my intended meaning.

I suppose I agree that the "fallacy fallacy" you're referring to is a red herring although that's not necessarily clear to me either. It might be important to note that when you've struck down an argument for A that doesn't mean that you've successfully made an argument for not A. Rather what you should do is downgrade A to whatever epistemological status it had before the aforementioned argument was made.

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Kyocus t1_itvvj1x wrote

"It might be important to note that when you've struck down an argument for A that doesn't mean that you've successfully made an argument for not A. Rather what you should do is downgrade A to whatever epistemological status it had before the aforementioned argument was made."

I agree, where we differ is that "A" is a claim of truth, and if that claim is based on a fallacy, Logical Positivism says A should be disregarded until it's been substantiated, which is exactly what we've been talking about this whole time and why I still think the fallacy fallacy is dumb.

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LukeFromPhilly t1_ity8yhj wrote

I don't disagree with that though, at least I don't think I do. If there is no evidence for a claim then it should be disregarded. But disregarding it is not the same thing as accepting the negation of it.

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Kyocus t1_ityf0zp wrote

Indeed. That's why I called it a Red Herring, because I've never seen anyone commit the falacy.

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platitood t1_itvz74i wrote

I think the fallacy fallacy is intended to avoid poisoning the well through an easily refutable argument and favor of some proposition.

If a proposition is argued poorly it can be seen as less true than a proposition that wasn’t argued at all. This is commonly a useful observation, but strictly speaking it is fallacious.

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