I’m not sure whether “epistemic stalling” is a useful categorization of these kinds of bad-faith discussions. Mostly, I think the examples are not about epistmology, but about dominance and emotional reactions. I suspect romantic examples will also be of that form.
I don’t think “stalling” is the right focus, even if we do address these as bad-faith discussion mechanisms. I think the salient feature is misdirection—intended not to delay, but to avoid the important question altogether.
there are categories of rebuttals and demands for evidence where the biggest issue in fulfilling them is time.
if you need a non political example, a common phenomenon of this kind is a document dump in legal practice. (but you shouldn’t; we are going to engage politics all the time and you’re going to need to be able to process politics rationally.)
misdirection is too broad and does not describe this precisely. stalling is the right focus, and seeing this as “dominance and emotional reactions” is missing the point or grossly misreading the situation. there is nothing in this dialogue that would allow you to make an inference about dominance, and emotionality is probably a factor, but it can be for just about every fallacy and the point of fallacies isn’t to describe emotions—the point of fallacies is to identify problematic epistemic categories.
if you need another example, there is this phenomenon of taking objection to something by virtue of how it is characterized until the pet preference for characterization is reached (characterization roulette), a la:
A: “I’m not sure wearing bright colors like red is a good idea if you don’t want to be seen in a crowd.”
B: “it’s not red”
A: “okay, purple”
B: “it’s not purple either”
A: “okay, fuchsia”
B: “but I don’t think bright fuchsia will stand out that much anyway, because lots of people in that area of town wear bright colors”
a non-stalling version of this is:
A: “I’m not sure wearing bright colors like red is a good idea if you don’t want to be seen in a crowd.”
B: “lots of people in that area of town wear bright colors”
the clear issue here is time, because it’s unreasonable to think that A won’t eventually reach the color that meet’s B’s satisfaction. since it’s time-based, “stalling” is how best to describe this.
I think you are right about the non-usefulness of the concept “epistemic stalling”, although I think there are good-faith and sincere uses for the phenomenon Alfred is discussing, the phenomenon of making identity-based claims like “but you’re white”. You and I can let bygones by bygones about it while agreeing that this post needs to be revised with an enriched description of the intended phenomenon. As written, the post does not adequately describe its subject, and this lack of clarity leads to confusion and misinterpretation. Furthermore, the (sparse) content that is clear seems wrong and beside the point. Anyway, good discussion we had. Until next time!
I’m not sure whether “epistemic stalling” is a useful categorization of these kinds of bad-faith discussions. Mostly, I think the examples are not about epistmology, but about dominance and emotional reactions. I suspect romantic examples will also be of that form.
I don’t think “stalling” is the right focus, even if we do address these as bad-faith discussion mechanisms. I think the salient feature is misdirection—intended not to delay, but to avoid the important question altogether.
there are categories of rebuttals and demands for evidence where the biggest issue in fulfilling them is time.
if you need a non political example, a common phenomenon of this kind is a document dump in legal practice. (but you shouldn’t; we are going to engage politics all the time and you’re going to need to be able to process politics rationally.)
misdirection is too broad and does not describe this precisely. stalling is the right focus, and seeing this as “dominance and emotional reactions” is missing the point or grossly misreading the situation. there is nothing in this dialogue that would allow you to make an inference about dominance, and emotionality is probably a factor, but it can be for just about every fallacy and the point of fallacies isn’t to describe emotions—the point of fallacies is to identify problematic epistemic categories.
if you need another example, there is this phenomenon of taking objection to something by virtue of how it is characterized until the pet preference for characterization is reached (characterization roulette), a la:
A: “I’m not sure wearing bright colors like red is a good idea if you don’t want to be seen in a crowd.”
B: “it’s not red”
A: “okay, purple”
B: “it’s not purple either”
A: “okay, fuchsia”
B: “but I don’t think bright fuchsia will stand out that much anyway, because lots of people in that area of town wear bright colors”
a non-stalling version of this is:
A: “I’m not sure wearing bright colors like red is a good idea if you don’t want to be seen in a crowd.”
B: “lots of people in that area of town wear bright colors”
the clear issue here is time, because it’s unreasonable to think that A won’t eventually reach the color that meet’s B’s satisfaction. since it’s time-based, “stalling” is how best to describe this.
I think you are right about the non-usefulness of the concept “epistemic stalling”, although I think there are good-faith and sincere uses for the phenomenon Alfred is discussing, the phenomenon of making identity-based claims like “but you’re white”. You and I can let bygones by bygones about it while agreeing that this post needs to be revised with an enriched description of the intended phenomenon. As written, the post does not adequately describe its subject, and this lack of clarity leads to confusion and misinterpretation. Furthermore, the (sparse) content that is clear seems wrong and beside the point. Anyway, good discussion we had. Until next time!