What do you know about ancient Rome? How do you know it? What do you know about World War II? How do you know that? What do you know about what’s going on right now in a country 500 kilometres away from you? How? Are you the son/daughter of your parents? Have you checked? And how have you checked? Do you personally know how to transcribe DNA and have you done so? Has the dictator of some state been alive for the last week? Are you sure? How many of the laws of physics have you personally tested with hypothesis testing and measuring instruments?
How much of the information you have has you personally tested with your own hands, eyes and head? I’m willing to bet, by the sheer number of facts, substantially less than 0.001%.
You are forced to trust what others tell you.
That being said, Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories and thoughts put into the mouths of his characters, which he personally thought about for some time before putting into print, have, often, no less predictive/descriptive power than the account of a journalist who describes some event going on somewhere in the world now and gives his assessment of those events. Or, for that matter, that of your friend who recounts what he thinks he just saw.
“But Sherlock Holmes didn’t exist!.” Correct, he didn’t exist. But there were his prototypes and Conan Doyle’s own powers of observation, which are probably no worse (or rather better) than those of most of our contemporaries.
So generalizing from fictional evidence is often better than generalizing from evidence that you don’t think is fictional, even though it most often is. Personally, I use examples and advice from ancients who are long gone, Seneca for example. Who knows if he wrote his own letters and followed his own advice. But I don’t care, for the advice is good and works, and who gave it is not so important.
Where the logical fallacy is not (Generalization From Fictional Evidence)
The problem with rejecting generalizations from fictional evidence is that virtually all the evidence we have is fictional.
What do you know about ancient Rome? How do you know it?
What do you know about World War II? How do you know that?
What do you know about what’s going on right now in a country 500 kilometres away from you? How?
Are you the son/daughter of your parents? Have you checked? And how have you checked? Do you personally know how to transcribe DNA and have you done so?
Has the dictator of some state been alive for the last week? Are you sure?
How many of the laws of physics have you personally tested with hypothesis testing and measuring instruments?
How much of the information you have has you personally tested with your own hands, eyes and head?
I’m willing to bet, by the sheer number of facts, substantially less than 0.001%.
You are forced to trust what others tell you.
That being said, Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories and thoughts put into the mouths of his characters, which he personally thought about for some time before putting into print, have, often, no less predictive/descriptive power than the account of a journalist who describes some event going on somewhere in the world now and gives his assessment of those events. Or, for that matter, that of your friend who recounts what he thinks he just saw.
“But Sherlock Holmes didn’t exist!.” Correct, he didn’t exist. But there were his prototypes and Conan Doyle’s own powers of observation, which are probably no worse (or rather better) than those of most of our contemporaries.
So generalizing from fictional evidence is often better than generalizing from evidence that you don’t think is fictional, even though it most often is. Personally, I use examples and advice from ancients who are long gone, Seneca for example. Who knows if he wrote his own letters and followed his own advice. But I don’t care, for the advice is good and works, and who gave it is not so important.