Abstract arguments need to be grounded in examples. This is obviously true and yet we all tend to leave off the vital examples. Why?
This post offers a nice example of the problem. HopeFox has a point he wants to make. If you are evaluating an argument in the form of a conjunction and you think that neither leg is true, it is tempting to pick just one leg and refute that. If the argument bogs down, returning to the other leg, which is also doubtful, looks shifty. Worse, while disputing one leg one might accidently wander into an unconscious acceptance of the other leg, even though it never looked plausible.
HopeFox attempts to provide an example. That is the right thing to do. It turns out that it is also a tricky thing to do. Are commenters rushing to provide better examples of their own? No. The are rushing to criticize the example provided by HopeFox. That is quite revealling. Although the underlying point is simple and true, finding a good clean example is still hard.
There are two morals I could draw for my own writing
1) Examples are more trouble than they are worth, I shouldn’t bother, nobody else does anyway.
2) Examples are hard, and the bigger the enemy the greater the honour. I should strive to find good examples because they will make my writing stand out as being done properly.
Abstract arguments need to be grounded in examples. This is obviously true and yet we all tend to leave off the vital examples. Why?
This post offers a nice example of the problem. HopeFox has a point he wants to make. If you are evaluating an argument in the form of a conjunction and you think that neither leg is true, it is tempting to pick just one leg and refute that. If the argument bogs down, returning to the other leg, which is also doubtful, looks shifty. Worse, while disputing one leg one might accidently wander into an unconscious acceptance of the other leg, even though it never looked plausible.
HopeFox attempts to provide an example. That is the right thing to do. It turns out that it is also a tricky thing to do. Are commenters rushing to provide better examples of their own? No. The are rushing to criticize the example provided by HopeFox. That is quite revealling. Although the underlying point is simple and true, finding a good clean example is still hard.
There are two morals I could draw for my own writing
1) Examples are more trouble than they are worth, I shouldn’t bother, nobody else does anyway.
2) Examples are hard, and the bigger the enemy the greater the honour. I should strive to find good examples because they will make my writing stand out as being done properly.
I chose 2 and reject 1.