There has been a lot of work on argumentation, argumentation schemes, and burden-of-proof moves; I’m thinking in particular of Douglas Walton—http://www.dougwalton.ca/ - but the field of argumentation is big and old. This is heavily-trodden territory.
EY has a somewhat novel slant on things, and so may be able contribute to the conversation, but by not citing (or not looking for previous work) he’s being (accidentally) somewhat deceptive here.
It’s tempting to portray your thoughts as original and without precedent, but even if they feel original and without precedent, they probably aren’t.
As a matter of course I expect most things I read here to be based on works from other sources or reinventions thereof.
As an aside I would expect Eliezer to have far less to cover in the field of argumentation than many other potential explorers. He tries to cut himself off from a lot of the paths of argumentation that are paved in filth which means he doesn’t follow them along enough to really understand the sophisticated nuances. One would expect make his writing more useful for ‘how to not’ than ‘how to’.
Hopefully nobody who reads this site believes an explanation of old ideas are new ideas. The tactics described here are, by definition, old tactics because they are used by people in ordinary conversation. Furthermore, they are used often enough that I would be shocked if anybody who reads this site has not encountered a single variation of the tactics described.
However, people might not be aware that the purpose of these arguments is often simply to end all further debate, and to do so in a clearly intellectually dishonest way.
This is worth pointing out, but pointing this fact out did not, to me, imply that Eliezer had discovered the idea that these tactics are used to halt conversations. I’m not really sure why you inferred that from what was written.
In other words, just because I state the fact that the Sun is 93 million miles away does not in any way imply that I am the man who discovered that the Sun is 93 million miles away. I wouldn’t expect anybody to infer that, yet somehow you did (figuratively speaking, of course).
Yes, it’s a matter of readers expectations and assumptions. The same text can be read more generously, giving the author the benefit of the doubt, or less generously, holding the author to some more-rigorous standard.
Including specific references into the literature is more professional and more helpful to the reader.
There has been a lot of work on argumentation, argumentation schemes, and burden-of-proof moves; I’m thinking in particular of Douglas Walton—http://www.dougwalton.ca/ - but the field of argumentation is big and old. This is heavily-trodden territory.
EY has a somewhat novel slant on things, and so may be able contribute to the conversation, but by not citing (or not looking for previous work) he’s being (accidentally) somewhat deceptive here.
It’s tempting to portray your thoughts as original and without precedent, but even if they feel original and without precedent, they probably aren’t.
See EY’s critique of Gould—http://lesswrong.com/lw/kv/beware_of_stephen_j_gould/
As a matter of course I expect most things I read here to be based on works from other sources or reinventions thereof.
As an aside I would expect Eliezer to have far less to cover in the field of argumentation than many other potential explorers. He tries to cut himself off from a lot of the paths of argumentation that are paved in filth which means he doesn’t follow them along enough to really understand the sophisticated nuances. One would expect make his writing more useful for ‘how to not’ than ‘how to’.
Hopefully nobody who reads this site believes an explanation of old ideas are new ideas. The tactics described here are, by definition, old tactics because they are used by people in ordinary conversation. Furthermore, they are used often enough that I would be shocked if anybody who reads this site has not encountered a single variation of the tactics described.
However, people might not be aware that the purpose of these arguments is often simply to end all further debate, and to do so in a clearly intellectually dishonest way.
This is worth pointing out, but pointing this fact out did not, to me, imply that Eliezer had discovered the idea that these tactics are used to halt conversations. I’m not really sure why you inferred that from what was written.
In other words, just because I state the fact that the Sun is 93 million miles away does not in any way imply that I am the man who discovered that the Sun is 93 million miles away. I wouldn’t expect anybody to infer that, yet somehow you did (figuratively speaking, of course).
Yes, it’s a matter of readers expectations and assumptions. The same text can be read more generously, giving the author the benefit of the doubt, or less generously, holding the author to some more-rigorous standard.
Including specific references into the literature is more professional and more helpful to the reader.