DOCSLIB.ORG

Boy, That Professor Is a Real Jerk. I Think He Is Some Sort of Euro- Centric Fascist.” Jill: “Yeah.”

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Boy, That Professor Is a Real Jerk. I Think He Is Some Sort of Euro- Centric Fascist.” Jill: “Yeah.” igor ž. žagar ■ between fallacies and more fallacies? Example Before Class: Bill: “Boy, that professor is a real jerk. I think he is some sort of euro- centric fascist.” Jill: “Yeah.” During Class: Prof. Jones: “...and so we see that there was never any ‘Golden Age of Matriarchy’ in 1895 in America.” After Class: Bill: “See what I mean?” Jill: “Yeah. There must have been a Golden Age of Matriarchy, since that jerk said there wasn’t.”” First, it is not quite evident that this is a fallacy; fallacy is a fallacious argument and it is yet to be extracted (if any) from the above dialogue. Secondly, if we apply a kind of a principle of charity, and concede there is an argument in the above dialogue, we don’t need to invent any new fallacy, it could easily be analysed as Ignoratio Elenchi, Secundum Quid or even Petitio Principii (if we stay with the all-embracing falla- cies (or “fallacies”)). But it could also be a version of Ad Hominem, Straw Man, even Ad Populum. So, why create a new fallacy? Maybe because it is hard to choose between the existing ones, since the criteria are so unclear? b) Nirvana fallacy (Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy) The Nirvana fallacy is the logical error of comparing actual things with unrealistic, idealized alternatives. It can also refer to the tendency to assume that there is a perfect solution to a particular problem. Example: “If we go on the Highway 95 at four in the morning we will get to our destination exactly on time because there will be NO traf- fic whatsoever.”” First, there is no reason or justification to label this “fallacy” a “logi- cal error”; there is nothing “logical” about it unless we treat everything we say as “logical”. Secondly, even if criteria for detecting fallacies are not very clear, it is clear enough that “Nirvana fallacy” could be analysed as Ad Consequentiam or/and Ad Ignorantiam (leaving aside at least the ubiqui- tous Secundum Quid). 101.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Trespass Fallacy in Patent Law , 65 Fla
    Florida Law Review Volume 65 | Issue 6 Article 1 October 2013 The rT espass Fallacy in Patent Law Adam Mossoff Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr Part of the Intellectual Property Commons, and the Property Law and Real Estate Commons Recommended Citation Adam Mossoff, The Trespass Fallacy in Patent Law , 65 Fla. L. Rev. 1687 (2013). Available at: http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/flr/vol65/iss6/1 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by UF Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Florida Law Review by an authorized administrator of UF Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Mossoff: The Trespass Fallacy in Patent Law Florida Law Review Founded 1948 VOLUME 65 DECEMBER 2013 NUMBER 6 ESSAYS THE TRESPASS FALLACY IN PATENT LAW Adam Mossoff∗ Abstract The patent system is broken and in dire need of reform; so says the popular press, scholars, lawyers, judges, congresspersons, and even the President. One common complaint is that patents are now failing as property rights because their boundaries are not as clear as the fences that demarcate real estate—patent infringement is neither as determinate nor as efficient as trespass is for land. This Essay explains that this is a fallacious argument, suffering both empirical and logical failings. Empirically, there are no formal studies of trespass litigation rates; thus, complaints about the patent system’s indeterminacy are based solely on an idealized theory of how trespass should function, which economists identify as the “nirvana fallacy.” Furthermore, anecdotal evidence and other studies suggest that boundary disputes between landowners are neither as clear nor as determinate as patent scholars assume them to be.
    [Show full text]
  • A Philosophical Introduction to CFPA Methods: an Overview of the Empirical Awards Paradigm & the Case for Objectivity
    A Philosophical Introduction to CFPA Methods: An Overview of the Empirical Awards Paradigm & the Case for Objectivity CONTENTS Summary (2-5) Epistemic & Normative Positions (6) Academic Review (7-14) Science vs. Balloting (15-18) Common Fallacies (19-25) Intuitive Bias Taxonomy (26-27) Glossary of Lay Terminology (28) 1 © 2008 College Football Performance Awards CFPA METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW 1. CFPA recipients are selected exclusively based upon objective scientific rankings. 2. Objective scientific rankings are based upon meta-algorithms derived from Differential Equations, Statistics, and Probability. 3. Meta-algorithms include 3x109 data collected from the past 10 seasons of FBS & FCS college football. 4. Meta-algorithms are internally valid, externally valid, significantly predictive, and non- exclusionary. POSITIVE IMPACT OF CFPA METHODOLOGY The CFPA methodology: 1. Eliminates politics and bias. 2. Promotes scientific literacy. 3. Encourages rational discourse. 4. Advances a sophisticated understanding of the game. 2 5. Fosters equity and fairness. OVERALL AWARDS The Overall Awards system annually recognizes the FBS & FCS performers responsible for the most overall team success. A performer x is an Overall Awards recipient if and only if x is responsible for the most overall success in Division I FBS college football given team success, strength of schedule, and the contributions of teammates. OFFENSIVE & DEFENSIVE AWARDS: The Offensive & Defensive Awards systems annually recognize FBS & FCS performers based upon the extent to which individual players increase the overall effectiveness of their teams. A performer x is an Offensive or Defensive Awards recipient if and only if x contributes the most to team success of any performer in Division I FBS college football, when controlling for strength of schedule.
    [Show full text]
  • The Nirvana Fallacy in Law Firm Regulation Debate
    Fordham Urban Law Journal Volume 33 Number 1 Article 1 2005 THE NIRVANA FALLACY IN LAW FIRM REGULATION DEBATE Elizabeth Chambliss Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj Part of the Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons Recommended Citation Elizabeth Chambliss, THE NIRVANA FALLACY IN LAW FIRM REGULATION DEBATE, 33 Fordham Urb. L.J. 119 (2005). Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol33/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fordham Urban Law Journal by an authorized editor of FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE NIRVANA FALLACY IN LAW FIRM REGULATION DEBATE Cover Page Footnote Professor of Law, New York Law School. Thanks to Bruce Green and the Louis Stein Center for inviting me to participate in this conference, and to Margaret Raymond for indulging my excited (and belated) response to her paper. Thanks also to Tanina Rostain for helpful comments on earlier drafts. This article is available in Fordham Urban Law Journal: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol33/iss1/1 CHRISTENSEN_CHAMBLISS 2/3/2011 10:08 PM THE NIRVANA FALLACY IN LAW FIRM REGULATION DEBATES Elizabeth Chambliss∗ “[L]awyers can no longer look back a generation for their managerial models.”1 Most commentators would agree that large law firms have outgrown collegial management and self-regulation. With hundreds—and, in some firms, thousands—of lawyers,2 multiple national and international offices,3 an increasing number of mergers,4 and significant lateral mobility,5 partners no longer can rely on social ties and informal, face-to-face interaction for making decisions, conveying firm policy, or monitoring the quality of lawyers’ work.
    [Show full text]
  • Appendix 1 a Great Big List of Fallacies
    Why Brilliant People Believe Nonsense Appendix 1 A Great Big List of Fallacies To avoid falling for the "Intrinsic Value of Senseless Hard Work Fallacy" (see also "Reinventing the Wheel"), I began with Wikipedia's helpful divisions, list, and descriptions as a base (since Wikipedia articles aren't subject to copyright restrictions), but felt free to add new fallacies, and tweak a bit here and there if I felt further explanation was needed. If you don't understand a fallacy from the brief description below, consider Googling the name of the fallacy, or finding an article dedicated to the fallacy in Wikipedia. Consider the list representative rather than exhaustive. Informal fallacies These arguments are fallacious for reasons other than their structure or form (formal = the "form" of the argument). Thus, informal fallacies typically require an examination of the argument's content. • Argument from (personal) incredulity (aka - divine fallacy, appeal to common sense) – I cannot imagine how this could be true, therefore it must be false. • Argument from repetition (argumentum ad nauseam) – signifies that it has been discussed so extensively that nobody cares to discuss it anymore. • Argument from silence (argumentum e silentio) – the conclusion is based on the absence of evidence, rather than the existence of evidence. • Argument to moderation (false compromise, middle ground, fallacy of the mean, argumentum ad temperantiam) – assuming that the compromise between two positions is always correct. • Argumentum verbosium – See proof by verbosity, below. • (Shifting the) burden of proof (see – onus probandi) – I need not prove my claim, you must prove it is false. • Circular reasoning (circulus in demonstrando) – when the reasoner begins with (or assumes) what he or she is trying to end up with; sometimes called assuming the conclusion.
    [Show full text]
  • Sidak-Is-Patent-Holdup-A-Hoax.Pdf
    THE C RITERION J OURNAL ON I NNOVAT I ON Vol. 3 E E E 2018 Is Patent Holdup a Hoax? J. Gregory Sidak* Many economists—and perhaps even a fair number of judges and lawyers— would agree that a sound economic theory can usefully inform the legal analysis of a complex commercial dispute. But how likely is it that knowl- edge accrues in the opposite direction? Can the expediency of legal advocacy serendipitously inspire a breakthrough in economic understanding? Can a client’s desired outcome in a consequential legal dispute plausibly motivate a novel economic theory that genuinely advances science? Perhaps so, if one embraces a new interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s notion of “the triumph of hope over experience.”1 But only perhaps. In 2007, two law review articles debuted the patent-holdup conjecture, which has since become de rigueur for any implementer of an industry stan- dard to allege against a holder of standard-essential patents (SEPs) when the parties dispute whether the SEP holder has offered to license those patents on legitimately fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms. The patent-holdup conjecture quickly became a big business. The first article2 was written by Mark Lemley, a distinguished law professor at Stanford and (at the time) of counsel to the San Francisco litigation boutique Keker & Van Nest, and by Carl Shapiro, an equally distinguished economics professor at Berkeley and a senior consultant to Charles River Associates (a publicly * Chairman, Criterion Economics, Washington, D.C. Email: [email protected]. I thank Joseph Linfield, Douglas Maggs, Urška Petrovčič, Marc Richardson, Melinda Ledden Sidak, Jeremy Skog, Blount Stewart, Han Tran, and Andrew Vassallo for helpful research and comments.
    [Show full text]
  • Fallacies: Do We “Use” Them Or “Commit” Them? Or: Is All Our Life Just a Collection of Fallacies?
    University of Windsor Scholarship at UWindsor OSSA Conference Archive OSSA 9 May 18th, 9:00 AM - May 21st, 5:00 PM Fallacies: do we “use” them or “commit” them? Or: is all our life just a collection of fallacies? Igor Zagar Educational Research Institute Dima Mohammed Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/ossaarchive Part of the Philosophy Commons Zagar, Igor and Mohammed, Dima, "Fallacies: do we “use” them or “commit” them? Or: is all our life just a collection of fallacies?" (2011). OSSA Conference Archive. 42. https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/ossaarchive/OSSA9/papersandcommentaries/42 This Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Conferences and Conference Proceedings at Scholarship at UWindsor. It has been accepted for inclusion in OSSA Conference Archive by an authorized conference organizer of Scholarship at UWindsor. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Fallacies: do we “use” them or “commit” them? Or: is all our life just a collection of fallacies? IGOR Ž. ŽAGAR Center for Discourse Studies Educational Research Institute Gerbiceva 62, SI-1000 Ljubljana Slovenia E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT: After C. L. Hamblin's groundbreaking work Fallacies (1970), re-interpreting what used to be known as "mistakes in reasoning" or "bad arguments" since Aristotle (On Sophistical Refutations), the study of fallacies started to bloom, coming up with ever new perspectives and conceptualizations of what should count as a mistake in reasoning and argumentation, and why a certain kind of reasoning should at all be considered a mistake (Woods & Walton 1989, van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1992, etc.).
    [Show full text]
  • INFORMATION and EFFICIENCY: ANOTHER VIEWPOINT (In Part) by Harold Demsetz (1930-2019) the Journal of Law & Economics, Apr., 1969, Vol
    INFORMATION AND EFFICIENCY: ANOTHER VIEWPOINT (in part) By Harold Demsetz (1930-2019) The Journal of Law & Economics, Apr., 1969, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Apr., 1969), pp. 1- 22 Harold Demsetz was an American economist who taught initially at University of Chicago and then spent several decades at UCLA. He is considered a member of the “Chicago school”. Demsetz was important in a number of respects. He was among the first economists to challenge the idea of market failure in its various versions as they developed in the 1960’s and after. In addition, Demsetz argued that market failures can largely be solved by more extensive property rights, which he held as a superior solution to the intervention of government into the market. His work on property rights has been highly influential in both economics and law. Finally, Demsetz was a founder of the field of managerial economics which applies economic analysis to the management of corporate enterprises. In this article, Demsetz replies to Arrow’s claim that information is “a commodity with peculiar attributes” that make the production of information different from that of other commodities. In addition, Demsetz challenges the approach Arrow takes in comparing the real market to an ideal standard, and then concluding that the market fails. Demsetz calls this the “nirvana fallacy”, a term he coined in this article. He instead advocates a comparative institutional approach, in which empirical claims about the market are set against empirical claims about the performance of government. In his view, Arrow and other theorists of market failure reason from the imperfection of markets to the necessity of government intervention, without ever critically considering the latter.
    [Show full text]
  • Accepted Manuscript1.0
    Nonlinear World – Journal of Interdisciplinary Nature Published by GVP – Prof. V. Lakshmikantham Institute for Advanced Studies and GVP College of Engineering (A) About Journal: Nonlinear World is published in association with International Federation of Nonlinear Analysts (IFNA), which promotes collaboration among various disciplines in the world community of nonlinear analysts. The journal welcomes all experimental, computational and/or theoretical advances in nonlinear phenomena, in any discipline – especially those that further our ability to analyse and solve the nonlinear problems that confront our complex world. Nonlinear World will feature papers which demonstrate multidisciplinary nature, preferably those presented in such a way that other nonlinear analysts can at least grasp the main results, techniques, and their potential applications. In addition to survey papers of an expository nature, the contributions will be original papers demonstrating the relevance of nonlinear techniques. Manuscripts should be submitted to: Dr. J Vasundhara Devi, Associate Director, GVP-LIAS, GVP College of Engineering (A), Madhurawada, Visakhapatnam – 530048 Email: [email protected] Subscription Information 2017: Volume 1 (1 Issue) USA, India Online Registration at www.nonlinearworld.com will be made available soon. c Copyright 2017 GVP-Prof. V. Lakshmikantham Insitute of Advanced Studies ISSN 0942-5608 Printed in India by GVP – Prof. V. Lakshmikantham Institute for Advanced Studies, India Contributions should be prepared in accordance with the ‘‘ Instructions for Authors} 1 Nonlinear World Honorary Editors Dr. Chris Tsokos President of IFNA, Executive Director of USOP, Editor in Chief, GJMS, IJMSM, IJES, IJMSBF Dr. S K Sen Director, GVP-LIAS, India Editor in Chief Dr. J Vasundhara Devi Dept. of Mathematics, GVPCE(A) and Associate Director, GVP-LIAS, India Editorial Board Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Standing and Social Choice: Historical Evidence
    University of Pennsylvania Law Review FOUNDED 1852 Formerly American Law Register VOL. 144 DECEMBER 1995 No. 2 ARTICLES STANDING AND SOCIAL CHOICE: HISTORICAL EVIDENCE MAXWELL L. STEARNSt TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .................................. 310 I. OVERVIEW: THE SOCIAL CHOICE THEORY OF STANDING .. 313 A. ConstitutionalLaw Versus ConstitutionalProcess ...... 313 t Associate Professor, George Mason University School of Law. B.A. 1983, University of Pennsylvania; J.D. 1987, University of Virginia School of Law. I would like to thank the following for their helpful comments and suggestions: Jim Chen, Henry Manne,John Rogers, Warren Schwartz, Linda Schwartzstein, and David Skeel. I also wish to thank the GMUSL library staff for their assistance in helping to track down hard-to-find source materials, and Melissa Austin, William Crowley, and Michael DiLauro for their research assistance. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the generous funding provided through the Law and Economics Center of the George Mason University School of Law. Finally, I would like to thank the editors of the CaliforniaLaw Review and the University of PennsylvaniaLaw Review for their fine work and their cooperative efforts on this two-article project. (309) 310 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 144: 309 B. Cyclical Preferences Within a Single Case: Kassel v. Consolidated Freightways ................ 320 C. Cyclical Preferences over Time and Across Cases: Seattle and Crawford .......................... 323 1. Agenda Control: The Power of Certiorari and Intra- Versus Inter-Circuit Stare Decisis .... 327 2. Arrow's Theorem Revisited: The Axiom, the Corollary, and Standing's Fairness Foundation 330 3. Standing Between Litigation and Legislation .... 338 D. Informal Accommodations and Formal Rules .........
    [Show full text]
  • List of Fallacies
    List of fallacies For specific popular misconceptions, see List of common if>). The following fallacies involve inferences whose misconceptions. correctness is not guaranteed by the behavior of those log- ical connectives, and hence, which are not logically guar- A fallacy is an incorrect argument in logic and rhetoric anteed to yield true conclusions. Types of propositional fallacies: which undermines an argument’s logical validity or more generally an argument’s logical soundness. Fallacies are either formal fallacies or informal fallacies. • Affirming a disjunct – concluding that one disjunct of a logical disjunction must be false because the These are commonly used styles of argument in convinc- other disjunct is true; A or B; A, therefore not B.[8] ing people, where the focus is on communication and re- sults rather than the correctness of the logic, and may be • Affirming the consequent – the antecedent in an in- used whether the point being advanced is correct or not. dicative conditional is claimed to be true because the consequent is true; if A, then B; B, therefore A.[8] 1 Formal fallacies • Denying the antecedent – the consequent in an indicative conditional is claimed to be false because the antecedent is false; if A, then B; not A, therefore Main article: Formal fallacy not B.[8] A formal fallacy is an error in logic that can be seen in the argument’s form.[1] All formal fallacies are specific types 1.2 Quantification fallacies of non sequiturs. A quantification fallacy is an error in logic where the • Appeal to probability – is a statement that takes quantifiers of the premises are in contradiction to the something for granted because it would probably be quantifier of the conclusion.
    [Show full text]
  • Harold Demsetz Source: the Journal of Law & Economics , Apr., 1969
    Information and Efficiency: Another Viewpoint Author(s): Harold Demsetz Source: The Journal of Law & Economics , Apr., 1969, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Apr., 1969), pp. 1- 22 Published by: The University of Chicago Press for The Booth School of Business, University of Chicago and The University of Chicago Law School Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/724977 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms , The University of Chicago Law School and The University of Chicago Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Law & Economics This content downloaded from 128.194.18.46 on Sat, 26 Jun 2021 14:50:38 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms INFORMATION AND EFFICIENCY: ANOTHER VIEWPOINT* HAROLD DEMSETZ University of Chicago THE importance of bringing economic analysis to bear on the problems of efficient economic organization hardly requires comment, but there is a need to review the manner in which the notion of efficiency is used in these prob- lems. The concept of efficiency has been abused frequently because of the particular approach used by many analysts. My aim is to examine the mis- takes and the vagueness associated with this approach.
    [Show full text]
  • Long-Term Unemployment in the Varieties of Capitalism
    Munich Personal RePEc Archive Long-term unemployment in the varieties of capitalism Chilosi, Alberto University of Pisa 5 March 2013 Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/56680/ MPRA Paper No. 56680, posted 18 Jun 2014 00:27 UTC LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE VARIETIES OF CAPITALISM Alberto Chilosi University of Pisa Via S. Andrea 48 56127 Pisa (Italy) c [email protected] Key ords: Varieties of Capitalism, Long-term unemployment, Employment protection, Economic fallacies ABSTRACT Usually, w en t e attention is focused on t e different performances of t e labour mar(et, t e overall rate of unemployment is at t e center stage. But t is is misleading: w ile s ort term unemployment can be seen as p ysiological for t e t e wor(ing of t e labour mar(et, long,term unemployment is certainly pat ological. T e paper considers ow t e different varieties of capitalism affect t e rate of long,term unemployment, rat er t an t e aggregate rate. T e liberal mar(et variety, w ere employment protection is t e lowest, presents lower rates of long,term unemployment t an t e continental .uropean and t e Mediterranean varieties. In t e latter bot employment protection and long,term unemployment are t e ig est and labour mar(et participation t e lowest. T e social, democratic Scandinavian variety gets t e best of bot worlds: low rates of long,term unemployment, ig rates of labour participation, lower degree of ine0uality, wit relatively ig levels of employment protection.
    [Show full text]