Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by zorbo 4266 days ago
The article pulls a Fallacy fallacy, otherwise known as an "argument from fallacy". Basically what he says is "none of the arguments against me are correct, because fallacy X". I simply ignore such statements, because they make discussion impossible.
2 comments
chriswarbo 4266 days ago
You're committing a fallacy fallacy fallacy:

> Above, I have, with some humor, suggested that proponents of OOP tend to indulge the No True Scottsman fallacy when arguing for OOP. On a more serious note, some proponents of OOP might try to defend themselves by suggesting that we are facing issues of commensurability: proponents of the pure-logic paradigm, or the functional paradigm, or the OOP paradigm, talk past each other because we can not understand the axioms on which each other’s arguments rest.

> I am willing to believe that this issue explains some of the disconnect between some of the more thoughtful proponents of the different styles. And yet, there has to be something more going on, since the empirical evidence is so overwhelmingly against OOP. Proponents of OOP are arguing against reality itself, and they continue to do so, year after year, with an inflexibility that must have either non-rational or cynically financial sources.

link
chris_wot 4266 days ago
Oh, so what happens if all the arguments against him are actually fallacious? You realise that you would have ignored him based on the fallacy of the Fallacy fallacy?
link
zorbo 4266 days ago
No, I wouldn't have. I ignore his claim that all arguments against him are True Scotsman Fallacies. I don't ignore the actual arguments against him, nor the one he makes. Any of those arguments may or may not be fallacious themselves, but that has no bearing on me ignoring his claim that they all are.
link
chris_wot 4266 days ago
What I'm saying is that if all the arguments against him were True Scotsman Fallacies, then it would be fallacious to ignore him based on a mistaken understanding that he is arguing based on a Fallacy fallacy. And as we all know, no true logician would make such a mistake.
link
zorbo 4266 days ago
I think you misunderstand me, or I you. I'm not ignoring him. The only part I'm ignoring is his claim that all counter-arguments made against him are True Scotsman Fallacies. And I was right to do so, since apparently later in the article he revealed it as a joke.
link
peterashford 4266 days ago
I suspect you're all about to disappear up your reducto-ad-absurdum
link