Timeline for Are there quantitative measures for the soundness of an argument?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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| Aug 11, 2013 at 4:58 | comment | added | Brash Equilibrium | again you are correct. There is no one-to-one or even one-to-many correspondence between premise and fallacy, although many premises can together represent one fallacy, and one premise on its own can be a fallacy. The reason why I suggest a "fallacy per premise" measure is because a more complex argument with more premises can contain more fallacies simply because it has more premises, and not because it is more fallacious than a simpler argument with fewer premises, but many fallacies per premise. | |
| Aug 10, 2013 at 17:05 | comment | added | smartcaveman | @BrashEquilibrium i do think your observation about how this relates to Occam's razor is interesting | |
| Aug 10, 2013 at 17:01 | comment | added | smartcaveman | @BrashEquilibrium something about your terminology is off. Premises don't have fallacies, because fallacies apply to logical derivations not truth-bearers. What exactly are you trying to get at with 'density of fallacies per premise'? | |
| Aug 10, 2013 at 9:31 | comment | added | Brash Equilibrium | However! I disagree with you about the measurement of validity. I believe it should be measured as the density of fallacies per premise, because we should prefer arguments that make fewer fallacies to ones that make more, and in informal argumentation, almost everyone will commit at least one fallacy. If you are interested in comparison, better to go with something that is likely to have more heterogeneity. | |
| Aug 10, 2013 at 9:29 | comment | added | Brash Equilibrium | Thanks for your excellent answer. This is very similar to the one I've come to, but you clarified several points. One thing that I find interesting is that, in the limit of infinitely many premises, and assuming that there is incomplete certainty in the truth of each premise, the joint probability of the composite judgment goes to zero. It's a built-in Occam's razor. | |
| Aug 10, 2013 at 9:25 | vote | accept | Brash Equilibrium | ||
| Aug 10, 2013 at 9:25 | vote | accept | Brash Equilibrium | ||
| Aug 10, 2013 at 9:25 | |||||
| Aug 9, 2013 at 22:02 | history | answered | smartcaveman | CC BY-SA 3.0 |