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INTPs - why do they love fancy-shmancy snooty debates?

Helios

Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2008
Messages
273
MBTI Type
INTP
informal then

I noticed you're steamrolling past my point

There was not one "point" made, but three salient propositions offered:

1) (implied) The straw man fallacy is a formal fallacy.

2) "all formal fallacies are based on a common cognitive bias/error."

3)"it's unlikely for anyone to commit a strawman fallacy without following the formula I described, even though it might be theoretically possible."

1 is obviously false; 2 is vague and unclear; 3 fares little better than 2.

I simply ignored 2 and 3 because, not only were they digressive and irrelevant to the discussion, but, frankly, I couldn't be bothered to address them and the misunderstandings that inevitably lay beneath them (e.g. ignorance of what constitutes a formal fallacy vis a vis an informal fallacy, what a "straw man" fallacy is, conventionally understood). 1, however, whilst irrelevant to the discussion, was quick and painless to correct, and thus I did so.

Moreover, you began your post with a juvenile "fuck you" and emoticon and then made a glaring error. This, combined with your lacklustre grasp of English and general puerility, as well as my suspicion that you are not especially intelligent, was sufficient for my above reticence.

If you want to be taken seriously by interlocutors who aren't easily impressed, use better English, avoid profanity, and gain more than a slight knowledge of the subject about which you are talking. If not, you are welcome to continue being a dolt.
 

Resonance

Energizer Bunny
Joined
May 18, 2010
Messages
740
MBTI Type
INfj
Enneagram
6w5
There was not one "point" made, but three salient propositions offered:

1) (implied) The straw man fallacy is a formal fallacy.

2) "all formal fallacies are based on a common cognitive bias/error."

3)"it's unlikely for anyone to commit a strawman fallacy without following the formula I described, even though it might be theoretically possible."

1 is obviously false; 2 is vague and unclear; 3 fares little better than 2.

I simply ignored 2 and 3 because, not only were they digressive and irrelevant to the discussion, but, frankly, I couldn't be bothered to address them and the misunderstandings that inevitably lay beneath them (e.g. ignorance of what constitutes a formal fallacy vis a vis an informal fallacy, what a "straw man" fallacy is, conventionally understood). 1, however, whilst irrelevant to the discussion, was quick and painless to correct, and thus I did so.

Moreover, you began your post with a juvenile "fuck you" and emoticon and then made a glaring error. This, combined with your lacklustre grasp of English and general puerility, as well as my suspicion that you are not especially intelligent, was sufficient for my above reticence.

If you want to be taken seriously by interlocutors who aren't easily impressed, use better English, avoid profanity, and gain more than a slight knowledge of the subject about which you are talking. If not, you are welcome to continue being a dolt.
lol.

Okay, I shouldn't have added 'formal' in there. I was just trying to add jargon in order to sound smart. But, while that makes my statement rather an attack on an implied straw man itself, it's still correct and does apply on the wider scale.

-Logical fallacies which are not possible to process in the human brain are never used by humans in discourse. Fallacies which are not possible for a human to process on paper are never used by humans in written work.
-Many types of logical fallacies exist, and it is possible for a human brain to identify them.
-Each type of fallacy has a specific context in which it is most commonly found, and a useful function outside of pure logic. (more obvious examples would be appeals to force/emotion)

The reason it's relevant is because I described the conditions common to most, if not all, straw man arguments (the exception being intentional ones), as well as the social dynamics involved. You may not have noticed, since you seem to operate on a binary of 'smart/not smart' where you ignore anyone who doesn't use words that normal folk will need a dictionary for, but simply identifying a fallacy is rarely enough to correct it in the mind of an interlocutor, especially when there is a gap in understanding (almost always the case for a straw man).
 

Helios

Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2008
Messages
273
MBTI Type
INTP
lol.

Okay, I shouldn't have added 'formal' in there. I was just trying to add jargon in order to sound smart. But, while that makes my statement rather an attack on an implied straw man itself, it's still correct and does apply on the wider scale.

-Logical fallacies which are not possible to process in the human brain are never used by humans in discourse. Fallacies which are not possible for a human to process on paper are never used by humans in written work.
-Many types of logical fallacies exist, and it is possible for a human brain to identify them.
-Each type of fallacy has a specific context in which it is most commonly found, and a useful function outside of formal logic.

The reason it's relevant is because I described the conditions common to most, if not all, straw man arguments (the exception being intentional ones), as well as the social dynamics involved. You may not have noticed, since you seem to operate on a binary of 'smart/not smart' where you ignore anyone who doesn't use words that normal folk will need a dictionary for, but simply identifying a fallacy is rarely enough to correct it in the mind of an interlocutor, especially when there is a gap in understanding (almost always the case for a straw man).

I rest my case.
 

Jonny

null
Joined
Sep 8, 2009
Messages
3,134
MBTI Type
FREE
Sigh. Do you want a rope or can you climb up here yourself?
 

Resonance

Energizer Bunny
Joined
May 18, 2010
Messages
740
MBTI Type
INfj
Enneagram
6w5
No, I think I can hear people speaking Chinese. I'm not going to give up this close to the goal.
 
G

Glycerine

Guest
haha, sometimes they can be the most accurate words. However, there are many times you can tell when people (in general, not just INTPs) are just trying to come off smart but end up coming off sounding asinine with no real substance using fancy smancy language. In a sense, some are sacrificing substance and common understanding to sound "intelligent". IMO, it's pseudointellectualism at its finest.
 
S

Sniffles

Guest
I don't see why a dialectical approach infers no interest in content. Can you talk more about this? Also, I'd be interested in reading the Ni vs Ti stuff you edited out of your post.
There wasn't much I really said, it was more the tone I was carrying. I edited it so it didn't sound like I was pushing a Ni vs Ti agenda. I was simply too exhausted to go into any real details about the differing approaches of Ni and Ti, but that certainly would be quite an interesting topic.

I didn't mean to say that dialetical approach equates to no interest in content. I was commenting on Jennifer's remark about INTPs being more interested in the discussion itself than the content. Then I proceeded to comment on Litvyak's remark about how understanding the underlying issues of the discussion is key to Ni's approach; and related it to Buber's distinction between dialectical and dialogical approaches.
 

OrangeAppled

Sugar Hiccup
Joined
Mar 20, 2009
Messages
7,626
MBTI Type
INFP
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4w5
Instinctual Variant
sp/sx
I've always associated this with INTs - especially INTPs - and can't help to find it meaningless and boring, the very least. Nitpicking kills creativity and constructivity. Debating with the risk of a possible logical fallacy is more worth it than tearing every syllable apart until the goal is lost. Eventually, it all comes down to a handful of nerds mental-masturbating in which nobody's interested in.

You either get the "underlying foundation" or you don't get it. I honestly doubt that such mind games ever get you closer to what you're trying to find out.

:yes:

I tend to associate it with NTPs and also find it very annoying and to stifle conversation & flow of ideas; although, there are certainly some NTPs who do not do this. It comes off as very "can't see the forest for the trees" nitpicking, in which the main meaning of the expression is ignored as the NTP harps on some minor detail that is beside the point.
 

Orangey

Blah
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Jun 26, 2008
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6,354
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ESTP
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You're right, as usual, but the search of fallacies isn't especially associated with INTPs.
As a matter of fact, the vast majority of INTPs here don't even know what a real "strawman" fallacy is, they just use the term inappropriately and for every purpose. It's just a standard, pedantic (but ignorant) way to say they disagree with you. Epistemological figures aren't that easy to understand or master, unless, like you said, you had been professionally trained to recognize them.

And if you ask them the difference between a deduction, an abduction, an induction or a transduction, most of them won't know how to answer it, unless they google it and try to mimick knowledge they don't really possess.

Remember that most young INTPs are just posers.

So it seems that the general conclusion of this thread is that anyone, including anyone who claims to be INTP, is annoying when they misuse fallacies. A lot of work for nothing, eh?

A strawman fallacy basically means 'missing the point and steaming way past it.' If you said "Abortion is wrong" and I went off on you about how you shouldn't be allowed to control my body and that taking away my rights is far more wrong than abortion, that would be a straw man, because although it's generally implied that people want to stop others from doing things they consider wrong, you never said anything to indicate that this is true for you.

I find that people who accuse others of attacking straw men are generally correct in doing so; it's just that they are often guilty of the same problem, and the one so accused generally won't respond to the accusation by reframing their perceptions.

Your example was unclear, and I still feel that you remain confused about the fallacy as it is conventionally understood. Committing the straw man fallacy has little to do with either unwarranted assumptions per se or, "'missing the point and steaming way past it'". To commit it is to do something quite specific, viz. what I mentioned in my previous post, or else something closely akin to this.

Helios is right. Your example is not a correct demonstration of a straw man fallacy. It's a red herring; the fallaciousness has more to do with irrelevance than it does with misrepresentation. It's kind of a "two wrongs make a right," which is a sub-fallacy in the red herring family.

In your example you have:

Person A: Abortion is wrong.
Person B: Taking away the right to control one's own body is more wrong than abortion. Therefore abortion is not wrong.

The argument is fallacious because it is irrelevant. Abortion could still be wrong even if it were legal. Furthermore, even if we accept that it is somehow more wrong to take away one's right to control their own body than it is to abort a fetus, that does not mean that the latter is not still wrong.

A straw man argument, by contrast, happens when one debater reduces the argument of their opponent to a more simplistic (or extreme) version and then proceeds to argue against that version. In other words, a stronger argument is made into a weaker one and then attacked.

If I were to reformulate your example into an actual straw man, it might go like this:

Person A: While women have an undeniable right to control what goes on within(out) their own bodies, that does not mean that they have a right to kill other humans. Since a fetus is a human, abortion is wrong.
Person B: Abortion is not wrong. The government has no right to control how women live their lives or use their bodies.

The key distinction to be made here is that the straw man argument weakens the original argument in order to make it easier to attack, whereas the red herring derails the original argument in order to evade the direction in which it was headed.
 

Resonance

Energizer Bunny
Joined
May 18, 2010
Messages
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The key distinction to be made here is that the straw man argument weakens the original argument in order to make it easier to attack, whereas the red herring derails the original argument in order to evade the direction in which it was headed.
That seems pretty subjective to me.
 

Resonance

Energizer Bunny
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May 18, 2010
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What are you talking about?

I mean there's no clear distinction. The distinction is how 'thematically related' the two arguments (the imagined one and the intended one) are. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
 

BlueGray

New member
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Oct 7, 2009
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474
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That's not really what the distinction is. One deals with the other parties argument while the other introduces something with which to distract. Both or neither could be thematically related.
 

ocean

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1. Because there's too many words to expect everyone to know them all, do you not realize how many words exist in the English language, never mind the idioms etc. I only first heard of these obscure terms here on TypeC.

2. How many times have you had to hear/use the term "strawman fallacy" in your professional/social life?

3. Actually, I *am* learning a second language. Actually, I'm learning 3 at once. So the last thing on my agenda is to learn about :redherring: .

I can totally relate. I am tired too about people wanting to using fancy jargon for no apparent reason like.. you know, thumb... index... FINGERS... it would all be so much easier if they said it like it is, like, those pink meaty things on your hands... or... those pink meaty things on your hngs... or... the hmm on the hmmm... Really awful how people use fancy words like "tomorrow" and "yesterday" just to look like intellectual jerks when they could say ahahu (pointing at the sun and backwards) and uhuhe (pointing at the sun and forward). And they expect you to like know 1000 words and look s**t up and stuff... bah. ;-)
 

Orangey

Blah
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Jun 26, 2008
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I mean there's no clear distinction. The distinction is how 'thematically related' the two arguments (the imagined one and the intended one) are. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

This...

That's not really what the distinction is. One deals with the other parties argument while the other introduces something with which to distract. Both or neither could be thematically related.

...is answered perfectly by this.
 

copperfish17

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Dec 13, 2009
Messages
712
MBTI Type
INTP
Enneagram
5w4
Instinctual Variant
sp/so
1. Because there's too many words to expect everyone to know them all, do you not realize how many words exist in the English language, never mind the idioms etc. I only first heard of these obscure terms here on TypeC.

2. How many times have you had to hear/use the term "strawman fallacy" in your professional/social life?

3. Actually, I *am* learning a second language. Actually, I'm learning 3 at once. So the last thing on my agenda is to learn about :redherring: .

I looked up/studied a huge list of fallacies, just for fun... :doh:

I heard the term "strawman fallacy" quite often IRL. But that's probably because my best buds are mostly INTX's.

Ooh, 3 foreign languages! Shake mah hand plz. I speakz 4 langy-wagez too. :cheese:
 

The Decline

(☞゚∀゚)☞
Joined
Jun 3, 2009
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780
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?
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While I recognize this as essentially a troll thread, I'm going to have to side with the "google it" crowd. There's even simple.wikipedia.org now.
 

Resonance

Energizer Bunny
Joined
May 18, 2010
Messages
740
MBTI Type
INfj
Enneagram
6w5
That's not really what the distinction is. One deals with the other parties argument while the other introduces something with which to distract. Both or neither could be thematically related.
No, neither one deals with the other party's argument.

One introduces an 'exaggerated/etc' form of it, the other introduces something unrelated. Either way, the original argument is not addressed.
 
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