Reply #15: The appeal to authority might not be a fallacy. [View All]

Depends on what their appeal consists of and what they use it for. Your example is ambiguous.

They might be saying that Jefferson wanted high property taxes to encourage more equitable distribution of unworked land. Therefore we should have such a system; or even, therefore it should be read into the Constitution. Eh. Jefferson wanted it at one point in his life. So what?

Or they might be saying based on Jefferson's diary what he understand "inalienable rights" to mean, which could well be important in understanding part of the Declaration. We look at dictionaries from the time to inform us about what a word would have meant--it doesn't mean that the word necessarily had any of the definitions, but if one definition fits well that's the way to bet. It's why we look at legislative history, at commentaries and the arguments that were taking place when the Constitution or amendments were being written and passed. The alternative is still an appeal to authority--"I'm the authority, although I know nothing at all about the topic."

These authorities provide evidence. Then we get to argue about the validity of the authority, the relative weight to be given, etc., etc. In the same way every novel Greek text from 100 A.D. is studied by New Testament scholars, every Semitic inscription studied by Semiticists. They provide evidence, and in some causes are appealed to as evidence sufficient for overturning some hypothesis. You should see how Slavists used to go ga-ga over new birchbark documents from Novgorod, before they became numerous and redundant.

Let's say I'm a translator. I've been given some documents to translate. I need to get them into English. Let's say that they're part of a Russian rocket engine design; the Russian designed it and have been building it to spec, but we have to replicate the production line in the US. I read them and I don't understand them. Or, rather, I think I understand them but I want to be sure. After all, it's rocket science.

I ask around. A bunch of native speakers and translators scratch their heads. They understand it differently, or they find it confusing. I'm using them as authorities. They've flopped.

I contact people that were engineers on the Russian project. I track down other documents involved in the production of Russian aerospace engineering. I consult the Web and look at sites that offer specialized parts manufacture.

I produce my translation. I tell my editor that the "spline" that the glossary says is the translation for this word is actually a K-joint, a really nifty kind of thing if you're working at truly high pressures. I find out that the "select" nylon thread wasn't a grade of thread--they actually would order a crate of nylon thread, picked out the few that suitable for their project, and toss the rest. That, yes, when it says that 2 liters of pure ethanol were required for this step, at the end only 100 ml were used while the rest was to be "reserved for quality control" it meant that the supervisor took it home for the weekend binge.

On what authority did I make the translations? My own? Hardly. Did I rely just on the text? No. "Volodya over there was an engineer on a related project. He said that's what they did to get their nylon thread. This American website offers K-joints, and if you look at the schematic you'll see they match up reasonably well." In other words, I went to *other* authorities to find out what words and practices were, so that I could understand the text.

This isn't so much an appeal to authority as it is obtaining evidence that I otherwise know. It's not saying, "Mr. Smith says that the amendment means this; therefore it must." It's looking at the understanding of people involved at the time, who have information on the matter, and informing my opinion and argument. I'm not likely to go against them and say that the text can't mean what they say it means. But I have gotten answers, questioned it, asked them to think about it more and gotten an "Aha! I was wrong. It means..." out of them.

Now, it *can* be taken to an extreme. I wouldn't allow Volodya to tell me that when it says "take part B and insert it into slot C, fixing with cotter pin D" should, because of what he saw, actually be translated "grind part B to make rod C to insert into groove D."

When arguing with others who invoke the Founding Fathers and such, the arguments run from the trite, real appeals to authority to adducing evidence. Sometimes it's hard to distinguish, esp. when the evidence is somebody around at the time saying what the author intended or what the ratifiers discussed. Then it's possible that the authority's evidence is actually little more than a dictum.

At the same time appeals to authority can be useful simply because reality and time are finite. If you can say, "Einstein said" and the following has to do with physics, even if at first glance you think it's a crock of crap you may want to consider the appeal to authority. He's not always right, Einstein, but he's enough of an authority that his statement should trigger a reconsideration. Things having the form of fallacy aren't always inappropriate or wrong. If, however, at the end the math really says Einstein was wrong, then you go with the math, but if you don't have the math chops to handle proving or disproving what he said, you're stuck with authority. Sometimes fallacy's the best you can do.

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I don't take the second to be a strawman argument. I also think that most "no true Scotsman" "fallacies" aren't so much fallacies as definitions in disguise. After all, they're expostulations about what should be, not arguing that such-and-such isn't the case.

I also think that you're trying to have a specific kind of definition of "secular" because you want to finagle your definition so that your point's entailed. The US Federal government is fairly secular, although it has a kind of ceremonial religious form at time and is friendly towards religion; American society need not be secular. The French government is secular, but it's fairly hostile to religions and, indeed, the country as a whole is fairly secular. Nazi Germany had a fairly secular government, to all outward appearances; it's religious observances weren't actually Xian in private. In a way, they treated all religions equally--"What are you going to do to serve our ends?"--which means from the religionist's point of view they were all treated differently.

Secular just means "of this world" (a bit too etymologically correct, that stab at a definition)) or "without religion." That can be good, bad, or indifferent. The problem is that if you say secular states guarantee freedom of religion you have to remember that the bare plural is a bit ambiguous in English. So the listener isn't entirely unjustified in inferring "all secular states guarantee freedom of religion"--yeah, that might be a fallacy, but maybe not. In which case a single counterexample falsifies your claim. If you say it's only secular states that guarantee freedom of religion then raising Nazi Germany is an abbreviated counterargument--okay, secular states, but be more specific, it's not *just* the fact that they're secular and might it not be something else entirely? Perhaps you mean a "modern secular state" or a "liberal secular state"? Then might not a "liberal religious state" do a good job? Dunno. Not my argument, no interest in it.