Specific Replies to Silly People
Saturday, September 14, 2013
For the guy who invokes Godwin's Law by Name and Thinks He Wins
I give a general principle of "Animal lovers are good people" or more specifically: Animal Lovers tend to be good people. That is a modal statement of \Diamond[1] A are G
You reply with "that is invalid because X1 is Y & Y is !Z" Where X is Hitler, Y is Dog Lover and Z is Good Person
The Square of Opposition[2] would allow such a statement only if I had ben invoking some aristotelian or predicate statement in the form of All X are Y[3]. At best you have stated a subcontrary[4]
Now, having shown that your form is invalid, allow me to proceed to unpack the remainder of your statement.
You invoke Godwin's Law: "to use Godwins law, Hitler was exceptionally kind to animals."
Godwin's law simply states: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." Even the generalized form of "All internet discussions" instead of Usenet doesn't work for you because you instantiated the Hitler reference after claiming to invoke Godwin's Law. Now in doing so, you both prove the letter and heart of the rule while ignoring the corollary: He who brings up Nazis/Hitler looses the argument.
[1] The Diamond Symbol in Modal logic is one of possibility.
[2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/square/
[3] The reader can note I did not use such a form.
[4] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/connectives-logic/
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