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Ed F

Missing The Point

What is "Missing The Point" called in Dr. Bo's book?   Is it in the book?  (this was one of Aristotle's 13 Fallacies).  

There appears to be two variations: (1) where someone makes an argument, gives premises for their conclusion, but the premises prove something different than what the arguer thinks they support.     The other (2) is what might be called Mistaken Refutation--where person A makes an argument and person B responds with an argument, but the refutation argument doesn't rebut A's argument but instead shows something else.

asked on Tuesday, Jan 11, 2022 10:47:20 AM by Ed F

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Ed F
2

I mean, it's not like all the fallacies in the book are mutually exclusive, technically it can be a strawman, non-sequitur and an irrelevant conclusion, people people usually mistake this for changing the subject or moving the goal post, it's not what that is.

I mean yeah we have also a fallacy called a false dichotomy which represents affirming the disjunct and denying the conjunct.

We also have a fallacy called the identity fallacy, which literally can mean an ad hominem, poisoning the well, psychogenetic fallacy, bulverism or a genetic fallacy.

answered on Tuesday, Jan 11, 2022 12:44:30 PM by Ed F

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TrappedPrior (RotE)
2

He refers to avoiding the issue as 'missing the point'.

Interestingly, 'ignoratio elenchi', aka 'missing the point', is referred to as red herring in Dr Bo's account.
answered on Tuesday, Jan 11, 2022 12:42:38 PM by TrappedPrior (RotE)

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Ed F writes:

Yes, thanks for pointing that out.  

I would say they're different fallacies; Red Herring is a deliberate attempt to divert the issue to avoid the real issue (we see a lot of that on the news every day).   Missing The Point is a trip up by the person making the argument, where they're not trying to divert, but are making an argument not realizing the "take away" is not what they intended.

posted on Tuesday, Jan 11, 2022 01:17:12 PM