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KRISHNA

My friend says you are interpreting it wrongly

While there are a lot of Hindu scriptures in Sanskrit that peddle pseudoscience, my friend says that the translation provided is minimal and has a lot of other meanings as well. I am unable to find the fallacy in his argument because these translated books are accepted by a lot of scholars and hence published, but he goes away with the argument stating what has been translated is very less it has more deeper meaning to it and i don't understand it.

asked on Tuesday, Jun 21, 2022 03:37:15 AM by KRISHNA

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TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:

So they're saying the texts can be interpreted in many different ways...

...this may or may not be sound, but without examples I wouldn't really know.

posted on Tuesday, Jun 21, 2022 06:15:44 AM
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Shawn writes:

The argument your friend put forward is valid and not a logical fallacy. Translating a text, especially ancient scriptures, are fraught with a lot of complexities and obstacles, not the least of which is translating a word or phrase with multiple layers of meaning and shades of nuance but the translator only has limited space to do so. At best the translator can choose one meaning of a word or phrase while knowing full well it could have other meanings as well. 

posted on Tuesday, Jun 21, 2022 09:27:20 AM

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Arlo
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The first sentence of the post essentially talks about an old document written in a not-so-common-today language but translated into one or more current languages.  The statement claims that there could be a number of different translations, each of which could give an understanding that is subtly or significantly different from other translations.  That sounds like a premise that could be (and probably is) true but it would take some support to confirm or reject its truth.

That first sentence is a statement (that's either true or false), but is isn't a logical fallacy because it isn't an argument.

The second part of the second sentence seems to present an argument something like this:

P1: the books are translated from another language

P2: the books are accepted by a lot of scholars

C3: the books are published (with the implication that they're published because they're accepted by a lot of scholars)

I'm unable to see a conclusion to this "argument", unless it's the implication that if they've been translated, accepted and published then they must be accurate.  If that's the argument, it seems that there are missing linkages among the premises, leading to a possible non sequitur.

The final part talks about the translation being less deep (and the original text being deeper) in meaning.  This statement seems to be an opinion.  It could perhaps be shown to be true by finding a way to discover the "deepness" of the original Sanskrit and measure that against the "deepness" of various translations.  Of course, doing that would need us to define "deep" in this context so that further discussion doesn't head at cross-purposes because of different understandings of the terms used.

As well, the "pseudoscience" seems like some sort of a red herring in that it's presented initially with no further reference ... one has to ask why it was introduced in the first place – unless, it's an attempt at poisoning the well by implying that we need to view pseudoscience (and those who promote it) negatively, suggesting that the entire discussion must be tainted.

I don't see any logical fallacies because I don't see any completed arguments although some are started and in some places there are implied potential connections.  I also don't see evidence to support the claims.  At best, it seems to be a series of unsupported or poorly supported opinions.

answered on Tuesday, Jun 21, 2022 12:07:23 PM by Arlo

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