I have encountered people who, when confronted with a counterexample to a general claim, will respond with another example that is consistent with the general claim, as if this somehow refutes the counterexample. Is there a name for this fallacy?
Hmm. I used to call it "moronity". Perhaps there is a more specific term.
Denis Korneev Well, there's "modus morons" 🤔, but that's just another name for affirming the consequent.
Cheers. 🤡
This seems to fit: “An irrelevant conclusion,[1] also known as ignoratio elenchi (Latin for ''ignoring refutation'') or missing the point, is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may or may not be logically valid and sound, but (whose conclusion) fails to address the issue in question. It falls into the broad class of relevance fallacies.[2]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrelevant_conclusion
My gut reaction is this is some species of secundum quid et simpliciter, or confusing a general rule for a categorical rule. For example:
Sam: "All prime numbers are odd."
Diane: "2 isn't odd."
Sam: "But 3, 5, 7... are."
If Sam meant "all" then Diane's right to object, and Sam's wrong to ignore it. Here, Sam is plausibly confusing a general rule for a categorical one, and ignoring counterexamples.
That said, if Sam was speaking loosely, then Diane's perhaps being pedantic, and Sam's list is meant to indicate to Diane that he was speaking loosely.
Take this with a grain of salt; I don't spend much time thinking about fallacy names, so it's plausible I'm incorrect.
The ways that we perform abduction might show where this fallacy exists. It is right to change our beliefs according to new circumstances, but explaining why this is true must rely on observed evidence. The scientist would rather use an alternative hypothetical scenario to present reliable future deductive premises. If there is a conclusion that is justified in itself, it will require an inductive relation.
https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzs001
[https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8392/d1ab1a6c7fc366b5b4e2f1e64e0e2929eee5.pdf]
Pardon the side note, but I will note in real life this is often useful behavior. That is because of the different threshold for what constitutes correct and verified "proofs" (or even reason!) in daily operations, even when important. Thus a weighing comes into play. Human affairs is a messy business.
La contradictoire d’une universelle affirmative “Tout A est B” est la particulière négative (y compris l’exemple singulier) “quelque A n’est pas B”. Un contre exemple est donc bien la réfutation d’une proposition générale ou même d'une proposition indéfinie (sans quantificateur) “A est B”. Au contraire, la contradictoire d’une particulière négative (y compris l’exemple singulier) “quelque A n’est pas B” est “aucun A n’est pas B”, c’est-à-dire une proposition universelle. En aucun cas, donc, un exemple (proposition particulière) ne peut réfuter un autre exemple. Il s’agit bien du sophisme de l’“Ignoratio elenchi”. Cordialement.
I think that this is a Counterexample - an example that refutes the correctness of some statement. Usually this is a way to promote your views, hypotheses, etc.
Regards, Sergey Viktorovich Pushkin
Did you bother to point out that to the person who issued before you bother to post here, sir?
Xinyuan gu Yes, I've pointed the error out to both students and colleagues many times over the years. Why do you ask?
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