Talk:Argumentum ad dictionarium

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See also: the fallacy of equivocation, and the other subtypes of ambiguity.--ZooGuard (talk) 10:24, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Broadening the sense, isn't this just "argument by/from definition"? (I just found out that one of the top results in Google for that phrase is a LessWrong post. :| )--ZooGuard (talk) 18:02, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

It's one of the better LW posts, actually. Scarlet A.pngmoralModerator 19:18, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Correction

Not edited directly as the page contains signed original work, but:

The phrase "A belief in no God and no belief in God are semantically identical" under the example of atheism is incorrect. These are semantically different, although as the example indicates are functionally identical. 24.126.220.186 (talk) 15:46, 16 October 2013 (UTC) EB

D'oh!! Scarlet A.pngmoral 17:41, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

[edit] This essay is an original work by signed users.

On the page. What does this mean?--Coffee (talk) 19:52, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

It means that the essay is an original work put together by whichever editors contributed (as given by the page history). The important point is that it's original work, in that it's not necessarily on mission and is not meant to be representative of the views of the wiki as a whole. - GrantC (talk) 19:59, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
In this particular case it was going to be an article, but the draft was a bit too essay-like, so it's now basically an essay open to contributions. Scarlet A.pngpathetic 20:01, 18 October 2013 (UTC)
So "by signed users" means what exactly? I can't seem to see the signatures. Where should I look?--Coffee (talk) 20:51, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
I believe it means the editors that have changed the article (check the page history to see the list). If I'm not mistaken, it's just a boilerplate to cover everyone who has contributed to the open essay. - GrantC (talk) 02:53, 21 October 2013 (UTC)
So a "signed user" is anybody who has ever contributed to the article? So in what way does it differ from anything else on the wiki?--Coffee (talk) 20:19, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
It's not a proper main space article, basically. That's all that means. Nullahnung (talk) 20:38, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
Then the "signed users" bit is both confusing and meaningless.--Coffee (talk) 20:41, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
You're right. I've changed it to "RationalWiki users". SophieWilderModerator 20:47, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

[edit] Move to mainspace

This is a good piece and I don't see why it's not in mainspace, which doesn't have an article. SophieWilderModerator 22:02, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

[edit] I'm not really sure where to put this in

I know it's pretty common for pescetarians (i.e. people who eat fish and seafood but no other animals) to falsely identify as vegetarians. While I don't recall any actually saying this, using the logic of the people who commit this fallacy, falsely calling oneself a vegetarian would in fact mean they actually don't eat the aforementioned foods, rather than them using the wrong word to describe themselves. TheSocktor (talk) 23:38, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

[edit] At what point is it warranted to appeal to definition?

"No, actually, you are wrong, look up what those words actually mean!" is what I want to say after I see the n-th pseudoscientist misuse "quantum" and the n-th average joe misuse "evolution" because they don't really understand natural selection... I would argue that appeal to definition is fallacious when there isn't a specific context to refer back to that would provide a correct definition of the concerning term in the conversation. Nullahnung (talk) 14:09, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

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