Talk:Argument by assertion

Yes, I was wondering about ad populum there. It was an intentional addition because I was thinking about how applying most rhetoric and fallacious arguments is merely asserting that you're correct, because fallacious arguments by their nature don't prove anything. ^gnostic 11:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I took it off because I think it's important to keep the examples perfectly clear. It's not so bad on this page, but some of the others are only subtly different from one another. –SuspectedReplicant^{retire me} 11:54, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

You mention examples, but I can't see any. Examples would really help. Щєазєюіδ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 11:56, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Okay... example is the wrong word. I mean the two structural samples. –SuspectedReplicant^{retire me} 12:01, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Quite a lot of our articles are missing "examples", which is a shame. We should try and go down the TV Tropes route of cataloging every damn example we come across, but that's quite difficult and would inevitably end up with every article being saturated with Conservapedia links. ^gnostic 12:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah. I just spend a fruitless 10 minutes looking for examples of this one on CP. It doesn't seem to be used often - Andy usually prefers Argumentum ex culo or Argument by Association. –SuspectedReplicant^{retire me} 12:33, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

It's certainly not well used. You have to be really crazy just to assert, assert, assert. I think some of Ray Comfort's borderlines on it, though. In the interview with Thunderf00t he was very much "well, I know the truth". It's really only an example of excessive rhetoric. ^gnostic 12:43, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

It is one of PJR's favorite arguments; he will quote some point and then respond with "Nonsense" or "But [negation of quote]." ListenerX^TalkerX 05:40, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Picture

I found this picture on the page. It was funny but was taking the page up and it was cpcentric. I'll leave it here for the editors who get the joke to enjoy. - π 05:30, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Changing it to a link: Image:Assertion.png

Axioms

I made a change to the definition. The previous definition would have applied to all axioms, but, since arguing by assertion is not valid, it should not apply to axioms. Axioms are foundations on which frameworks are built. eg:

A | B | A and B | A or B | not A
--------------------------------
T | T |    T    |   T    |  F
T | F |    F    |   T    |  F
F | T |    F    |   T    |  T
F | F |    F    |   F    |  T

or

If A = B and B = C then A = C

You need axioms in order to create the contradictions that make argument by assertion a fallacy. --Bertrc (talk) 19:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Asserting Knowledge of State of Speaker's Belief

"...assertion only demonstrates that the person making the statement believes in it"--- Assuming that "believes in it" means "believes his/her assertion to be true", I'd suggest that, absent (at least) a corroborating assertion to the state of the speaker's belief, this assertion is unwarranted: one can never know what is in the mind of another. Especially in the realm of rhetoric (subset propaganda), speakers assert things they know to be false with the hope that the hearer will believe them and consequently do or not do something that is in the speaker's interest. Campaign ads, especially those made for today's American Republican candidates for office, are replete with examples of such.^{— Unsigned, by: Gdavidbrown / talk / contribs} 13:40, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Even in those cases it is supposed to demonstrate the speaker believes in it, in order to convince others. You could add "at most" I suppose. King Skeleton (talk) 21:39, 30 October 2014 (UTC)