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this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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If they're guilty of hyperbole or slippery slope, then say that. Lumping in reducto ad absurdum takes away from a very powerful and useful tool of formal logic. Overloading the term makes understanding more fuzzy, not more clarifying.
I JUST told you about how hyperbole and slippery slope arguments aren't inherently fallacious. Just like reducto ad absurdum arguments, they're fallacies when used fallaciously and otherwise NOT fallacies.
Is that clear enough, or do you want me to Ask Figaro?
Let's go back a few steps in the thread. The response was simply "Reducto ad absurdum" as if that explained it right there. Except, that's not itself a fallacy. It might be used in a fallacious way, but simply stating "Reducto ad absurdum" does not point out any fallacy what so ever.
And that's my whole point. People use the term in a muddy way that takes away from a tool.
So that's where you want the goal posts now?
I specifically agreed that reducto ad absurdum isn't inherently a fallacy in the first sentence of my first reply to you.
It is now that your original point that "there's no such thing as a reducto ad absurdum fallacy" has been shot to pieces 🙄
That's the case with almost every tool of every kind that people have access to.
Especially in the case of language, people are constantly using it wrong, and while I genuinely applaud your intention of projecting a useful tool from being dulled by misuse, the battle is an uphill one to begin with.
Don't make it even worse by misstating your position and then defending that mistake like it's the Korean border.
I said early on:
Yes, you can use reducto ad absurdum arguments in a fallacious way. That's true of literally any kind of argument, so it's pointless to say that. Point out the actual fallacy or don't.
Reducto ad absurdum fallacy = reducto ad absurdum used fallaciously. That's all.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
But why call that out at all? Why not call out an actual fallacy built inside a reducto ad absurdum argument (assuming there is one)? The poster way up the stack did not clarify at all. They posted "reducto ad absurdum" as if that was the end of it.
Perhaps they were using that as a shorthand for "reducto ad absurdum fallacy" and, not unreasonably, expecting that people would infer ad much from context.
Either way, we have discussed this to death and you're still beating the horse, if you will forgive the purposefully mixed metaphor.
Even if you won't, it's too late now, so we all must find a way to cope. Have a good day.