I'm right, prove me wrong. You can't. I am wrong and so are you.

Claims require evidence. Words have meaning. Argumentum ad Dictionarium is a logical fallacy.

I'm right, you can't prove me wrong. RationalWiki is rational and fallacious arguments are fallacious. Right? I'm right:

Argumentum ad dictionarium​

Argumentum ad dictionarium is the act of pulling out a dictionary to support your assertions. More broadly speaking, it can refer to any argument about definitions, semantics, or what label to apply to a person or idea — an actual dictionary may not be involved, sometimes the definition is purely personal, sometimes it can be a case of picking and choosing definitions raised by other sources,[2] but the end use is the same.

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It is a form of argument from authority combining attributes of a red herring argument and, frequently, special pleading. It's very closely related to equivocation and doublespeak. About 91.3% of arguments on the Internet tend to boil down to this.

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Logical, right? Wrong.

WHY is it wrong? Suppose I assert that I am right, when I declare that others are wrong to use a dictionary definition to support a claim. I am wrong to do so. WHY do you think I am wrong? Why would a writer be wrong about dictionaries? I kind of am one. That's also why and how I am wrong, but, extra credit. Why and how is my assertion wrong? How is Argumentum ad Dictionarium wrong? I already told you.

The first two sentences in this post are statements I learned on this forum and from the masters of debate; too many atheist lawyers to count. Each statement is also wrong. Prove me wrong. You can't; I'm right.

I'm wrong. Prove it.

You can't prove me wrong. I'd rather be right than happy. That's why and how I am wrong, and so are you.

Ok, let's discuss this. Drag it out to its logical conclusions, let's see who has learned what since I left.

oh my god I think I seanced Lewis Carroll or something

I have a question about the OP: What are you talking about? I can't tell whether you are opposed to the idea of a dictionary fallacy or just miffed that someone once accused you of committing one. Can you clarify?

I think it's implying that what we call reality could all be in Trump's mind and gut after he consumed an extra large Trump Tower taco bowl (yes, he actually likes something Mexican) with extra guac, extra cotija cheese, extra peppers, extra black beans, extra avocado ranch, and extra extra sour cream. You and I might be simply Trump farts loading up for detonation.
Can you prove you're not a Trump fart?

I am not sure if I am for or against it. How do I even know this is really what Argumentum ad dictionarium is?

No Trump.

A dictionary is not a source in the way many folks use it. It is just about English usages and existing and some former definitions.

Can't elaborate on this phone.

Janice Rael said:

No Trump.

A dictionary is not a source in the way many folks use it. It is just about English usages and existing and some former definitions.

Can't elaborate on this phone.

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OK, thanks. It is true that dictionary definitions are descriptive rather than prescriptive. That is, they depend wholly on how people actually use words rather than on how some arbitrary authority wants them to be used. Dictionaries were originally created to prescribe "correct" or "proper" usage for low and middle class individuals who wanted to sound educated and upper class. So there was that prescriptive intent historically, but lexicography became more of an empirical study over time as people noticed changes in usage over time. So lexicographers had to put out updated editions. Nowadays, lexicographers require attested usage and usage panels to validate entering a word sense definition in a dictionary, but no dictionary is comprehensive, complete, and accurate in its description of word usage. Every dictionary contains some errors and bad definitions no matter how good the team of lexicographers are.

A dictionary fallacy is essentially using a dictionary to win a point in a debate, where a person tries to assert the authority of the dictionary to win the debate. Quite often, the problem is that they are just using one possible sense of a word, but not the one used by the other debate participant. Sometimes they take a definition too literally.

My favorite example of a dictionary fallacy is the one in which someone declares that the definition of an atheist is someone who "does not believe in the existence of gods", where "does not believe" is held to be "lacks a belief". Since we all start out life not knowing what a god is, we all start out as atheists. People will argue endlessly over this kind of sophistry. In reality, we normally think of atheists as people who grasp intuitively what gods are--what they refer to in everyday conversation--but reject belief in them. Of course, you can stretch, pull, and squint at the definition of the word all you want, but it is just a dispute over word usage in the end. Not a substantive issue.

Beautiful @Copernicus , I want to take a few language classes with your post.

Janice Rael said:

Beautiful @Copernicus , I want to take a few language classes with your post.

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Dude is next level.

Copernicus said:

A dictionary fallacy is essentially using a dictionary to win a point in a debate, where a person tries to assert the authority of the dictionary to win the debate.

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I dont think theres a fallacy committed in appealing to a dictionary definition to support your own argument based on that definition.

If your opponent has a different definition of the same word, all that's happening is a discovery that you're not arguing about the same thing - youre clarifying an amphibology. Disambiguation. etc.

Copernicus said:

Quite often, the problem is that they are just using one possible sense of a word, but not the one used by the other debate participant. Sometimes they take a definition too literally.

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And so it's a good thing to check the dictionary to see if youre arguing about the same 'thing'. (As opposed to arguing about the same word.)

Copernicus said:

My favorite example of a dictionary fallacy is the one in which someone declares that the definition of an atheist is someone who "does not believe in the existence of gods

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Not really a dictionary fallacy. It might be a No True Atheist fallacy.

William Lane Craig deals with this easily by simply saying... OK, you use your word and I'll use a different word - shmatheism. And then he proceeds with his arguments addressing people (shmatheists) who believe there's no God/gods. And that way the non-stamp collectors won't be upset because he's not referring to them.

Thanks for the compliments, but I am very retired at this point. I loved teaching (and hated grading) when I taught linguistics back in the 1970s and 1980s. Afterwards, I became in industry researcher, so I rarely got the opportunity to teach, but I still like to preach opinions on my social media soapbox.

Janice Rael said:

No Trump.

A dictionary is not a source in the way many folks use it. It is just about English usages and existing and some former definitions.

Can't elaborate on this phone.

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Ah. To say something on the subject, then: definitions are descriptive, not prescriptive.

Some folks here and there will commonly lean to the way some word is "defined", in their mind, to present an argument.

This has limited applications in the respect that certain words are more invariant than others, and aren't really just words at all but relationships within nature that we gave names to.

Other words are attached to social concepts, which are themselves the product of beliefs, and only have meaning or reality in the context of interrelationships between beliefs.

Sometimes it is hard to distinguish between these, and even moreso because at one point in time or another, we have been as far as our social group goes, possessed of a tendency to assume things which were just social constructs instead to be more deeply tied to reality. Later we often discover rather they merely emulated at the level of society and social games.

It's interesting as per @Copernicus; you might get a kick out of my thread on the subject of gods; after all, I unironically claim to be one, albeit the definition I use for god is rather permissive.

When it comes to definitions, I rather prefer to find some solid concepts of nature to merely name, more than to rely on some lesser social concept. I like to find "firm foundations" to my understanding.

Ironically enough this interest in foundations of understanding arose from a piece of Christian apologetics.

It was a video showing two castles of world views, each with many flags, and the piece was meant to make the viewer question evolution and history and science, to manufacture reasons to disbelieve these things.

So, I did what I generally do and I jumped in to see "let's find effective ways to attack these foundations". Instead, I learned that the castle I just vacated had been built out of bird shit and duct tape and I finally figured out what real stone looked like?

If the person who showed me the video had known, I'm sure they'd be like that "NO! NOT LIKE THAT!" Meme

Anyway, some words have more solid meanings than others, and it's really understanding where words derive that meaning that matters and less about the words themselves.

Lion IRC said:

Copernicus said:

A dictionary fallacy is essentially using a dictionary to win a point in a debate, where a person tries to assert the authority of the dictionary to win the debate.

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I dont think theres a fallacy committed in appealing to a dictionary definition to support your own argument based on that definition.

If your opponent has a different definition of the same word, all that's happening is a discovery that you're not arguing about the same thing - youre clarifying an amphibology. Disambiguation. etc.

Click to expand...

It is considered an informal fallacy based on language, and it can go by different names. The error lies in taking a dictionary as a definitive authority on how a word ought to be used, rather than how it is used. It is useful to disambiguate usage, so I'm not opposed to using dictionaries to make a point, if one doesn't take the definition too literally as a prescription for how the word should be used in the context of an argument. Sometimes, the dictionary contains a misleading or inaccurate definition. Sometimes it just fails to include a valid usage that was missed by the publisher. I've seen lexicographers argue heatedly over the way word sense entries are worded.

I always like to remind people that dictionaries don't give a comprehensive picture of word meanings. They have succinct descriptions of usage that allow users to discover the full meaning. IOW, they are merely intended for heuristic purposes. Encyclopedias come closer to actually expressing the meanings of words, because they provide better examples of how the word is used in context.

Lion IRC said:

Copernicus said:

Quite often, the problem is that they are just using one possible sense of a word, but not the one used by the other debate participant. Sometimes they take a definition too literally.

Click to expand...

And so it's a good thing to check the dictionary to see if youre arguing about the same 'thing'. (As opposed to arguing about the same word.)

Click to expand...

I'm not opposed to using dictionaries to help one understand how a word is being used. It is just that people misuse them to as authorities on how words ought to be used rather than how they actually are used. Languages are in a constant state of flux, and word meanings can meander all over the place. Hence, dictionary makers have to keep putting out new editions to keep up with the shifts in usage and the addition of new words and word senses. If you are in an argument where someone is using a word that isn't "validated" by a dictionary entry, that doesn't mean that the usage in question is not valid. Sometimes it just depends on people agreeing to use the word in a certain way.

Lion IRC said:

Copernicus said:

My favorite example of a dictionary fallacy is the one in which someone declares that the definition of an atheist is someone who "does not believe in the existence of gods

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Not really a dictionary fallacy. It might be a No True Atheist fallacy.

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Which is an argument over the usage of the word "Scotsman" to define what a Scotsman is. If you look up the definition in a dictionary and insist that any citizen of Scotland is a "true Scotsman", because that is what the dictionary says, then that is a dictionary fallacy. Different people have different opinions about what makes someone an authentic Scotsman. The substantive issue is over what makes an individual "authentic" or not. People do this kind of thing all the time--for example, when people claim that babies are atheists or atheists favor abortion rights or Christians are against science. The substantive argument is not about what dictionaries say, but what the individual who makes generalizations of these sorts are trying to promote. And that is seldom just a matter of correcting word usage but shifting usage in a direction that they want it to go or not to go.

Lion IRC said:

William Lane Craig deals with this easily by simply saying... OK, you use your word and I'll use a different word - shmatheism. And then he proceeds with his arguments addressing people (shmatheists) who believe there's no God/gods. And that way the non-stamp collectors won't be upset because he's not referring to them.

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William Lane Craig can say what he pleases about how words ought to be used, but they can be used in any way that people agree to use them. Word usage is a social convention. If people use a word in a way that he considers inaccurate, all he has to do is convince people to stop using the word that way. Mocking their usage may be one way to humiliate or amuse people, but mockery doesn't actually prove a point.

Don't forget that dictionaries base usage on attestations of actual usage. So you can validate a common usage not just by consulting a dictionary, but by searching the web for examples of usage that prove a word is legitimately used the way you claim it is used. Dictionaries don't get the last word on how words are used. They tend to lag behind usage that is current when meanings shift.

Janice Rael said:

Claims require evidence. Words have meaning. Argumentum ad Dictionarium is a logical fallacy.

I'm right, you can't prove me wrong. RationalWiki is rational and fallacious arguments are fallacious. Right? I'm right:

Argumentum ad dictionarium​

Argumentum ad dictionarium is the act of pulling out a dictionary to support your assertions. More broadly speaking, it can refer to any argument about definitions, semantics, or what label to apply to a person or idea — an actual dictionary may not be involved, sometimes the definition is purely personal, sometimes it can be a case of picking and choosing definitions raised by other sources,[2] but the end use is the same.

Click to expand...

It is a form of argument from authority combining attributes of a red herring argument and, frequently, special pleading. It's very closely related to equivocation and doublespeak. About 91.3% of arguments on the Internet tend to boil down to this.

Click to expand...

Logical, right? Wrong.

WHY is it wrong? Suppose I assert that I am right, when I declare that others are wrong to use a dictionary definition to support a claim. I am wrong to do so. WHY do you think I am wrong? Why would a writer be wrong about dictionaries? I kind of am one. That's also why and how I am wrong, but, extra credit. Why and how is my assertion wrong? How is Argumentum ad Dictionarium wrong? I already told you.

The first two sentences in this post are statements I learned on this forum and from the masters of debate; too many atheist lawyers to count. Each statement is also wrong. Prove me wrong. You can't; I'm right.

I'm wrong. Prove it.

You can't prove me wrong. I'd rather be right than happy. That's why and how I am wrong, and so are you.

Ok, let's discuss this. Drag it out to its logical conclusions, let's see who has learned what since I left.

Click to expand...

Ok...what is truth? Inquiring minds ant to know.

Is the truth always provable and based in evidence?

Does evidence and facts always lead to trtuh?

All logical arguments are arguments over definitions. If we say, Thy shalt not kill, it sounds pretty straight forward, but "kill" is a very broad term. The command doesn't work very well in practice. This requires subcategories of killing. Some killings are justified, some are not. Some are intentional and some are accidental. It's all an argument over definitions and without definitions, it's something other than an argument, which of course requires another definition.

Argument form authority, "I have a PHD in xxx, and you do not therefore I am right".

A joke I heard from a physicist.

Eisenstein was in the audience at a presentation. At the end the speaker said ' Therefore this is true!".

Einstein asked"But why must it be true?".
The speaker replied 'Because it is written".
"Written where" asked Einstein.
Pounding his fost on the podium the speaker exclaimed 'Written in my book!".

Hi, to @Bronzeage , thank you for your excellent explanation of exactly how I was wrong.

To @steve_bank , the truth is that you didn't reply to me

Bronzeage said:

All logical arguments are arguments over definitions. If we say, Thy shalt not kill, it sounds pretty straight forward, but "kill" is a very broad term. The command doesn't work very well in practice. This requires subcategories of killing. Some killings are justified, some are not. Some are intentional and some are accidental. It's all an argument over definitions and without definitions, it's something other than an argument, which of course requires another definition.

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Thous shat Not Kill. Now it is off to Canaan to kill all the idol worshipping Canaanites.

Thank you to everyone who replied. I am trying to hone my talking points. But I will always be wrong. I only speak English. That's why I am both wrong (about language) and right (about being a wrong-ass wrongdoing wrong person).

Here is an authority figure's educated position on this topic. Her dissertation is a short song. Enjoy!

The forum is a place to work on and improve skills. An education depending on how you use it.