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Talk:Argument from authority/Archive 1

"Appeal"
The entire previous article was invalid because it completely ignored the concept of an "appeal" which is fundamental to "Appeal to authority". An appeal to authority is inherently fallacious and has nothing to do with a person internally considering the credentials of a source of information. It also is separate from the person who presents the credentials of a source to establish a basic level of competency. -Anon

"Various"
I'm looking at that Linus Pauling example, and I really don't think that such a statement applies. Vitamin C is pretty damn well in the realm of chemistry (biochemistry, of which Pauling was a genius) so...yeah, is anyone else in agreement with putting in a new example? User:ZanshinJ

The appeal to authority is fallacious because Quine says so! User:Ed Poor

Hmm, where does this "Five conditions" section come from? Surely it would be better to put an argument by authority into a valid form: Therefore Most arguments by authority presumably hinge on the truth of the first premisis.
 * If person X says statement Y and Y is about subject area Z then X is true
 * Person X does say Y and Y is about subject area Z
 * Y is true

Also I feel that this article should address the need for appeal to authority as a social neccessity (eg doctors orders) and a consiquence of the division of labour. --harry 13:42, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * Society depends not on an appeal to authority, but rather internal decision to trust other people's reasoning at times. If you insist on appealing to someone's authoritative status, other than in dialogue with yourself, then your actions are fallacious.  Hence the name "Appeal to authority fallacy" rather than just "fallacy of authoritative source" (which would be wrong)

 * Agreed, though Harry's version would need to be made clearer to be used. This "Five Conditions" thing sounds like it was quoted from somewhere. Where? And who dixit?   — Asbestos | Talk 12:02, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In the entry for Logical Fallacy under the sub-heading Fallacies in the media and politics it states; "...An appeal to authority is always a logical fallacy though it can be an appropriate form of rational argument if, for example, it is an appeal to expert testimony."

This is in conflict with this article, especially where this one reads; "Sometimes, an appeal to authority is a logical fallacy." The approach in the Logical Fallacy article is preferable and it would be good if the article here reflected it, perhaps also mentioning an 'appeal to expediency' as another example of an often rationally legitimate 'appeal to authority'. Actually, an appeal to expert testimony is only justified by an appeal to expediency. Sometimes there simply is not enough time to argue about who has the best argument in current pressing circumstances.

But, it is always a fallacy to conclude the ultimate soundness or correctness of an argument by authority, even though it may be wise to proceed as though it were both sound and authoritive. That is, an argument must not rest crucially on an 'appeal to authority' to be actually correct or sound. Layman 02:17, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC) message edited Layman 04:44, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Authoritarian ethics?
I was thinking that authoritarian ethics was more of a meta-ethical theory, isn't it? I'm no expert, though. NickelShoe 17:33, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Forms Section
The forms section distinguishes between legitimate and fallacious arguments from authority. However I do not believe the form of such an argument is what determines its validity. In each case, a simplified version of the argument could be:

 * 1. Person A asserts X
 * 2. Person A is likely to be correct about X (almost equivalent to: A is an "expert" in the field of X)

therefore
 * 3. X is likely to be correct

This argument is only fallacious when statement 2 (or to a lesser extent 1) is false or dubious, or if it's ignored completely.

In my opinion, a lot of the confusion about whether or not arguments from authority are always fallacious is a result of confusion over whether one can ever fully trust another person. One other reason why the appeal to authority may not fall under the banner of "pure" logic is that authority is established through a person being true repeatedly, and this relies to some degree on correlation indicating causation.

As an example of commonly accepted arguments from authority (like the suggested "doctors" scenario) is the fact that most people believe in things which they have never directly percieved, on the basis of the authority of others. For example, I have never directly seen Barbados, yet I believe it exists because of the authority of atlases, encyclopedias, etc.

I think that the idea that any argument should be based "solely on direct evidence" is not clear. If "direct evidence" means empirical evidence, ie. experience, one would be convinced of barely anything one reads, unless it concerns the page right in front of them.

If anyone has any problems with the above, post here or preferably on my talk page; otherwise I'll work on the article. Leon... 11:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Validity is based on form. That's how the word validity is defined in the realm of logic.  "A deductively valid argument is one in which it is impossible for all the premises to be true and the conclusion to be false."  So says my old logic text, Austen Clark 2001, printed by the UConn Coop.

 * Just because an argument is fallacious doesn't mean the conclusion is wrong. But for an argument to be valid by relying on authority, we have to assume their infallibility.  This doesn't mean we can't work under the assumption they know what they're talking about. But it's still possible they're wrong, which is the point.  Fallacious doesn't mean stupid, it just means it has logical problems.

 * I don't think the article suggests we should only be convinced of what we percieve directly. Direct evidence, rather, refers to information as opposed to testimonial.  Rather than simply listening to people's conclusions, we have to listen to their arguments.  And if we want, we may be convinced by testimonials.  Logic isn't really about belief.  You can believe whatever you want, but you can use logic as a tool to evaluate arguments. NickelShoe 15:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks NickelShoe.
 * Paragaph 1 - Perhaps I have misused the word fallacious, however I can't see any logical problems in the structure I gave in my last post, and I believe that this is the structure most appeals to authority take. It doesn't provide any guarantees, since it's only likely that the authority tells the truth, but I don't think there are problems in the form of the argument. Infallibility only has to be assumed if you're looking for a sure answer, or if you're in the realm of formal logic. This article deals generally with such appeals.

 * Paragraph 2 - point taken, however I believe the expression "direct evidence" to be misleading. Any facts which are not a priori and are outside our experience, are taken from authority anyway. It just seems incorrect to suggest that an argument is ok when dealing in statements (information), but when it tries to substantiate those statements with testemonial, it becomes fallacious.

 * If fallacy follows form, then I'm suggesting that appeals to authority aren't fallacious unless one is trying to deal in absolutes, or doesn't acknowledge the element of chance.
 * Leon... 22:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that if your conclusion is that X is likely to be correct, it is no fallacy. Perhaps you should edit the article to explain that.

 * Yes, I understand the directness problem. I don't know the best way to address that in the article.  NickelShoe 22:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

"Fallacious" isn't a helpful term here, I think, as it's often used non-technically to mean no more than "incorrect in some way"; it would be better to distinguish between validity (which is what "fallaciousness" means strictly speaking) and soundness. The argument form in question is:
 * Person A asserts X
 * Person A is likely to be correct about X (almost equivalent to: A is an "expert" in the field of X)
 * Therefore X is likely to be correct

There's a problem about the way this is expressed ("asserts" in the minor premise but not in the major) which makes the arument invalid as it stands, and if that could be fixed the validity depends further on what exactly is meant by "likely". The soundness of the argument obviously depends upon the truth of the major (second) premise.

My own feeling is that the argument is dubiously valid. Even if some expert e is, let's say, 75% likely to be right about the truth of i, we can't infer from e's assertion that i that i is 75% likely to be true.
 * 1) It may be that e is for some reason misrepresenting her true opinion.
 * 2) It may be that another expert, ε, is 80% likely to be right about the truth of i, and ε asserts that i is false.
 * 3) It may be that the background probability of i is so low that we shouldn't accept e's testimony (Hume's argument against belief in miracles is the limiting case of this).

I don't know if that helps or just confuses things further... --Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 11:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I think your discussion (and the three points you make) demonstrate the impossibility of trying to determine the exact probability that e is correct about the truth of i. However, this probability doesn't have to be determined to show the validity of the argument's structure (only to make it perfectly sound). In everyday life, one estimates such probabilities routinely even though the number of determining factors may be beyond comprehension.
 * Besides that, the (hypothetical) probability in question has been determined by taking into account all other factors, including the background probability of i, any other assertions e could have made, and the probability that e lies. Again, this probability doesn't have to be calculable, but the listener may have some idea of it, just as the probability of a coin landing tails up isn't exactly calculable.
 * Obviously there are a lot of problems with this sort of appeal in terms of soundness (as a "guesstimate" is almost always involved), but I still believe that there's nothing invalid about that form of argument.

 * Finally, I think the term "assert" could be present in the major premise if it were rewritten as "person A's assertion of X is likely to be correct" (or "has P% chance of being correct)Leon... 11:31, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

 * I think that what you term the assessment of probability in everyday life is in fact usually (always?) the development of degrees of psychological certainty. More importantly, I can't agree that the background probabilty of a particular case is included in the assessment of a person's expertise; that leads to a circle, in fact (we assess the likelihood of i based on the expertise of e, and we assess the expertise of e in terms of the likelihood of i...).
 * Each of my three points challenged the validity of the argument (not merely the acceptability of its premises). The argument could perhaps be tweaked in order to survive one or two of my criticisms (though I don't know whether it would be of any use in its new form), but not all of them without making it trivial.
 * Changing the major premise to include "assertion" would only push the problem back, as we'd need to ask why we should think that A's asserion was likely to be true — and presumably we'd be offered an argument about A's expertise... --Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης ) 11:45, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

A question
I have a question about Appeal to Authority. Any comment is welcome.

I am often finding myself to be the victim of a rhetorical technique in forum debates and I'm not sure if it is an invalid Appeal to Authority or if it is something else entirely.

This is a the basic form that I have seen:

Person Y states A   Expert E states: B    Person Z draws (but does not prove) conclusion C from B    Conclusion C is incompatible with A    Person Z states that expert E disagrees with A and therefore A is likely to be false

Superficially, this may look like a valid Appeal to Authority. But I argue this isn't really an Appeal to Authority. The conclusion drawn by Z is not coming from the authority. If the conclusion C obvious from the B, I would say it is (probably) valid. What I see, however, is that the conclusion proposed by Z is not the only possible conclusion.

As a good example of how this was used and clearly invalid I was once in an argument where this tactic was used and then later it was shown that the expert in question had explicitly contradicted the conclusion drawn by Z.

A related tactic would be misquoting the expert or inventing statements and attributing them to an expert falsely.

Any help classifying this form of rhetoric is appreciated, thanks.

Dubwai 15:09, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I don't really see how the expert statement comes into play here. You don't appear to be challenging that statement (if quoted correctly), but rather the conclusions your debate opponent drew from those statements.  In this case, the type of logic error would vary, depending on how your opponent reached that conclusion.  Did the expert say "all cats are mammals" and your opponent concluded that "all mammals are cats", for instance ?  So, basically consider the expert statement to be the assertion, and decide for yourself if that leads to the conclusion supplied by your opponent. StuRat 17:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Thanks for the response. The reason that the expert statement comes into play is that any question of the conclusion is answered by the assertion that I am going against the authority.  I think I get your point, though, the flaw is in the conclusion.  Here's an example of this error:

A: Not all classes should have factory methods B: Josh Bloch (expert) states that factory methods are generally better than public constructors (this is true) B: Therefore all classes should have factory methods and no public constructor (Josh Bloch       actually contradicts this in the same work where the above statement is written) A: I agree factory methods have many advantages over public constructors but that doesn't       mean we should never use public constructors. B: You should read Josh Bloch's book as he is very smart and knowledgeable about this subject.

 * I guess what I am running into is that the these wiki pages are often a quick way to disarm rhetoric without getting off subject. Trying to show somone's logical flaws can obsure the original argument.  I'd like to have a reference that I can point to and say "this is what you are doing." Dubwai 18:11, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

"Argument" from authority always a fallacy?
I believe an argument from authority is always a fallacy. The reason being is that it is up to each person to determine if another is an authority on a subject or not, so therefore noone should try to convince a third party (IE make an argument) that something is true becuase and authoritative sorce said so.

I believe this can be determined from the information admitted to in the already existing article. It says that the authoritative source cannot be biased. But if someone points to them as an authoritative source, it is always possible if not likely that they simply share the same biases. So while it might be fine to simply point to an authoritative source and let someone do what they will with it, I think it is incorrect to try and force someone to accept or act due to the claims of an authoritative source they do not trust.

Furthermore talking about abscence of bias is unrealistic in my opinion, as I have met few if any people in life whose only goal is to provide objective information.

 * I believe this view is mistaken and that to the extent this article endorses it, it is in error. Human knowledge is dependent upon testimony, and the Cartesian project of building up knowledge by a single individual is impossible.  Much of what we know is known only through testimony, including the meanings of words, our own place and date of birth, and most of the conclusions of the best current science.  There are many scientific experiments conducted today (e.g., in particle physics) that are dependent upon the work of hundreds of people working in different places to produce the evidence to draw a conclusion.  If appeal to authority is always fallacious, then all of these inferences are fallacious. (I recommend philosopher C.A.J. Coady's book on _Testimony_...) Lippard 15:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

 * To expound a bit further--the fallacy of appeal to authority is a fallacy of irrelevance. A relevant appeal to authority is not a fallacy unless the person using it purports to be drawing a deductive inference, which it isn't.  But most of our knowledge is not based on deductive inferences, outside of the fields of logic and mathematics, so the mere fact that an appeal to authority is a rebuttable inference doesn't make it fallacious. Lippard 15:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Firstly, the author of this section specifically indicated that his statements referenced an "Argument" from authority (Something that was always to be the case about an APPEAL to authority, but apparently was not clear enough), but you responded with statements that dealt with a person reasoning to themselves about whether or not they need to verify all claims presented to them. In that case, a wise person would still consider the motives of the "Authority", but the issue here is that special problems arise when a person (X) makes an argument to another person (Y) trying to force them to accept a claim based on the authority of someone else (Z).  In order for the argument to persist, Y must deem themselves somewhat knowledgeable on the subject - thus from Y's perspective the "authority" status of Z is already suspect.  In contrast X has decided to rely on the reasoning of Z, a sign that X is not particularly knowledgeable about the subject.  Furthermore, instead of presenting the argument of Z (which Y could then disassemble if it was incorrect), X points only to the fact that Z disagrees.  In this case, we must ask the question how does X know Z truly does disagree?

 * In short if you don't know about a subject (such that you could just present a counterargument), you are not in a competent position to try and force someone else to accept whatever authoritative source you have accepted. Just shut up and let the two knowledgeable parties work it out.  In direct response:  You are claiming knowledge above and beyond what you have.  There are people who have deductive networks of knowledge covering just about every subject, and have a logical proof in mind for many subjects that other people try and contradict using an appeal to what an authoritative source believes.  Just because you are not one of these people capable of this "Cartesian Project", does not mean they do not exist.

 * Firstly, the author of this section specifically indicated that his statements referenced an "Argument" from authority (Something that was always to be the case about an APPEAL to authority, but apparently was not clear enough), but you responded with statements that dealt with a person reasoning to themselves about whether or not they need to verify all claims presented to them. In that case, a wise person would still consider the motives of the "Authority", but the issue here is that special problems arise when a person (X) makes an argument to another person (Y) trying to force them to accept a claim based on the authority of someone else (Z). In order for the argument to persist, Y must deem themselves somewhat knowledgeable on the subject - thus from Y's perspective the "authority" status of Z is already suspect. In contrast X has decided to rely on the reasoning of Z, a sign that X is not particularly knowledgeable about the subject. Furthermore, instead of presenting the argument of Z (which Y could then disassemble if it was incorrect), X points only to the fact that Z disagrees. In this case, we must ask the question how does X know Z truly does disagree?

 * In short if you don't know about a subject (such that you could just present a counterargument), you are not in a competent position to try and force someone else to accept whatever authoritative source you have accepted. Just shut up and let the two knowledgeable parties work it out. In direct response: You are claiming knowledge above and beyond what you have. There are people who have deductive networks of knowledge covering just about every subject, and have a logical proof in mind for many subjects that other people try and contradict using an appeal to what an authoritative source believes. Just because you are not one of these people capable of this "Cartesian Project", does not mean they do not exist.

 * Your recommendation of reading the mentioned book is an example of appeal to authority. Any further relevant argument in the book that you actually understood, you could simply present with minimal effort.

Comment by Onthesideoftheangels
Sincerely apologise for this and hope someone more informed will be able to re-categorise these or re-name them in conformity to those in predominant use. Comment posted by to main article, moved here by

Negative Appeal to authority?
Is the following appeal to authority, but negative or inverse or opposite or just appeal to authority or not?

A makes claim B; there is something negative about A, therefore claim B is false.

--jeolmeun 06:32, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
 * They're both genetic fallacies, but that's more technically an ad hominem attack. NickelShoe (Talk) 15:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

-- Related Fiels and reductionism approach

Maybe Linus Pauling was wrong. He certainly is not be taken as a medical doctor. But the reductionism approach in today's scientific methodology (and this is evident in medical literature) permit that other scientist in related fields ( such as chemistry, biochemistry, pharmacology, biophysics or nutrition- present their hypotesis in a formal manner, so that Science, as a whole, can test their claims. To believe in Linus Pauling just because he won the Nobel Price is misleading way of thinking. To go to any scientist other than the medical doctor as if this scientist have Medicine as a profession is also misleading, even if we get lucky. But that a Chemist, Biochemist, Biophysicist, Nutricionist, Pharmacologist, or Biologist have the opportunity to prove his theory on vitamin C is no fallacy. It's a valid approach, as long as correct science is used. That is the way Science as a whole grows. Medicine uses a lot of Chemistry, Biology and Physics. So we must be careful here. Just because one is not a Physician is no reason to render that person as a complete ignorant of that field. Scientist do research. A formal and well credited Scientist should be given the proper time to explain his hypotesis. Perhaps if the person doesn't have the proper credential is it justified to simply require that he earn them before proposing his ideas, to be fair, because with so many ideas one have to choose which are more likely to be correctly developed, even if this process is imperfect, so as to not waste the resources. But as far as I have seen, Chemist, Biochemist, Biophysicist, Nutricionist, Pharmacologist, or Biologist all have that needed credential. To dismiss them as ignorant just because they are not M.D.'s is a fallacy-

Name
My Logic textbook (Hurley's A Concise Introduction to Logic) uses the term "appeal to unqualified authority" rather than "appeal to authority." Does anyone know of any other source using the term or did the author make it up himself because he thought it was clearer? --Silver2195 23:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Appeal to Wikipedia
I have seen the following example being deleted at least twice recently:

 * Something must be true because it is in Wikipedia.

However, either someone shows me why this example is not as fallacious as the other examples, or please refrain from deleting it.

It can also be argued that it is redundant (an encyclopedia is mentioned also) or innecessary, but I consider that it is actually quite appropriate. Deleting it makes us look like we are saying the Wikipedia can not be wrong, and is always a valid authority, when Aristotle, Einstein or any other encyclopedia have already been mentioned as not necessarily correct.

 * I used to think that that example ought to be removed, due unto its being redundant considering the aforementioned example of an encyclopædia; however, considering the way in which Wikipedia is becoming an increasingly unquestioned resource nowadays, it might be a very good thing to remind readers that it most certainly isn’t. I therefore support the inclusion of the example of Wikipedia. By the way, unto the above contributor as well as any other contributor: please sign all your comments on talk pages and in other discussion fora with four tildes ( ~ ), as this gives your username and a timestamp. Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 16:47, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I do know how to sign... I just keep forgeting, sorry. The above comment is mine. Isilanes 21:30, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if you can even sign without making an account. Anyway, The main reason I deleted it was because it looked redundant. It also looked a bit like pointless self insertion. Putting Wikipedia on the same level as Aristotle or Einstein seemed silly. Anyway, I just reworded it now so it makes more sense. I don't of anyone that seriously uses Wikipedia as an unquestioned source, while people do with many of the other things mentioned. 66.0.141.195 01:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Variation on appeal to authority ?
I've noticed a particular deceptive method of discourse that I'm trying to categorize. Let me start with an example:

 * Reasonable Assertion: "The Mississippi River represents the soul in the works of Mark Twain."

 * Reasonable Challenge: "What is your evidence for that ?"

 * Unreasonable Reply:  "Well, if you'd read the complete works of Mark Twain, all of the scholarly analyses of Twain, and, in particular, Milton's Paradise Lost, as I have, you wouldn't need to ask such an ignorant question."

Now, this "evidence" is usually of exceptional volume, ensuring that, even if the challenger were to read all of the sources given, the debate would long be over by that time. Another feature of this argument is that it lacks specific, like "Mark Twain explained this on page 112 of his autobiography". And, it is necessary that the person making the assertion represent themselves as an authority, in order for their defense to be believable, and that the challenger not already be well-versed in all the references given. Of course, since nobody is well-versed in everything, the "authority" can always reach for more and more obscure references, and even make them up entirely:

 * Unreasonable Reply:  "Well, if you'd read Szilrwepopski's theory of flombugartigation, as I have, you wouldn't need to ask such an ignorant question."

So, my question is, do we have a name for this type of deceptive argument ? (I know, if I'd read Szilrwepopski, I wouldn't need to ask, LOL). StuRat 11:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

 * If it were up to me, I'd suggest the coining of an eponym to describe it.

 * Unreasonable Reply:  "Well, if you'd read the complete works of Mark Twain, all of the scholarly analyses of Twain, and, in particular, Milton's Paradise Lost, as I have, you wouldn't need to ask such an ignorant question."

 * Rejoinder: I'm sorry, but you haven't provided a legitimate answer to my challenge. Your reply was no more than a Clionian Deception.

 * OK, I realize I'm treading on thin ice here so I should probably shut up before being further reprimanded. I apologize but I just couldn't resist! Loomis 06:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

 * LOL. StuRat 10:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Conditions for a legitimate argument from authority
I have no idea wher this come from and why it is here, but it definetly looks like original research. The entire section is unreferenced (as most of the article, anyways). Besides, it's just incorrect or contradictory to previuos statements. "* The authority must have competence in an area, not just glamour, prestige, rank or popularity." Whereas above, it' stated that "appeal to authority is a logical fallacy: authorities can be wrong, both in their own field and in other fields". Same for the following point. If the person who put [Linus Pauling] as an example had taken the time to look into the entry about him, he or she would have noticed that he's also "noted as a versatile scholar for his expertise in inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, metallurgy, immunology, anesthesiology, psychology, debate, radioactive decay, and the aftermath of nuclear warfare, in addition to quantum mechanics and molecular biology.". So wrong and with a badly chosen example. "* The authority must be interpreted correctly." In this case, the matter of dispute is the interpretation of the authority, so the problem persists (X, who is an expert says that Y means... We might agree upon what Y says, but not about what it means)

Next point, Galileo example is non fitting. Galileo stand accused of heresy. His assertion of the sun immobility contradicted the scriptures and the aristotelian view (in this case the authorities).

"* The judgment must be representative of expert opinions on the issue (as opposed to an unrepresentative sample)." and "* A technique is needed to adjudicate disagreements among equally qualified authorities." Both these points require the ability to judge experts qualification, which again cannot resort to be appeal to authority.

In conclusion I'm tempted to delete this whole sections, but I wanted to hear about it first. 194.94.96.194 01:14, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Actually, I hadn't thought about that, but you are correct. I think that the whole section misses the point entirely: an argument from authority is fallacious always. The section regards the conclusions of an argument from authority being more or less likely correct, which is immaterial. The point is there is no logical connection between something being said by someone, and it being correct or incorrect. This fact can be more or less likely, and the proposer can be more or less trusted... but this has nothing to do with deducting her conclusions from her sole words. — Isilanes 11:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree, as I've pointed out above in the section "'Argument' from authority always a fallacy?" Appeal to authority is never a *deductive* argument, but it doesn't necessarily purport to be. In cases where the authority is legitimate and the argument is evidential rather than deductive, there is no fallacy. If you presume that all argument is deductive argument, you're mistakenly ruling out most actual argument in the world, including most of science. Lippard 03:13, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

"Because I said so"
I do not like the current explanation on the parents' "because I said so" stuff, although the previous one was not perfect either. The fact is we are discussing logic here. We are not judging whether kids should obey their parents, or whether parents have the "right" of forcing kids to do whatever they see fit, giving no reason for that. The strict truth is that "because I said so" is a fallacy, in the sense that whatever the parent said is not so because she said so, but rather for other unespecified reasons. It amounts to the same as "apples fall because Newton said so", instead of "because of gravity". — Isilanes 18:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

no absolute authority
There is nothing fallacious in asserting that there's no absolute authority. It's equivalent to saying "nobody is infallible", which is true. It is not at all necessary that somebody be infallible to assert that no one else is. I think we should stick to what has been published (yes, an appeal to authority, but a valid one as a rule of thumb, and official wikipedia policy).

Example concerns
I have some concerns with this article. These entries, specifically.

"Believing something because it is attributed to an honored profession, as in "This doctor recommends (brand-name) aspirin" or "Bankers recommend that people have six months' wages in a savings account".

Something must be true because there is a scientific consensus."

These two entries insinuate (at least to me), that even though an expert in the fore-mentioned field is dispensing their professional expert opinion on their appropriate field, that, it is still an appeal to authority. In which case, should I disregard to anything my doctor says since even if there is a scientific consensus regarding to my treatment and that he's a professional, that he's still trying to use his profession as a source for his argument?

In other words, is the person that wrote this really thinking that scientists just write nonsense in science journals in order to boost each others' credentials?

Perhaps it is simply me and my simpleton view on this article... but there are many masturbatory self-invented opinions in this article. Perhaps I shall adopt the stance that just because a philosopher writes an article regarding logical fallacies on Wikipedia, it *certainly* does not make it so. --Sturmwehr 04:32, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * In the logical sense, yes, it is a fallacy to assume because your doctor says something it is true. But that doesn't mean it isn't expedient to listen to your doctor.  If what your doctor says is true, it's not true because he says it, but rather for some other reason.  That's the issue. NickelShoe (Talk) 12:33, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

 * Ah, ok, glad that was cleared up. --Sturmwehr 11:22, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

 * If you're not a doctor yourself but are listening to advice from a doctor, you infer that it is true because you have come to a conclusion that he has good reasons for what he says in virtue of his training. You place trust in his statements, and in virtue of that trust you do, in fact, infer that it is true because he has said it.  The claim that all appeals to authority are fallacious is in error, that appears to be based on the assumption that all arguments using appeals to authority purport to be deductive arguments, which is wrong. Lippard 03:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

 * I think the scientific consensus bit should be fleshed out. I mean, if one has evidence that the scientists in the field carried out the relevant research independently, and the vast majority reached the same conclusion, and the few who hold contrary opinions are using dishonest methods like the cherry-picking of data, then is it a fallacy to appeal to authority in that case? I think Dan Dennett and Sam Harris discussed something similar in "The Four Horsemen" video.

--78.16.27.118 (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Why is the last ATA example--scientific consensus--set apart from the other examples as being "of particular interest"? Particular interest to whom? I understand that in a purely logical sense, an appeal to scientific consensus does not automatically guarantee the truth of a claim--just as the preceding ATA examples are not guaranteed to be true. However, as the example list stands now, by setting scientific consensus apart from the other examples, the article wrongly implies that appeals to scientific consensus warrant special scrutiny.

Appeals to scientific consensus are rightly listed as ATAs, and are on par with the other examples given. However, the statement that appeals to scientific consensus are "of particular interest" is unnecessary and should be deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lurker above (talk • contribs) 14:39, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

There is a distinction between appealing to scientific consensus and appealing to scientific data, making the former an appeal to authority. The difference is:

"F=MA, because of these studies" "F=MA, because I polled 100 leading scientists and 99 of them agreed, making a scientific consensus" (appeal to authority)

Remember that Phrenology was once a recognized science:

"This bump pattern means that a person isn't trustworthy, because these double blind studies confirms the results" "This bump pattern means that a person isn't trustworthy, because I polled 99 of 100 leading phrenologists, and they agreed, making a scientific consensus" (appeal to authority) —Preceding unsigned comment added by DougDante (talk • contribs) 16:17, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Examples POV
I just reread the section and realized that it wasn't saying what I thought it was saying. Yes in the sense of truth, a thing is true by the reasons it is true, not the authority.... --Kraftlos (talk) 20:53, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Poisoning the well
Does the entry of poisoning the well also have some relevance here? Just a quick note since I noticed it wasn't here, yet looking up the phrase was an indirect way that I got here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Michaeljpastor (talk • contribs) 17:30, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Appeal to Authority is always a fallacy, but there is a reason why most people cannot understand why
There are various direct proofs of how appeal to authority is fallacious IN AN ARGUMENT, even as informal reasoning, but many people refuse to accept these proofs because they believe depending on the authority of others is the only choice. These people are simply less capable than others, and commit further fallacy by trying to enforce their own limitations on others who may be more capable.

It is fallacious to claim something is true because authority X said it, because the only way to be sure that authority X would agree or disagree with a certain argument would be to understand authority X's arguments and reasoning. But if you did understand those arguments and reasoning, you could simply make the argument directly. Thus if a person claims that something is true on this basis they are simply trying to prevent the display of any ability above and beyond their own.

There are certain people in the population who are vastly more proficient at building up large networks of understanding spanning the majority, if not all, of human knowledge. The majority of the population can not do this, do not have an understanding of topics they are exposed to that goes far beyond the information directly presented to them, and rely far more on specialization than others. There are two distinct ways in which people handle information on a subconscious level, one of which emphasizes persuasion and artfully relating ideas, while the other emphasizes understanding and accurately relating ideas. Only people who experience traumatic events early in life seem to truly develop this second subconscious approach to knowledge which means they are rare at best.

Any claim supporting Appeal to Authority in an argument that is of the form "No one person can recreate a large enough set that we can depend solely on arguments making sense" is suspect because it requires the author not only to know this about himself, but also to know it about ALL HUMAN BEINGS. It is far more likely that such a person does not want to accept the possibility that there are people out there more capable of such a feat.

It is a serious problem to justify the attitude that if you do not understand a topic it is ok to reject arguments based on the idea that someone somewhere who is "supposed to be right" as far as you know also rejects the argument.

 * Remember that the purpose here is to write an encyclopedia article, not to expound your own WP:Original Research. The article needs more referenced material, not less.JQ (talk) 06:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

 * The claim of "Original Research" has become a propaganda tool to be abused by people who feel they have some special power to control wikipedia content. The concept of Original Research is not even well defined since every wikipedia article requires some degree of originality and is based on various references.  More references are not useful if they are a reference to something stupid and wrong.  -Anon  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.32.188.25 (talk) 13:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

 * If you disagree with the policy, you're welcome to argue for changing it, or to contribute to a project like Google knols, that encourages OR. But, for the moment, it's the policy, and you should abide by it.JQ (talk) 21:01, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

 * I have to agree with JQ. I saw the new version of the article by 96.32.188.25 and was tempted to revert them myself, except that it obviously involved a good deal of work and there may be some merit to merging parts of the new version with the old version.  That said, the version by 96.32.188.25 was too much like an editorial and not enough like an encyclopedia article, and I think too much of the original article was cut for no good reason.  Furthermore, too many people depend on Wikipedia as a basic source of information to someone to single-handedly decide to change the standards to which new contributions are assessed. Sisterdetestai (talk) 02:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

title: Talk:Argument from authority/Archive 1


text:
Transnational Radical Party

The Transnational Radical Party (TRP), whose official name is Nonviolent Radical Party, Transnational and Transparty (NRPTT), is a political association of citizens, members of parliament and members of government of various national and political backgrounds who intend to adopt nonviolent means to create an effective body of international law with respect for individuals, human, civil and political rights, as well as the affirmation of democracy and political freedom in the world. The TRP does not participate in elections and, despite being named "party", is a non-governmental organization (NGO), with consultative status at the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations (UN) since 1995, adept in building synergies among political forces aimed at achieving the goals of its congressional motions.

The TRP is the direct evolution of the Radical Party, a political party in Italy, active from 1955 to 1989, and is a separate entity from the once-connected Italian Radicals party, founded in 2001 as PRT's section in the country.

The TRP often advocates the international use of Esperanto in its literature.

History
The TRP's forerunner, the Radical Party (PR), was established in 1955 by a left-wing splinter group from the centre-right Italian Liberal Party (PLI), under the leadership of Marco Pannella. In 1989, the PR was transformed into the TRP. In 1992, a majority of Italy's Radicals formed, at the national-level in Italian politics, the Pannella List. Since 1999, Radicals ran in elections under the banner of Bonino List, named after Emma Bonino. After a breakthrough in the 1999 European Parliament election, Italy's Radicals formed the Italian Radicals (RI).

Background and foundation
In the 1979 European Parliament election, the first in which voters voted directly for the European Parliament, the PR obtained its best result ever countrywide (3.7% of the vote, resulting in the election of three MEPs, including Pannella). Following the election, the PR was involved with the Coordination of European Green and Radical Parties (CEGRP) and its unsuccessful efforts to create a single pan-European platform for green and radical politics. More importantly, since then, the party projected itself into international politics.

In 1988, after a decade during which transnational issues and values were emphasised, the PR's congress decided that the party would be transformed during 1989 into the TRP and that the latter would not present itself in elections (in order to avoid competition with the other parties and stimulate cooperation instead), while permitting "dual membership" with other parties. The new symbol featuring the stylised face of Mahatma Gandhi was the point of no return in the transformation of the PR into an instrument of political fight completely at disposal of issue-oriented campaigns.

All this provoked great controversy among Radicals. Some long-time members left in order to continue their own activity in other parties or retire from public life. However, also most TRP Radicals continued to be actively engaged in politics, sometimes supported by the TRP itself, sometimes seeking hospitality in traditional parties or creating entirely new electoral lists. In the 1989 European Parliament election Pannella stood as a successful candidate of the joint list between the PLI (his former party) and the Italian Republican Party, some Radicals formed the "Anti-prohibition List on Drugs" (1 MEP), while others joined the Rainbow Greens (2 MEPs). In the run-up of the 1992 general election the Pannella List was formed.

Sergio Stanzani and Emma Bonino were the first secretary and president of the party, respectively. In 1993 Bonino, who would be appointed to the European Commission in 1995, replaced Stanzani, and Pannella became president.

International activities and ECOSOC recognition
The TRP was soon involved in comparing the conditions of the rule of law among different democracies throughout the world. While its members and economic resources continued to come primarily from Italy, the party strengthened its activities worldwide, especially in the countries of post-communist Eastern Europe. In this respect, the TRP launched the Multilingual Telematics System, one of the first bulletin board systems in Italy to allow multiple connections at the same time with the many countries where the party had influence and membership.

In 1995, after an intense institutional work, the TRP became a non-governmental organization for the promotion of human rights' legislation and the affirmation of democracy and freedom worldwide. As such, it was granted the general consultative status at the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations (UN).

Also in 1995, Olivier Dupuis, a long-time Radical from Belgium and founding member of the TRP who had moved to Budapest, Hungary in 1988 and from there had coordinated TRP's activities in Eastern Europe, was elected secretary of the party, while Jean-François Hory, a French MEP of the Radical Party of the Left within the TRP-sponsored European Radical Alliance group, was president. In 1996, Dupuis took Pannella's seat in the European Parliament.

Within the UN, the party has been involved in a variety of issues: the moratorium on the death penalty and the proposal of a complete abolition, anti-prohibition against global mafias, fair justice, freedom of scientific research and the ban on female genital mutilation. Additionally, the TRP has allowed access to UN meetings to some stateless people, including Tibetans, Uyghurs and Montagnards, and led active monitoring of conflicts, such as the case of Ukraine versus Russia, or gave voice to dissidents opposed to authoritarian regimes like Cuba and Turkey. For its proposal of a peace plan in the Chechen–Russian conflict, the party has collided with Russia and its members risked expulsion from the country.

"Italian plague", decline and internal crisis
Radicals have often accused the Italian media of ignoring their initiatives and focusing merely on internal conflicts within the Radical world. The inadequate information on Radical initiatives by the Italian media has been meticulously verified by the TRP-sponsored Centro d'Ascolto dell'Informazione Radiotelevisiva and produced several sentences featuring compensations to be paid by RAI, the Italian public broadcaster, and commercial TV as well. Some confusion came from the fact that since the 2000s, rather than highlighting its expansion abroad, the TRP has preferred to focus on the "Case Italy", emblematic of the decadence of a constitutional political system into a "real democracy", that is to say a formal democracy in which its very institutions substantially act in contrast with the constitution. According to the TRP, Italy has become a "partycratic regime" and, as such, has started to spread the "plague" of "real democracy" around the democratic world. That was denounced by Radicals within international organisations and though the publication of a "yellow book" on the "Italian plague".

However, the TRP effectively suffered internal problems too. In 2003 Dupuis resigned from secretary because of serious political differences with Pannella. In 2011–14 Demba Traoré, a politician from Mali, served briefly as secretary: he left the party without officially resigning, after being returned to the government of his own country. The TRP was later provisionally run by a committee, known as the "senate", led by Pannella and composed of the party's leading members.

Re-organisation and break-up with Italian Radicals
After the death of Pannella in May 2016, an extraordinary congress was convened in September to overcome the long inactivity due to the absence of the secretary, as well as the economic problems undermining the party's viability. The congress adopted with 178 votes in favour, 79 against and 13 abstentions on the final resolution:
 * set three main goals (1. affirmation of the rule of law and the human right of knowledge; 2. justice reform in Italy, including pardon, amnesty, abolition of the article 41-bis prison regime and of life sentences; 3. formation of the United States of Europe, inspired on the Ventotene Manifesto);
 * set a membership target of 3,000 members for 2017 and 2018 in order to pay for the party's debts, otherwise the TRP would be dissolved;
 * suspended the party's organs (secretary, president, treasurer, senate, etc.), with the exception of the congress;
 * elected a collective leadership led by Rita Bernardini, Antonella Casu, Sergio D'Elia and Maurizio Turco (legal representative).

The minority faction, led by Bonino and Marco Cappato, in turn, controlled the RI, as confirmed in their November 2016 congress. In February 2017 the TRP severed its ties with the RI (accused of boycotting the TRP, using its assets without paying for them and pursuing an Italian-only electoral agenda), and the latter could no longer use the Radical headquarters. However, the RI's congress invited its members to adhere to the TRP. The 3,000-member target for 2017 was achieved by the TRP in December, while the RI had launched a pro-Europeanist electoral list named More Europe for the 2018 Italian general election.

With the 2019 congress, the TRP, having met the membership targe of 3,000 both in 2017 and 2018, returned to regular business. The new elected leadership included Turco as secretary, Diego Sabatinelli as president of the newly-formed general council and Irene Testa as treasurer, as well as three honorary presidents (Ettore Cannavera, Michael Giffoni and Gaia Tortora).

In 2024, the TRP announced announced an electoral pact with Forza Italia for the 2024 European Parliament election.

Leadership

 * 1989–2016
 * Secretary: Sergio Stanzani (1989–1993), Emma Bonino (1993–1995), Olivier Dupuis (1995–2003), Demba Traoré (2011–2014)
 * President: Emma Bonino (1989–1993), Marco Pannella (1993–1995), Jean-François Hory (1995–2002), Sergio Stanzani (2002–2011)
 * President of the Federal Council / Senate: Marco Pannella (1989–1993), Olivier Dupuis (1993–1995), Marco Pannella (2005–2016)
 * Honorary President: Bruno Zevi (1989–1999), Sergio Stanzani (2011–2013)
 * Treasurer: Paolo Vigevano (1989–1993), Ottavio Lavaggi (1993–1995), Danilo Quinto (1995–2005), Maurizio Turco (2005–2016)

The 2016 congress elected a collective Presidency, composed of the following members: Matteo Angioli, Angiolo Bandinelli, Marco Beltrandi, Rita Bernardini (coordinator), Maurizio Bolognetti, Antonella Casu (coordinator), Antonio Cerrone, Deborah Cianfanelli, Maria Antonietta Coscioni, Sergio D'Elia (coordinator), Mariano Giustino, Giuseppe Rippa, Giuseppe Rossodivita, Irene Testa, Maurizio Turco (coordinator and legal representative), Valter Vecellio, and Elisabetta Zamparutti.
 * 2016–2019

 * 2019–present
 * Secretary: Maurizio Turco (2019–present)
 * President of the General Council: Diego Sabatinelli (2019–present)
 * Honorary President: Ettore Cannavera / Michael Giffoni / Gaia Tortora (2019–present)
 * Treasurer: Irene Testa (2019–present)

Members
Current prominent members (as of December 2017):
 * Emma Bonino, former Italian Member of the European Parliament, European Commissioner and Italian Minister;
 * Marco Cappato, former Italian Member of the European Parliament;
 * Maurizio Turco, former Italian Member of the European Parliament;
 * Andrè Gattolin, Senator, France;
 * Dolkun Isa, President of World Uyghur Congress, China/Germany;
 * Jianli Jang President of Initiative for China, China;
 * Pandeli Majko, former Prime Minister, Albania;
 * Sam Rainsy, President of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, Cambodia;
 * Tioulong Samura, Member of Parliament, Cambodia;
 * Mu Sochua, Vice President of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, Cambodia;
 * Struan Stevenson, former UK Member of the European Parliament;
 * Najima Thay Thay Rhozali, former Secretary of State for Literacy and non-formal Education, Morocco;
 * Thubten Wangchen, monk, Member of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile;
 * Rama Yade, former Secretary of State, France;

Former prominent members:
 * Marco Pannella, former Italian Member of the European Parliament;
 * Gianfranco Dell'Alba, former Italian Member of the European Parliament;
 * Benedetto Della Vedova, Italian Undersecretary and former Italian Member of the European Parliament;
 * Olivier Dupuis, former Italian Member of the European Parliament;
 * David Borden, Executive Director of DRCNet;
 * Enver Can, President of the Eastern Turkistan National Congress;
 * Chris Davies, former British Member of the European Parliament;
 * Wei Jingsheng, President of the Chinese Overseas Coalition for Democracy;
 * Oumar Khambiev, former Chechen Minister;
 * Kok Ksor, President of the Montagnard Foundation, Inc.;
 * Quan Nguyen, President of the International Committee for the Nonviolent in Vietnam;
 * Arbën Xhaferi, Chairman of the Democratic Party of Albanians in North Macedonia;
 * Vanida Tephsouvan, Executive Director of the Lao Movement of Human Rights;
 * Arnold S. Trebach, President International Antiprohibitionist League;
 * Vo Van Ai, President of the Vietnam Committee for Human Rights.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Transnational Radical Party


text:
Phrase structure rules

Phrase structure rules are a type of rewrite rule used to describe a given language's syntax and are closely associated with the early stages of transformational grammar, proposed by Noam Chomsky in 1957. They are used to break down a natural language sentence into its constituent parts, also known as syntactic categories, including both lexical categories (parts of speech) and phrasal categories. A grammar that uses phrase structure rules is a type of phrase structure grammar. Phrase structure rules as they are commonly employed operate according to the constituency relation, and a grammar that employs phrase structure rules is therefore a constituency grammar; as such, it stands in contrast to dependency grammars, which are based on the dependency relation.

Definition and examples
Phrase structure rules are usually of the following form:

 * $$A \to B \quad C$$

meaning that the constituent $$A$$ is separated into the two subconstituents $$B$$ and $$C$$. Some examples for English are as follows:

The first rule reads: A S (sentence) consists of a NP (noun phrase) followed by a VP (verb phrase). The second rule reads: A noun phrase consists of an optional Det (determiner) followed by a N (noun). The third rule means that a N (noun) can be preceded by an optional AP (adjective phrase) and followed by an optional PP (prepositional phrase). The round brackets indicate optional constituents.

Beginning with the sentence symbol S, and applying the phrase structure rules successively, finally applying replacement rules to substitute actual words for the abstract symbols, it is possible to generate many proper sentences of English (or whichever language the rules are specified for). If the rules are correct, then any sentence produced in this way ought to be grammatically (syntactically) correct. It is also to be expected that the rules will generate syntactically correct but semantically nonsensical sentences, such as the following well-known example:

 * Colorless green ideas sleep furiously

This sentence was constructed by Noam Chomsky as an illustration that phrase structure rules are capable of generating syntactically correct but semantically incorrect sentences. Phrase structure rules break sentences down into their constituent parts. These constituents are often represented as tree structures (dendrograms). The tree for Chomsky's sentence can be rendered as follows:

 * [[image:cgisf-tgg.svg|300px|Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.]]

A constituent is any word or combination of words that is dominated by a single node. Thus each individual word is a constituent. Further, the subject NP Colorless green ideas, the minor NP green ideas, and the VP sleep furiously are constituents. Phrase structure rules and the tree structures that are associated with them are a form of immediate constituent analysis.

In transformational grammar, systems of phrase structure rules are supplemented by transformation rules, which act on an existing syntactic structure to produce a new one (performing such operations as negation, passivization, etc.). These transformations are not strictly required for generation, as the sentences they produce could be generated by a suitably expanded system of phrase structure rules alone, but transformations provide greater economy and enable significant relations between sentences to be reflected in the grammar.

Top down
An important aspect of phrase structure rules is that they view sentence structure from the top down. The category on the left of the arrow is a greater constituent and the immediate constituents to the right of the arrow are lesser constituents. Constituents are successively broken down into their parts as one moves down a list of phrase structure rules for a given sentence. This top-down view of sentence structure stands in contrast to much work done in modern theoretical syntax. In Minimalism for instance, sentence structure is generated from the bottom up. The operation Merge merges smaller constituents to create greater constituents until the greatest constituent (i.e. the sentence) is reached. In this regard, theoretical syntax abandoned phrase structure rules long ago, although their importance for computational linguistics seems to remain intact.

Constituency vs. dependency
Phrase structure rules as they are commonly employed result in a view of sentence structure that is constituency-based. Thus, grammars that employ phrase structure rules are constituency grammars (= phrase structure grammars), as opposed to dependency grammars, which view sentence structure as dependency-based. What this means is that for phrase structure rules to be applicable at all, one has to pursue a constituency-based understanding of sentence structure. The constituency relation is a one-to-one-or-more correspondence. For every word in a sentence, there is at least one node in the syntactic structure that corresponds to that word. The dependency relation, in contrast, is a one-to-one relation; for every word in the sentence, there is exactly one node in the syntactic structure that corresponds to that word. The distinction is illustrated with the following trees:

 * Phrase structure rules.jpg

The constituency tree on the left could be generated by phrase structure rules. The sentence S is broken down into smaller and smaller constituent parts. The dependency tree on the right could not, in contrast, be generated by phrase structure rules (at least not as they are commonly interpreted).

Representational grammars
A number of representational phrase structure theories of grammar never acknowledged phrase structure rules, but have pursued instead an understanding of sentence structure in terms the notion of schema. Here phrase structures are not derived from rules that combine words, but from the specification or instantiation of syntactic schemata or configurations, often expressing some kind of semantic content independently of the specific words that appear in them. This approach is essentially equivalent to a system of phrase structure rules combined with a noncompositional semantic theory, since grammatical formalisms based on rewriting rules are generally equivalent in power to those based on substitution into schemata.

So in this type of approach, instead of being derived from the application of a number of phrase structure rules, the sentence Colorless green ideas sleep furiously would be generated by filling the words into the slots of a schema having the following structure:

 * [NP[ADJ N] VP[V] AP [ADV]]

And which would express the following conceptual content:

 * X DOES Y IN THE MANNER OF Z

Though they are non-compositional, such models are monotonic. This approach is highly developed within Construction grammar and has had some influence in Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar and lexical functional grammar, the latter two clearly qualifying as phrase structure grammars.

title: Phrase structure rules


text:
User talk:Toby Bartels

Archived talk from:
 * 2002: User talk:Toby Bartels/2002
 * 2003 to June: User talk:Toby Bartels/2003 June
 * 2003 from July: User talk:Toby Bartels/2003
 * 2004: User talk:Toby Bartels/2004
 * 2005: User talk:Toby Bartels/2005
 * 2006: User talk:Toby Bartels/2006
 * 2007 and 2008: User talk:Toby Bartels/2008
 * 2009 through 2011: User talk:Toby Bartels/2011
 * 2012 through 2015: User talk:Toby Bartels/2015
 * 2016 through 2018: User talk:Toby Bartels/2018

ArbCom 2019 special circular

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Administrator account security (Correction to Arbcom 2019 special circular)
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Invitation to join the Fifteen Year Society
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Proposed deletion of Magnus Olsson (programmer)

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title: User talk:Toby Bartels


text:
Semantic property

Semantic properties or meaning properties are those aspects of a linguistic unit, such as a morpheme, word, or sentence, that contribute to the meaning of that unit. Basic semantic properties include being meaningful or meaningless – for example, whether a given word is part of a language's lexicon with a generally understood meaning; polysemy, having multiple, typically related, meanings; ambiguity, having meanings which aren't necessarily related; and anomaly, where the elements of a unit are semantically incompatible with each other, although possibly grammatically sound. Beyond the expression itself, there are higher-level semantic relations that describe the relationship between units: these include synonymy, antonymy, and hyponymy.

Besides basic properties of semantics, semantic property is also sometimes used to describe the semantic components of a word, such as man assuming that the referent is human, male, and adult, or female being a common component of girl, woman, and actress. In this sense, semantic properties are used to define the semantic field of a word or set of words.

Semantic properties of nouns
Semantic properties of nouns/entities can be divided into eight classes: specificity, boundedness, animacy, gender, kinship, social status, physical properties, and function.

Physical properties refer to how an entity exists in space. It can include shape, size, and material, for example.

The function class of semantic properties refers to noun class markers that indicate the purpose of an entity or how humans utilize an entity. For example, in the Dyirbal language, the morpheme balam marks each entity in its noun class with the semantic property of edibility, and Burmese encodes the semantic property for the ability to cut or pierce. Encoding the functional property for transportation, housing, and speech are also attested in world languages.

title: Semantic property


text:
Semantic class

A semantic class contains words that share a semantic feature. For example within nouns there are two sub classes, concrete nouns and abstract nouns. The concrete nouns include people, plants, animals, materials and objects while the abstract nouns refer to concepts such as qualities, actions, and processes. According to the nature of the noun, they are categorized into different semantic classes. Semantic classes may intersect. The intersection of female and young can be girl.

title: Semantic class


text:
Semantic feature

A semantic feature is a component of the concept associated with a lexical item ('female' + 'performer' = 'actress'). More generally, it can also be a component of the concept associated with any grammatical unit, whether composed or not ('female' + 'performer' = 'the female performer' or 'the actress'). An individual semantic feature constitutes one component of a word's intention, which is the inherent sense or concept evoked. Linguistic meaning of a word is proposed to arise from contrasts and significant differences with other words. Semantic features enable linguistics to explain how words that share certain features may be members of the same semantic domain. Correspondingly, the contrast in meanings of words is explained by diverging semantic features. For example, father and son share the common components of "human", "kinship", "male" and are thus part of a semantic domain of male family relations. They differ in terms of "generation" and "adulthood", which is what gives each its individual meaning.

Theoretical context
The analysis of semantic features is utilized in the field of linguistic semantics, more specifically the subfields of lexical semantics, and lexicology. One aim of these subfields is to explain the meaning of a word in terms of their relationships with other words. In order to accomplish this aim, one approach is to analyze the internal semantic structure of a word as composed of a number of distinct and minimal components of meaning. This approach is called componential analysis, also known as semantic decomposition. Semantic decomposition allows any given lexical item to be defined based on minimal elements of meaning, which are called semantic features. The term semantic feature is usually used interchangeably with the term semantic component. Additionally, semantic features/semantic components are also often referred to as semantic properties.

The theory of componential analysis and semantic features is not the only approach to analyzing the semantic structure of words. An alternative direction of research that contrasts with componential analysis is prototype semantics.

Notation
The semantic features of a word can be notated using a binary feature notation common to the framework of componential analysis. A semantic property is specified in square brackets and a plus or minus sign indicates the existence or non-existence of that property.

 * cat is
 * [+animate],
 * [+domesticated],
 * [+feline]
 * puma is
 * [+animate],
 * [−domesticated],
 * [+feline]
 * dog is
 * [+animate],
 * [+domesticated],
 * [−feline]
 * wolf is
 * [+animate],
 * [−domesticated]
 * [−feline]

Intersecting semantic classes share the same features. Some features need not be specifically mentioned as their presence or absence is obvious from another feature. This is a redundancy rule.

title: Semantic feature


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Credit (disambiguation)

Credit refers to any form of deferred payment, the granting of a loan and the creation of debt.

Credit may also refer to:

Places

 * Credit, Arkansas, a ghost town
 * Credit River, a river in Ontario, Canada
 * Credit River (Minnesota), a river in the United States
 * Credit River, Minnesota, a city in the United States

Arts, entertainment, and media

 * Credit (creative arts), acknowledging the ideas or other work of writers and contributors
 * Closing credits, a list of credits played at the ending of a work
 * Motion picture credits
 * Opening credits, a list of credits played at the beginning of a work
 * Credit (science fiction), a form of currency in some fictional works
 * "Credit", a song on Meghan Trainor's 2015 album Title
 * Game credit, a count of the current number of games that can be played in arcade games and pinball

Finance and accounting

 * Credit bureau
 * Credit card
 * Credit line (disambiguation)
 * Credit rating, an assessment of credit worthiness
 * Credit risk, the risk of default on a debt
 * Credit score, a representation of credit worthiness
 * Debits and credits, types of bookkeeping entries
 * Line of credit

Other uses

 * Course credit, a system of measuring academic coursework

title: Credit (disambiguation)


text:
Sting

Sting may refer to:
 * Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger
 * Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself
 * Sting operation, a deceptive operation by law enforcement designed to catch a person attempting to commit a crime

Fictional characters and entities

 * Sting (Middle-earth), a fictional sword in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
 * Sting Oakley, a character in Gundam Seed Destiny
 * Peter Stanchek (comics), a character nicknamed "Sting" in the Valiant Comics universe
 * Trixie Sting, a character in the TV series Slugterra
 * Kamen Rider Sting, a character in the TV series Kamen Rider Dragon Knight
 * Sting (film), a 2024 horror movie

Music

 * Sting (musical phrase), a short sequence of music used in films and TV as a form of punctuation
 * Sting (percussion), a brief burst of percussion to punctuate a joke
 * Sting (EP), 2016, by Stellar
 * Stings (album), 2023, by Kamaal Williams
 * "Sting" (Eric Saade song), 2015
 * "Sting" (Fletcher song), 2022
 * "Sting" (Stellar song), 2016

People

 * Sting (musician) (born 1951), English musician and actor
 * Sting (wrestler) (born 1959), American professional wrestler and actor
 * Cheeseekau or Sting (1760–1792), war chief of the Kispoko division of the Shawnee Nation
 * Sting International, stage name of American musician Shaun Pizzonia (born 1968)

Science

 * Stimulator of interferon genes (STING), a protein
 * Sting, a plant disease caused by Belonolaimus longicaudatus

Sports teams

 * Arizona Sting, an NLL lacrosse team (2004–2007)
 * Charlotte Sting, a WNBA basketball team (1997–2006)
 * Chicago Sting, an American soccer team (1975–1988)
 * Las Vegas Sting, now the Anaheim Piranhas, an Arena Football League team (1994–1995)
 * Sarnia Sting, an Ontario Hockey League junior team
 * Southern Sting, a New Zealand netball team (1998–2007)
 * Trenton Sting, an Ontario Provincial Junior A Hockey League team

Video gaming

 * Sting: The Secret Operations, a 2008 online first person shooter
 * Sting Entertainment, a video game development company

Other uses

 * Sting (fixture), a wind tunnel part
 * Sting (horse) (born 1921), an American Thoroughbred racehorse
 * Airborne Sting, a hang glider
 * Sting Energy Drink, a Filipino/Pakistani energy drink
 * Sting operation, a deceptive law enforcement operation to catch a person committing a crime
 * The Sting, a caper film

title: Sting