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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  3184 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Forum where fallacies are banned

Statistical inferences are an appeal to logos by Aristotle's definition, because math is always an appeal to reason and anyway probability is a logic. Citing scientific work is ethos, though, because it's asking you to trust the intellectual virtues of the scientists who did the work.





kleinbl00  ·  3184 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Ahh, but where's the dividing line? Because appeal to data is objective, but appeal to a trendline is going to depend on how that trendline is established.

user-inactivated  ·  3184 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I'd say a graph is the same kind of thing as a diagram in geometry, an aid to understanding but not an argument in itself. I don't know where Aristotle would classify just pointing at a diagram though. Not logos, geometers in his day knew a diagram wasn't a proof already.