Kai E Nielsen atheism articles... JREF opinions please?

[Piscivore]

Technically, if I'm to be a pedantic ass about it (and I am) the more specific name of it is actually an appeal to motive, IMHO.

The line is pretty blurred, but bulverism is basically that you have some personal reason to wish it was true. E.g., as the original example for it "Oh you say that because you are a man."

Whereas appeal to motive is more like, basically, saying "you're dishonest because you have some motive to say/do that." E.g., if I were to say that some review site only gave some product (game, movie, book, take your pick) a better review than another similar one, because the publisher of the first spends more advertising money, that's a straightforward appeal to motive.

Again, the line is pretty blurry. And the exact accusation often left just implied, so it's not clear which it is. And generally I'm often in the wrong myself, when making quick calls about which is which.

So I'm looking at the phrasing in the actual text, "These atheists are usually motivated to redefine the word “atheist” because they want to enlarge the definition of “atheist” to include as many people as possible, or because they perceive it to be an advantage in debates with theists." Sounds to me like a straight up claim that they're telling BS and have a motive to. That's a pretty clear appeal to motive to me.

In fact, IMHO probably you don't get much more clear an indication as when some variant of "motive" actually is spelled out in the text. In this case, "motivated". Ah-ha.

Another indication is that they're not saying it's just some personal belief, but the accusation is basically straight up telling BS for a motive. If I said, for example, "atheists only like to believe that, because otherwise they'd feel like such a lonely minority", now that's bulverism. Then I'm saying basically that it's some irrational personal belief.

You're right, but I was motivated to use the fancy new word I recently learned.

 

[Seismosaurus]

I had a theist pull this "you can't prove god doesn't exist" on me once and I explained to him what the word atheist meant, linking the wiki article. He was first amazed that I would get a definition from an encyclopedia rather than a dictionary - he honestly stated that he'd never heard of anybody doing such a thing! Then he came back with a link to another online encyclopedia that he'd read the first few lines of as a "gotcha!" He was stunned when I gently pointed out that his article confirmed exactly what I'd said, if only had had taken the time to read the thing before posting his link. Quite sad really.

The guy in the OP certainly has no business writing encyclopedia articles, at least on religion. There is a way to send feedback in but they ask for a lot of personal details - name, email address and such. Not sure I want to do that when I don't know why they want it or what they'll do with it.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Appeal to popularity.


Appeal to authority (words don't have to be in a dictionary to be defined and used. That's how we get new words to add to the dictionary).
No True Scotsman (I guess all the dictionaries it is in aren't "reputable"? Who decides which are "reputable")

These two points rather contradict each other. If the meanings of words can't be established by consensus - in which case the appeal to popularity would in fact be valid - and can't be established by regulation - in which case the appeal to authority would in fact be valid - then how are they to be established?

It seems to me that the meaning of words is established by consensus, and the role of dictionaries is to document, rather than dictate, that consensus. In that case, then, the appeal to popularity would be not just a valid argument, but the only valid argument, in favour of one interpretation of a word over another.

Dave

 

[Piscivore]

These two points rather contradict each other. If the meanings of words can't be established by consensus - in which case the appeal to popularity would in fact be valid - and can't be established by regulation - in which case the appeal to authority would in fact be valid - then how are they to be established?

It seems to me that the meaning of words is established by consensus, and the role of dictionaries is to document, rather than dictate, that consensus. In that case, then, the appeal to popularity would be not just a valid argument, but the only valid argument, in favour of one interpretation of a word over another.

The "appeal to popularity" lies in the assertion that it isn't valid because it isn't "common". A word can have a meaning even between only two people and be valid.