Posted by Matches on January 24, 2002 at 09:40:36:
In Reply to: And the actual argument is... posted by Bartholomew on January 24, 2002 at 02:16:07:
We (Issac and myself) have refuted your argument by declining to accept the premise that [the ascertainment of validity and truth of an argument is in itself an argument].
When one finds a part of the original argument valid, that is NOT an argument. To illustrate: If Person A says "the grass is green" and Person B says "I agree, the grass is green," what argument is there to be made about the greenhood of the grass? The answer is none, because no arguments are necessary.
However, when there is a disagreement as to the validity of an element of an argument, this is when it may be necessary to posit arguments pointing to the truthhood or falsehood of the particular element. This is OFTEN the case, but in ANY discussion that is going to get anywhere, the parties involved must have some set of mutually agreeable premises from which the actual argument can be made. You, however, seem to state that this is impossible, which is why it seems that discussing things with you hasn't gotten anywhere. You question the very notion of knowledge.
: (I'm just posting this again so there is ABSOLUTELY NO CONFUSION among certain doo-doo heads on this board as to what they must refute)
: : your error checking is done when you've checked everything. examine every premise for truth-value, and every argumetn for validity.
: This is not possible. Every time one finds a part of the original argument valid, one is making the argument that that part is valid. As you say, all arguments must be checked for validity. This means that the argument that that part is valid must also be checked for validity.
: This process generates another argument, the argument that the argument that the original part is valid is valid. And so on. Every error check is itself an argument that must be checked.