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2 ideas
18405 | A 'teepee' argument has several mutually supporting planks to it [Cappelen/Dever] |
Full Idea: In a 'teepee' argument, a number of argumentative planks intersupport each other. No plank is sufficiently strong to establish the position, but each lends credibility to the others because there is the appearance of a unified phenomenon. | |
From: Cappelen,H/Dever,Josh (The Inessential Indexical [2013], 01.5) | |
A reaction: To attack it, they say, you have to identify the separate planks of the argument. It is a moot point whether the teepee might be so imprecise that it is better described as 'coherence'. There is a background support, as well as the planks. |
4636 | All reasoning concerning matters of fact is based on analogy (with similar results of similar causes) [Hume] |
Full Idea: All our reasonings concerning matters of fact are founded on a species of analogy, which leads us to expect from any cause the same events, which we have observed to result from similar causes. | |
From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], §82) | |
A reaction: Interesting. Analogy notoriously becomes problematical when you have only one case (or a few) to go on, as when inferring other minds, or God's existence from natural design. |