Can people be trained to avoid coincident fallacies?
I used to walk to school the same way for about 7 years. So each day I would leave my house carrying my bag. I would always pick the same point down the street to check for any cars passing by, before crossing the road. So over 7 years I would have done all this 1000's of times.
On one of the days I looked at my usual spot. There was a kid walking to another school who happened to be in my direct line of vision. I wasn't looking at him in any way. But to him it seemed like it. So he called out and swore at me and asked what i was looking at. His perspective was a fallacy. I was bound to appear to look at someone at least once out of 1000's of instances.
So is there any way of people not making such what I call coincident fallacies?
On one of the days I looked at my usual spot. There was a kid walking to another school who happened to be in my direct line of vision. I wasn't looking at him in any way. But to him it seemed like it. So he called out and swore at me and asked what i was looking at. His perspective was a fallacy. I was bound to appear to look at someone at least once out of 1000's of instances.
So is there any way of people not making such what I call coincident fallacies?
Comments (2)
The idea of a fallacy in philosophy/logic is a very targeted idea. Fallacies pertain only to arguments, which are sets of premises with conclusions that ostensibly follow from the premises. Fallacies occur when an argument follows a course that doesn't guarantee validity. Validity is defined as impossibility that premises are true and a conclusion false, where that "and" is conventionally treated as an inclusive "or."
What you're describing is simply people interpreting something different than someone intended it. There's no generalized way to always avoid that, and it's bound to happen more often when we're talking about behavior that's not common--which could include someone intently gazing across a street from a particular vantage point. We simply need to explain the difference between interpretation and intent in an understanding manner.
The kid in question thought:
1. That person is looking in this direction
Therefore
2. That person is looking at me
As you can see there are many many objects to look at in any particular direction. So, yes, the kid committed a fallacy. I hope you didn't have a scoped rifle with laser sights.