A2A is a known form of logical fallacy
Bollocks.
Even Wikipedia has noticed that it's not:
An argument from authority, also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam is a form of defeasible argument in which a claimed authority's support is used as evidence for an argument's conclusion. It is well known as a fallacy, though it is used in a cogent form when all sides of a discussion agree on the reliability of the authority in the given context.
(NB:
fallacy is not a synonym for
logical fallacy.)
Nearly everything that you (or any poster on this thread) knows, you know because you learned it from an authority. If you didn't accept authoritative opinion as good evidence, you would have to abaondon basically all your beliefs about history, geography, science, mathematics, and stuff that happens every day outside your hometown.
If you argument hinges on nothing more than "that's what folks say" (with presumably your choice of folks being credible) the whole of your argument boils down to their credibility.]
"What foks say" is largely the opposite of authority (unless you're talking about stuff that happened at the shopping centre down the street).
The key being this - is there evidence other than the perceived authority?
Evidence available to whom? What's the evidence that New York was settled before the 18th century? Other than a book (= the dreaded "authority"!)
But the key part is A2A can be reasonable- if the source is credible and supported by evidence.
An argument that can be reasonable is not a logical fallacy. It's not even an informal fallacy. As Wikipedia notes, it's defeasible. Given that basically every argument anyone ever runs outside of mathematics is defeasible, that's not a very telling blow against it.
As far as [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s claim is concerned, two things:
(1) Either Hussar's an English teacher, or has been working hard to maintain the online facade of being an English teacher for over a decade. Given that there's little reason for someone to do the latter, and given that his reports about English teaching and challengs of cross-cultural education have always seemed coherent enough to me, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.
(2) I'm not an English teacher - I'm an academic lawyer and philosopher - and I know that Hussar is 100% correct when he says that [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is 100% wrong to say that " 'On a hit, roll damage' is equal to 'On a miss, don't roll damage.' It's just the way language works."
The instruction that, on a hit, one must roll damage, doesn't
forbid anyone from rolling damage on a miss. It probably implies that "On a miss, you don't need to roll damage" but the absence of an obligation isn't the same thing as being forbidden - the absence of an obligation is consistent with a permission. Which was [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION]'s point.
Of course if there is not hit, and damage is rolled, no hit point reduction will take place. But that's a different thing. [MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION]'s point is that the combat rules don't forbid rolling to hit and damage together (and the absence of doubt about this is simply reinforced by the fact that the DMG advises rolling them together!).
Why would a fallacy not be treated as a fallacy?
<snip>
The fallacy would be if you presented as your only proof that France's capitol is Paris, that an authority said so. If you engaged other arguments, such as maps, news sources, a french citizen you spoke with, and so on, it would not be an Appeal to Authority to also mention that a geography teacher taught that to you.
This is hilarious! Why is a map evidence? Because it's a source of authority! Why is a citizen of France's testimony evidence? Because s/he is an authority on his/her own country!
The fact that the only sources of evidence that you can think of for the status of Paris as the capital of France are authorities is enough to prove my point!
(What would count as evidence for the status of Paris that is
not evidence from authority? For capital cities it's very hard, because even if you asked Emmanuel Macron the only evidence that you have that he is President of France is because authorities, like news broadcasts, told you so! The direct evidence, unmediated by authoritative testimony, to establish a socio-political fact like that is incredibly complicated because it involves patterns of behaviour distributed across a wide swathe of social actors.)
Authorities can also be wrong. As an attorney, you should be well aware of that fact
I'm not an attorney. I'm an academic lawyer.
And yes, authorities can be wrong. That's why argument from authority is defeasible. But as I already posted, practically every bit of inference you engage in is defeasible. For a good discussion of what bits of your "knowledge" you would have to erase if you resolved to accept only non-defeasible inference I recommend Bertrand Russell's
The Problems of Philosophy. Short answer: practically all of it.
