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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4100381" data-attributes="member: 42582">I'm not sure what you mean by "logical argument" - I don't think you mean valid, nor sound, but perhaps you mean "persuasive" or "non-tautological".Anyway, I'm not asserting that all valid syllogisms are circular. I'm asserting that there is no circularity in the argument you critique, and also that your critique of it appears to imply that you regard every sound argument as circular, because you seem to be taking every sound argument as, in effect, an amplication of the definitions of the notions occurring in the premises. Hegel believed this, but he had his own peculiar approach to logic which I assum you are not intending to emulate.In any event - how is it circular to assert (1) worthwhile judgements depend on familiarity, and (2) that familiarity with a book depends on reading it, and hence (3) that the judgements concerning the PHB of one who has not read the PHB are worthless?Where is the circularity? None of the premises is analytic. The conlcusion is not analytic. None of (1), (2) or (3) on its own entails the other. Where, I ask again, is the circularity?As I've said, (2) is highly contentious. But this doensn't make the argument circular.I agree that the argument is thin, and that it is apt to engender a dispute about the necessary conditions for familiarity with a book.I personally think it is possible to be familiar with a book without reading it (I have, in my time, been familiary with some books of which I've read rather little). That's what reviews, lectures, bibliographies etc are for.But none of this makes the original argument circular or fallacious. It just makes it unsound.</blockquote>

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