Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 4101829" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think that it can be demonstrated. As I've said in a couple of bosts, I don't believe it to be true that familiarity with a book depends upon reading it.But that an argument rests on a false premise doesn't make it circular, or fallacious. It just makes it a bad argument. I don't agree that all these notions are imbedded in one another in the argument presented. The claim is simply (i) that worthwhile judgement depends upon familiarity (which I think is plausible) and (ii) that familiarity with a book depends upon reading (which I think is implausible). There is no circularity.Restating the argument you have presented:1. You cannot judge whether or not a book is worth reading unless you are familiar with it. 2. You cannot be familiar with a book without reading it. Therefore, 3. You cannot judge whether or not a book is worth reading unless you read it.This conclusion might be false, but there is no circularity in the argument. The conclusion is not even obviously absurd.Now, you seem to be adding in the following extra premises:4. If I read something, that means I judge it worth reading. Therefore (given 3), 5. I cannot judge whether or not a book is worth reading unless I judge it to be worth reading. Furthermore, 6. It is worthwhile to bring it about that I can make judgements on books. Therefore (given 3), 7. Every book is worth reading.5 is a little paradoxical, and 7 is (I think) obviously false. But this doesn't show any circularity in any argument. If 5 is doubtful, that means at least one of 3 or 4 is doubtful - I'm sceptical about both.If 7 is false, that means at least one of 3 or 6 is doubtful - I'm sceptical of 3 and also of 6 (which I think is pretty doubtful if "books" is taken to mean "every single book").Why?</blockquote>

Verification