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Reviewer: Lingzhi.Renascence (talk · contribs) 04:19, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I will do this. Will take between 2 and even 4 weeks. Huge task. § Lingzhi (talk) 06:55, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Lingzhi and thanks for taking on this task. I'm happy that this article gets finally reviewed so please take the time you need. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:44, 28 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • So we've spent the past few days completely revamping the references section. It now employs {{sfn}} and {{sfnm}}. I hope it looks easier to read etc.
  • When reviewing, I like to read articles from bottom to top.
    • The last paragraph has a long-ish section attributed to "Haaparanta 2009, pp. 4–6, 1. Introduction." I tried to find it on archive.org but came up empty-handed... The section begins and ends "..."It is often argued that Gottlob Frege’s ..." and ends "relied mainly on natural language". this section reads in a somewhat stiff manner; needs to be edited for flow. More importantly, long stretches from one source run a high risk of WP:CLOP. [As I said, I cn't get the source, so I don't know...] You should be careful about this...
      • I've added page urls for Haaparanta 2009. Have a look if the page preview on google books works for you. If not, I could paste some quotations. I didn't see any obvious close paraphrase. This passage summarizes a text going over several pages so it's unlikely that the passage as a whole is a close paraphrase. A more detailed reading might reveal whether this problem pertains to some individual sentences. I added a second reference and reformulated some expressions for style. Have a look if this is roughly what you had in mind. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:21, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm only barely a dilettante in philosophy, having read a couple of books... decades ago. :-) But I was mildly surprised there was no mention of Wittgenstein. I'm not pushing for his inclusion; I'm actually just asking whether he should be included. I see discussion of Russell and Frege, forex. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lingzhi.Renascence (talk • contribs) 01:16, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Various ideas of Wittgenstein are relevant to logic. For example, his Tractatus talks about his picture theory of meaning, i.e. that the structure of language reflects the structure of the world. Other influential ideas are his logical atomism and his later thoughts on language games. His ideas are quite relevant to the philosophy of language and metaphysics. They also apply to the philosophy of logic. But I'm not sure that they are important enough to be mentioned here since we really aim to just give a bird's view picture. The short overview by Haaparanta does not mention Wittgenstein. On the Britannica article on the history of logic, I get 3 hits for Wittgenstein, compared to 108 for Aristotle and 45 for Frege. If you think some specific ideas of Wittgenstein should be included then we can try to figure out how they could be fitted in. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:21, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I just remembered that when I was changing the reference format, there were two cites to IEP Staff that maybe I made a mistake about. Maybe they weren't IEP Staff at all. You can compare the old version to the new, or I will later... also these might be consolidated:
      • Copi, Irving Marmer; Cohen, Carl; McMahon, Kenneth (1953), Copi, Irving M.; Cohen, Carl; Rodych, Victor (3 September 2018)
      • Daintith, John (2004), Daintith, John; Wright, Edmund (10 July 2008).
      • Enderton, Herbert (2001a). Enderton, Herbert (2001b). § Lingzhi (talk) 10:08, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • I finished combining the references. Concerning the IEP Staff: initially, there was one false reference to IEP Staff that belonged to the etymology online website and has already been fixed. I compared the other references with the old version and couldn't find any discrepancies. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:56, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • So I read this online: PHI 201, Introductory Logic and it was much easier to understand than our WP article. Forex, it defines an argument as "ampliative" "...because the conclusion says more than is strictly 'entailed' by the premises". That is crystal clear to me. Then I read the lede of this article, and even the ampliative section, and it occurred to me that this article seems to be describing features of ampliative arguments without ever having provided a bedrock, easy-to-understand definition. Forex: "They contrast with ampliative arguments, which do not provide the same level of certainty but may arrive at genuinely new information. Many arguments found in everyday discourse and the sciences are ampliative arguments, sometimes divided into inductive and abductive arguments." Yeah... thinking about this, I get a general idea of the meaning. But only a somewhat vague one. A straightforward, one-punch definition seems to be needed. And the Ampliative section again launches into a description of details... can we make this article a bit more like that lecture? And note also that the lecture gives a 4-step example about patients recovering. That example is also clear to me... I'm focusing on "ampliative" because I had never heard that term before, but I suspect the entire article top-to-bottom could use an icing of this level of presentation... I wouldn't want to make it balloon into War and Peace, but.. some simple and straightforward talk would be good at times... thoughts? § Lingzhi (talk) 14:29, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      I think you are right that the article would benefit from an explicit definition of the term. I added one at the beginning of the section "Ampliative" and made a few adjustments. I also rewrote the lead sentence to provide a better explanation but I'm not sure that this is an improvement since it is a little longer than before. As for examples: we currently have two examples in the section "Ampliative": the elephant example and the breadcrumbs example. Do you think we need more or different examples? Phlsph7 (talk) 16:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please define " inference machine", or paraphrase.
  • I'm looking at the supersection "Systems of logic" and it makes me feel a little unsure. It includes details that may perhaps be best moved into a later subsection (?). Forex, the definition of deviant logics there is quite clear. Then, when you read the "Deviant" subsection, it is missing that clear definition (it assumes one has read the supersection). So if someone had for some reason skipped over that supersection, the subsection would not be clear... You might see some similarities between this comment and the one above about "ampliative": I am not sure that clear definitions of terms are either a) offered at all, or b) offered in (arguably) the correct place. This may be a consequence of the editor (that is, you) being so close to the text and so familiar with the concepts that everything seems clear when you are writing. [The undefined "inference machine" may be another example of this.]  § Lingzhi (talk) 06:28, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I followed your suggestion and moved the overview text in the supersection to the individual subsections. I'm not sure whether it is better to have it at the beginning to give a compact overview or spread around in the subsections for people who skip the supersection. But it seems that either approach is feasible. I don't think that, generally speaking, the article has a definition-problem. It may not always use the exact expression "X is defined as Y" but it usually provides a clear characterization of the main terms. There are often different places where this can happen and it may depend on personal preference which option is favorable. But you are right that this is an important issue for this type of article and I'm open to further suggestions on how to make the main terms more accessible. Phlsph7 (talk) 09:26, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is just a heads-up that you don't have to fix now, but may need to for FAC: Most references are in title case, but a few are in sentence case(e.g., Aristotle's syllogistic from the standpoint of modern formal logic). Those should be consistent.
    • Should the case of the entries in the reference section be consistent with each other or consistent with the sources? For example, "rule of inference" in Blackburn 2016 is all lower case in the source. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:55, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • I doubt there's a rule that specific. IMHO, internal consistency on the article page is probably safer than consistency with external source. If you really want an authoritative (or relatively authoritative) response, you could try WT:FAC. § Lingzhi (talk) 11:02, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another heads-up: I'm not sure the illustrations always facilitate understanding of the text. One good example is the Truth Table. § Lingzhi (talk) 07:01, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • It seems the opinions on the truth table are divided: the original version did not include it but it was explicitly suggested in the peer review that it should be included. A compromise might be to keep it but to simplify it so it covers only one expression. Since the text talks about "∧", this would be the most relevant candidate and there is a clear connection with the text. What do you think?
    • As for the other images: some visualize an aspect of what is being explained while others provide additional information that is more easily accessible in the visual form. My impression is that we have quite a few images so removing one or two wouldn't hurt. Which ones did you have in mind? Phlsph7 (talk) 09:06, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • And on the subject of WT:FAC: Actually, the title case/sentence case thing is relatively trivial. It's not worth asking there. BUT another question may be a potential land mine: tertiary sources. I think there are 56 such in your references. One point in your favor is that they often appear to have high face validity as WP:RS (e.g., Stanford)... WP:TERTIARY says: "Reliable tertiary sources can help provide broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources..." You could make an argument that this whole article, top to bottom, is a "broad summary"... I suggest that you read WP:USETERTIARY and WP:TERTIARYNOT. And then consider asking at WT:FAC before you run the gauntlet for real... § Lingzhi (talk) 13:31, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    That's definitely an important issue, thanks for pointing this out. My argument would be similar to the one suggested by you. This article is on a very general topic and the main difficulty is to provide a wide overview rather than go into very specific details of its subtopics. And this is exactly where high-quality tertiary sources come in. But I'm not sure if others also see it this way. So raising the topic beforehand at WT:FAC sounds like a great idea to deal with this potential pitfall. Phlsph7 (talk) 16:28, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Spot checks
  • Current note 191, Dasti, Lead section; 1b. Inference: "In Nyaya, inference is understood as a source of knowledge (pramāṇa). It follows the perception of an object and tries to arrive at certain conclusions, for example, about the cause of this object.[191]" ... ahem... this website is a jargon factory. So... yeah... I guess this is similar to what's being discussed, such as this: "[An inferential cognition] is preceded by that [perception], and is threefold: from cause to effect, from effect to cause or from that which is commonly seen" and this "Second, inference is triggered by the recognition of a sign or mark, whose relationship with some other object (property or fact) has been firmly established."... But a different set of quotes seem more to the point of our WP "Logic" article: "First, in Nyāya, logic is subsumed within epistemology, [Note from Ling: yes, I see the point about epistemology is in our article immediately above the cite I'm looking at here] and therefore tends to have a strong informal and cognitive flavor, mapping paths of reasoning that generate veridical cognitions and noting the common ways that reasoning goes wrong" and later "as logic’s function is to generate veridical cognition, Nyāya does not stress the distinction between soundness and validity in respect to the quality of an argument. Both formal fallacies and the inclusion of false premises lead to hetv-ābhāsa (“pseudo provers” or logical defeaters), since they engender false cognition." These seem (at least to me) to dovetail with discussions in the WP article's "Arguments and inferences" section. But.... if you believe this discussion of inference is more to the point of our article, then that's OK. Why is our article emphasizing inference? I am not saying that's wrong; it may be right. You may be emphasizing inference because its importance in this school of thought is somehow contradistinct from the more familiar (to us) Western approach. So I can't really tell if this cite passes or fails spot check, because I don't 100% understand the website's points about inference anyhow. Your version does seem similar to what is said there. § Lingzhi (talk) 17:10, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, this one is a tough nut to crack. Let me see if I can unravel it. Roughly simplified, our sentence makes 3 claims:
    (1) inference is a source of knowledge
    (2) inference follows perception
    (3) an example is the inference from something to its cause
    The first claim is supported by the lead. If it's not explicit enough, we could add the section "1. Epistemology". It includes the sentence The four pramāṇas are perception, inference, analogical reasoning, and testimony.
    The second claim is supported by Nyāya-sūtra 1.1.5 defines inference as follows.[An inferential cognition] is preceded by that [perception]. It's also covered by the following paragraph.
    The third claim is supported by ...is threefold: from cause to effect, from effect to cause or from that which is commonly seen.. An example is given later: A paradigmatic act of inference to oneself is: “There is fire on that mountain, since there is smoke on it,”
    Not everything discussed by Nyaya is directly relevant to logic as it is treated by our article. Inference is discussed because that's where the main overlap is. Nyaya also discusses other sources of knowledge, like perception and testimony, which are not directly relevant here. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:23, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    By the way, I've added a second source. Maybe it's a little easier to understand. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:29, 9 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hansen 2020
  • Current note 78, Hansen 2020 (no page) "...fallacies. Their central aspect is not that their conclusion is false but that there is some flaw with the reasoning leading to this conclusion"
  • Current note 80, Hansen 2020, 4 instances, (no page)
  • a "This way, genuine fallacies can be distinguished from mere mistakes of reasoning due to carelessness. This explains why people tend to commit fallacies: because they have an alluring element that seduces people into committing and accepting them"
  • b A prominent version by Douglas N. Walton understands a dialogue as a game between two players
    You are right. Hansen 2020 talks about how Walton understands fallacies in terms of persuasion but does not go into detail on his game model. I removed it since this claim is covered by the following reference (Walton 1987, p. 21): An argument is a set of propositions advanced by a player (the proponent) in a game of dialogue. ... A game of dialogue is composed of two players, called the proponent and the respondent, a set of moves of the players, and a set of rules for the game. Each move is either a question or an answer. The players take turns making moves. There are different kinds of procedural rules which determine when various kinds of moves are allowed in the game. There are logical rules, defining what counts as a valid argument. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:05, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • c The Bayesian approach is one example of an epistemic approach
    • So you see, I see this section as a way to reduce the reliance on tertiary sources. The bit about the Bayesian approach is cited to three research papers. Get those, find relevant quotes and attribute them to those secondary sources. [Of course it goes without saying, don't cheat by citing them without acquiring/reading them first.] § Lingzhi (talk) 05:53, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • If I remember correctly, the other 3 sources talk about Bayesian epistemology in general while this sentence talks specifically about informal fallacies. So a detailed reading would be needed to check whether they mention the relation to informal fallacies explicitly. For now, I've added another source that applies Bayesianism explicitly to informal fallacies. In theory, it could be used to replace Hansen 2020. However, it does not have the same generality since it only discusses one type of informal fallacy in terms of Bayesianism. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:00, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • d On this view, reasoning can be interpreted as a process of changing one's credences, often in reaction to new incoming information
  • Current note 81, Hansen 2020, 2 instances, (no page)
  • a However, this reference to appearances is controversial because it belongs to the field of psychology, not logic, and because appearances may be different for different people
  • b Whether an argument is correct depends on whether it promotes the progress of the dialogue. Fallacies, on the other hand, are violations of the standards of proper argumentative rules
  • Current note 141, Hansen 2020, 2 instances, (no page)
  • a Nonetheless, some systems of informal logic have also been presented that try to provide a systematic characterization of the correctness of arguments
    • Uhhhhhh..... I think maybe this is implied, given the sections that are later described... but I don't think this is explicitly stated as such.... let's call it not found § Lingzhi (talk) 14:16, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I think this is supported by Hansen 2020, namely by the explanation of the different approaches, like the epistemic and dialogical approaches. They are covered in more detail in the other two references to this sentence. The main point here is that informal fallacies are usually studied one by one but there are also approaches that provide a general framework of them. If you think the term "systems" is too strong, we could replace it with something else, like "systematic approaches" or "general frameworks". Phlsph7 (talk) 15:01, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    For instance, see the following passage as an example of the systematic nature of such approaches (Hansen 2020): The Pragma-dialectical theory stipulates a normative ideal of a critical discussion which serves both as a guide to the reconstruction of natural language argumentation, as well as a standard for the evaluation of the analysed product of reconstruction. ... The Pragma-dialectical theory proposes that each of the core fallacies can be assigned a place as a violation of one of the rules of a critical discussion. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:20, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    By the way, I changed the term "system" to "framework". I'm not sure that there is much of a difference. But "framework" is the exact term used in the source. This way, we are on the safe side. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:11, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • b The pragmatic or dialogical approach to informal logic sees arguments as speech acts and not merely as a set of premises together with a conclusion.
    • In short, the Pragma-dialectical rules of a critical discussion are not just rules of logic or epistemology, but rules of conduct for rational discussants, making the theory more like a moral code than a set of logical principles. Accordingly, this approach to fallacies rejects all three of the necessary conditions of SDF: a fallacy need not be an argument, thus the invalidity condition will not apply either, and the appearance condition is excluded because of its subjective character (Van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004, 175). Yeah, "speech acts" has a def in the sense of Austin & Searle etc. that seems a bit removed from this... but... yeah. Found. § Lingzhi (talk) 13:13, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Current note 145, Hansen 2020, 2 instances, (no page)
  • a The epistemic approach to informal logic, on the other hand, focuses on the epistemic role of arguments.
  • b Correct arguments succeed at expanding knowledge while fallacies are epistemic failures: they do not justify the belief in their conclusion
  • found § Lingzhi (talk) 12:17, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PASS GA. I've been reading this article off and on for days. After considerable discussion and a few minor modifications, I am satisfied that it fulfills the criteria of WP:GAN § Lingzhi (talk) 12:28, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot for all the time and effort you have poured into this review! I also found your remarks on possible issues and adjustments for an FAC quite helpful. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:30, 12 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]


GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a. (prose, spelling, and grammar):
    b. (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a. (reference section):
    b. (citations to reliable sources):
    c. (OR):
    d. (copyvio and plagiarism):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a. (major aspects):
    b. (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    Fair representation without bias:
  5. It is stable.
    No edit wars, etc.:
  6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
    a. (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales):
    b. (appropriate use with suitable captions):
  7. Overall:
    Pass/fail:

(Criteria marked are unassessed)

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