Appeal: appeal to authority
From Debate! Pagan vs. Orthodox: Logos, Language & Metaphysics - Jay Dyer Vs CB Robertson.
- #9111:16:55upheld CB Robertson psogos: appeal to authority (+1)
The council upheld the call: CB Robertson gave away 1 point.
“So I've been studying philosophy for the better part of nine years.”
Diogenes: Asked to justify the epistemic claims he had just made, CB offers the length of his own study rather than the justification, which is his own credentials standing in for the argument requested.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: CB's declared method was to press two arguments (the disontological dilemma and the language/logos argument) and, when pressed on epistemic grounding, to fall back on intuition as his stated base; here, rather than restating or defending that intuition-based epistemology directly, he instead cites years of study, a credential appeal that departs from directly answering the standing demand, though he pivots back to his logos-based explanation once allowed to continue. Immediately after Jay's repeated demand for a coherent explanation of CB's epistemic starting points, CB's actual reply on the record is a claim about the duration of his own study rather than the requested reasoning; Jay's contemporaneous objection ("we don't need autobiographical details... I don't care if he's studied for two or three years... where is the argument") shows the substitution was live on the floor, not a private mischaracterization. This is a minor but genuine instance of leaning on personal credential in place of the argument requested.
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "appeal to authority". Jay had asked, repeatedly, for a coherent epistemic criterion grounding CB's claims; instead of stating that criterion, CB begins "I can, but this is I think so I've been studying philosophy for the better part of nine years," offering his years of study as a stand-in credential rather than the substantive answer requested. Duration of personal study establishes nothing about whether the criterion is coherent, and it functions here as a placeholder for the missing argument rather than alongside one, which is why Jay immediately (and rightly) dismisses it as irrelevant autobiography.
- Plato uphold: On the record: CB's declared position throughout was that his epistemology rests on fallible intuition rather than a systematized account; when pressed here for the missing justification, this line departs from actually supplying reasoning and instead substitutes personal credential. Jay had repeatedly and pointedly asked CB for the epistemic criteria justifying his claims; in that exact slot, CB offers his years of philosophical study rather than the substance of an answer, and Jay's immediate rejoinder ("we don't need autobiographical details... where is the argument") confirms this was heard as credential-in-place-of-reasoning rather than a lead-in to one, since CB does not follow it with the requested justification. This is a clean fit for appeal to authority (self-authority) rather than mere biographical color, and it is an isolated instance so minor severity is appropriate.
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