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Unread 25 Jan 2007, 06:27   #95
Bugsby
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Join Date: Dec 2006
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Re: OK GD people, which book are you reading now?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yahwe
No there isn't. There is an un-supported assertion.

Therein lies the flaw.
"Your mum is fat" is an unsupported assertion, but only in a certain context. If I were only attempting to use this assertion as a conclusion of some argument, where my evidence was provided only by the photo, then I would indeed be in sorry shape. But "Your mum is fat" is not only the conclusion of that argument. Nodrog confirmed as much when he said that he was, in fact, setting up a Gettier case.

Two different things are happening here. First, the person who has access to the photo has drawn the conclusion "your mum is fat." He has what he believes to be good evidence for this conclusion, but in fact it is not; the assertion is, in that sense, unsupported. The other thing that is going on here, which you seem to be repeatedly missing, is that NODROG, as the person who created this case, has stipulated that your mum is indeed fat. He has stated that there is a fact of the matter, while none of the evidence gives our photo-observer any good way of knowing what that fact of the matter is.

So if we are from the perspective of the photo-observer, i.e. within the scenario, then "your mom is fat" is unsupported. But we are outside this scenario looking in, introduced by Nodrog to this case of a misguided man holding a photograph. We are in a position to ask Nodrog if, all misleading evidence aside, it really is the case that "your mom" is fat. And he has told us that she is.
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