Sep 12 2008
Argumentative Tactics Never to Use: The Lack-of-Precedent Argument for Impossibility
Many people dismiss possibilities for constructive improvements in people’s future lives by arguing that these improvements have never taken place in the past and have never been implemented yet. This is taken to imply that they will never happen in the future as well.
But this is a non sequitur. Just because a particular technology has not been invented yet, for instance, does not mean that it will never be. As late as 1903, many venerable “experts” with the United States Navy were claiming that powered flight would never be invented – because it never had been! Likewise, the argument that a lack of precedent implies impossibility could have been used at some time to discount the possibility of steam engines, railroads, automobiles, computers, and the Internet – simply because nothing of the sort had existed in the past, from the point of view of our hypothetical critics!
The past is not a predictor of the future, since human beings have free will and creativity and are able to experiment with new possibilities and new ways of doing things – some of which end up superior to the older ways. This is not to say that one cannot demonstrate the impossibility of some particular scheme. But to do so, one cannot simply say that it has never been done. One needs to argue why the specific nature of the scheme in question precludes it from being realizable.
Sincerely,
Gennady Stolyarov II
Editor-in-Chief, The Rational Argumentator: http://rationalargumentator.com
Writer, Associated Content: http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/46796/g_stolyarov_ii.html
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