About evidentia

Motivation

Have you ever felt the sensation that someone is making an argument that shouldn't work but you can't quite articulate what's wrong with it? I made this site for practical practice studying locial fallacies. These are common ways arguments can be wrong.

Why Study Fallacies?

I see the increasing value of identifying fallacies, these types of bad arguments, every day. Whether it's social media, television, or the news, being able to pick apart incorrect forms of reasoning quickly allows us to intervene before those bad arguments do harm.

Why Study Philosophy?

Philosophy is worth studying for the same reason we study any discipline: rather than redoing the work of those who came before us, we modern humans can pick up where our progenitors left off. Philosophy can help you

1. prove arguments correct or incorrect
2. determine what you really care about
3. find contentment with life
4. protect yourself from manipulation

A fun fact? Philosophy once had a much wider definition. In fact, the natural sciences were once called "Natural Philosophy"

Is philosophy useful?

This common question is handled extremely gracefully in the following podcast episode.

In my opinion, some of the largest immediate benefits of studying philosophy is observing fallacious reasoning and cognitive biases in ourselves and others. We can find better reasons to take certain actions, or change our beliefs and actions to match our values. Likewise, we can realize when invalid reasoning is being used to influence our actions and decide upon different actions that better align with our goals.