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There is the following wording: If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.

What type of argument is this?

If we use this argument in favor of the existence of other minds: Other people look like us, behave like us, so they have minds like us.

  1. What type of argument is this? Is it a combination of different arguments together?

  2. Will such an argument be plausible and convincing?

Robert Antoni
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  • Starting from a state of complete ignorance (equally likely if duck or not), then given these facts, one option of the two becomes increasingly more possible than the other. Simple as that. – Nikos M. Dec 09 '22 at 10:39
  • BTW I phrased such argument here "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it must be a duck, until it is proven otherwise." – Nikos M. Dec 09 '22 at 10:41
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    These arguments are usually called arguments from analogy. Or if used as probabilistic arguments as statistical inference argument. – Nikos M. Dec 09 '22 at 10:45
  • Since the argument by analogy is considered the most convincing, then this formulation is also unconvincing? – Robert Antoni Dec 09 '22 at 10:49
  • Different people respond differently to arguments. But I dont see how the analogy argument can be convincing but this example is unconvincing. – Nikos M. Dec 09 '22 at 10:50
  • What are the compelling arguments for the existence of other minds? – Robert Antoni Dec 09 '22 at 11:12
  • In my opinion this is the definitive argument in the sense that it is the best explanation among alternative explanations which fit the given data – Nikos M. Dec 09 '22 at 11:15
  • BTW there is no absolute best argument in a vacuum. An argument is best compared to alternative arguments for the same data. Looking for an absolute best argument/explanation is vacuus IMO. – Nikos M. Dec 09 '22 at 11:16
  • You may be interested in this post – Nikos M. Dec 09 '22 at 11:22
  • https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/

    The article states that: "A complete response to the problem of other minds seems obliged to incorporate more than one approach, and may have to incorporate several" - Need more arguments for a complete answer? What other good, persuasive arguments are there?

     – Robert Antoni Dec 09 '22 at 12:04

1 Answers1

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The phrase "if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck" is not meant as a principle of biology or logic or epistemology; it is meant as an oblique way of saying either

  1. It's obvious that X is Y.

or

  1. Your skepticism about X being Y is extreme and unwarranted.

It's an expression of an opinion, not an argument. It is, in fact, an indication that the speaker does not think the argument is worth having.

Applying this to the argument about other minds, I doubt anyone would actually say this because the problem doesn't fit the pattern of use of that phrase, but if they did, the most likely interpretation is that they would be saying something like "Everyone just knows that people have other minds, stop being such a dweeb."

David Gudeman
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    No, that's not what the "looks like a duck" expression means. It means that if X has several observable attributes of class Y, then X is an instance of Y. – causative Dec 09 '22 at 23:57
  • I thought it was, "If it weighs as much as a duck, then it must be... A witch!" – Scott Rowe Dec 10 '22 at 00:04
  • @causative, are you suggesting that some people think that other people don't know that classifications are based on similar traits so they need to be told that? – David Gudeman Dec 11 '22 at 00:23
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    @DavidGudeman Well, you're responding to tone and subtext then, not the direct meaning of the "looks like a duck" expression. As a general comment, what seems obvious to one person is often not obvious at all to another, and in fact the other person may not agree with it. It is clearer for everyone to explicitly state even what seems obvious to them, to avoid misunderstandings. – causative Dec 11 '22 at 04:21
  • @causative, but that's not the way that language works. Oblique language is probably more common than direct language. I'm just trying to point out that just because something looks superficially like a logical argument, that doesn't mean that it is. – David Gudeman Dec 11 '22 at 05:43
  • @DavidGudeman It's not logical to ignore the direct content of what someone is saying. Perhaps with the duck expression the speaker does mean to connote, "I am obviously right"; people often (perhaps even usually) mean to connote they are obviously right, no matter what argument they are making. But simply because they are connoting that they are obviously right, does not refute the direct content, which they are also saying. Regardless of what might be connoted, you have to directly address their direct content to logically refute them. – causative Dec 11 '22 at 14:16
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    Incidentally I do not consider the duck expression terribly obvious. As an a priori statement it is false; sometimes, objects may share several external attributes of a class without being part of the class. The duck expression is really a heuristic, that usually sharing external attributes of a class is enough to place an object in the class, and a claim that this heuristic is relevant in context. – causative Dec 11 '22 at 14:19
  • @causative, "As an a priori statement it is false". Of course it is. As I said in my answer, it is not meant to describe any sort of logical or biological principle. If it were, it would be clearly false. – David Gudeman Dec 12 '22 at 06:53
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    @DavidGudeman Heuristics are normally false if misinterpreted as deductive claims about what must always happen. The world does not tend to submit itself to pure deduction. Nonetheless, heuristics are very useful for making educated guesses about what will usually happen in a given scenario. – causative Dec 12 '22 at 13:24
  • My use of the duck analogy is the following: starting from a state of complete ignorance about being a duck or not (equally likely to be or not) then the evidence (walks like it, swims, quacks, etc) make one option increasingly more probable than the other. This is also a statistical inference method. – Nikos M. Dec 16 '22 at 23:46