{"id":2126,"date":"2022-04-06T05:57:48","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T05:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/04\/06\/counterexamples-and-outliers\/"},"modified":"2022-04-06T05:57:48","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T05:57:48","slug":"counterexamples-and-outliers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/04\/06\/counterexamples-and-outliers\/","title":{"rendered":"Counterexamples and Outliers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 13pt;\">An exception to a universal generalization is a counterexample that refutes the generalization. All you need is one. Generic statements cannot, however, be similarly refuted. &#39;Nuns don&#39;t smoke cigars&#39; is a generic statement. If you turn up a nun who smokes cigars I won&#39;t take you to have refuted the generic statement. I&#39;ll dismiss the exception as an &#39;outlier.&#39;&#0160;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 13pt;\">Memo to self: develop this line of thinking and then apply it to &#39;hot button&#39; issues such as race. Is Candace Owens representative of black females or is she an &#39;outlier&#39;? And to which generic statements is she an outlier?&#0160; You won&#39;t touch this question, will you? Not with an eleven-foot pole, which is the pole you use to touch questions you won&#39;t touch&#0160; with a ten-foot pole.&#0160;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia, palatino; font-size: 13pt;\">See my aptly appellated entry, <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/maverick_philosopher\/2016\/11\/generic-statements.html\">Generic Statements<\/a>, for more on generic statements.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An exception to a universal generalization is a counterexample that refutes the generalization. All you need is one. Generic statements cannot, however, be similarly refuted. &#39;Nuns don&#39;t smoke cigars&#39; is a generic statement. If you turn up a nun who smokes cigars I won&#39;t take you to have refuted the generic statement. I&#39;ll dismiss the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2022\/04\/06\/counterexamples-and-outliers\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Counterexamples and Outliers&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[458,108,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-generic-statements","category-logica-docens","category-race"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}