Talk:Opinion

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This will need a lot of work, but I think it's worth it. I know that there are people out there who have already shown that they can turn such a stub into a great article. Please don't put it on Votes for deletion. <KF> 19:40, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Concerned with article 2 Poor definition 3 Wiktionary definition contradiction? 4 Can we add a ref to epistemology? 5 Can we remove this line?

[edit] Concerned with article

I see no progress with this article. This article surely needs attention, maybe merge with another article. Sorry I'm not bold enough make drastic changes. This might mean homework. Untermenschen 17:47, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I've learnt that there's no point making any changes to articles... the only people with the time to revise them properly are the ill-informed trolls without either day-jobs or social lives that guard these pages.

I'm only editing this, because I searched google for it, and thought it'd take no time to add some shite... how wrong I was... what a waste of time it all is... but I'll leave it now.

You've got to admit, the opinion page not being backed up by any references or fact is pretty hilarious. Agoaj (talk) 20:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Poor definition

This quote at the top:

"If it later becomes proven or verified, it is no longer an opinion, but a fact."

I don't think this makes sense.

You could say that "One definition of an opinion is that it is an interpretation of available information; and an unvalidated argument. Opinions by this definition are prone to being logically fallacious, because this definition of an opinion is an idea that is not asserted as a fact or a truth, and as such does not require evidence to be presented; and thus the conclusion is the premiss: it's a premiss without support; a circular argument without any requirement for evidence."

e.g.: "I think wikipedia is an unreliable source of information, [implicit "because..."]"

This is an opinion; and an (unsupported) argument. It's unsupported because the "evidence" is implicitly that "I wouldn't say it if it weren't true"; that would make it a logical fallacy.

For example you could have an opinion that invokes the fallacy of wishful thinking or the fallacy of unfalsifiability: an error in explanation that occurs when the explanation contains a claim that is not falsifiable, because there is no way to check on the claim. That is, there would be no way to show the claim to be false if it were false. Example:

   He lied because he's possessed by demons.

You can't really prove an evaluation, because there is no objective truth, only theory, which itself is a circulus in probando. You could talk about the probability of it being true or false.

As far as I can tell "verifying an opinion" means "establishing that it exists"; it does not say anything about its validity or "trueness".

Unless, of course, we're going to talk about things like "medical opinion", "scientific opinion" and "legal opinion"; but even these are just interpretations of evidence, and can be prone to fallacy. (I recently had a debate with a Psychology Phd, and he kept "denying the antecedent", quoting all sorts of stuff, but the actual argument he made with all this evidence was the same drum-banging logical fallacy!)

[edit] Wiktionary definition contradiction?

Do you think the Wiktionary definition contradicts some parts of the article? 74.116.137.2 23:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can we add a ref to epistemology?

I'd think that epistemology is all about this kind of concept? --Kim Bruning (talk) 03:55, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Can we remove this line?

Does this line really add anything?

Accordingly, all information on the web, from a surfer's perspective, is better described as opinion rather than fact.

I immediately wanted to facetiously add, "And should you ever find a fact, don't put it on the web: because the web is about opinions, and not facts. If you find a fact, write it down in a book, and put it on the shelf. Make sure it doesn't come anywhere near a computer."

I'm not sure the whole honey-pot of argument is really necessary, though; I'd much rather see the line stricken.

LionKimbro (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 23:45, 11 February 2008 (UTC)