Ad Hoc

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Revision as of 23:44, 29 January 2014 by Gethbot (talk | contribs) (clean up)

Ad Hoc ("To This") reasoning is where someone fails to understand that there is a difference between argument and explanation. The Ad Hoc fallacy is to give an after-the-fact explanation which doesn't apply to other situations. If we're interested in establishing A, and B is offered as evidence, the statement "A because B" is an argument. If we're trying to establish the truth of B, then "A because B" is not an argument, it's an explanation.

It's a very common sight in justifying edits aimed at any supposedly negative trope, particularly if that edit calls upon things that might have happened to cause the item described.