What is "ignotum per ignotius"

n. 1 An attempt to explain something obscure in terms of something else which is even more obscure. 2 (context logic English) A type of fallacious argument in which one attempts to prove something unknown by relying upon an assumption that is also unknown.

Ignotum per ignotius ( Latin for "the unknown by the more unknown") describes an explanation that is less familiar than the concept it would explain.

An example would be: "The oven felt hot because of Fourier's Law." It is unlikely that a person unfamiliar with the hotness of ovens would be enlightened by a reference to a fundamental law of physics. Of course, such a person might exist in theory, so ignotum per ignotius is not strictly a logical fallacy; it is just a criticism of an argument on rhetorical grounds, stating that such an argument is not useful in a particular context.