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Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

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Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#31

Post by GalacticDomin8r »

snowwrestler wrote: post #12

Deductive logical systems cannot reliably find truth. That is the lesson of the scientific revolution and the revolution in mathematics that is most closely associated with Godel. Yet when people invoke "logical fallacies" they are almost always fallacies in deductive logic. Hey Internet--how about catching up to the 19th century and employing some inductive reasoning in your arguments? The problem with that, though,…

> Deductive logical systems cannot reliably find truth.

Don't you mean inductive.

> That is the lesson of the scientific revolution and the revolution in mathematics that is most closely associated with Godel.

A lesson which hasn't permeated the "scientific revolution" perhaps with good reason.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#32

Post by nileshtrivedi »

I'm surprised that neither the article nor the comments here mention the "principle of charity". I read about this early in my study of logic and philosophy.

It basically says that, if your objective is to discover truth rather than to win a debate, you ought to grant the best possible interpretation of the speaker's statement instead of focusing on narrow and literal interpretations which contain obvious logical fallacies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#33

Post by Arguggi »

msg wrote: post #26
Arguggi wrote: post #23

Am I the only one troubled by the last example? And then suppose you encounter a woman who tells you that because of the insults she has received from guys in the skeptic community, she has decided that the skeptic movement is fundamentally sexist. Receiving insults from men that identify as skeptics does not mean that the skeptic movement is fundamentally sexist. Telling her she just committed a fallacy doesn't seem…

She may have just committed a fallacy in truth. That doesn't mean telling her so is the right choice. If you don't address her experience, you're missing the point. You can "believe" all kinds of things without feeling them and living them out. In her case, skeptics may believe they are not fundamentally sexist. But her observation would then be that this belief is only skin deep. It should trouble the skeptic that a…

I agree that only answering "You just committed a fallacy, goodbye" would not be the right choice, but at least mentioning it and then try to explain why I think it's relevant doesn't seem so wrong.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#34

Post by MDCore »

khyryk wrote: post #25

> And then suppose you encounter a woman who tells you that because of the insults she has received from guys in the skeptic community, she has decided that the skeptic movement is fundamentally sexist . (Emphasis mine.) And later: > This woman has confided her experiences and concerns; in these responses, you are insultingly and condescendingly attempting to diminish them, by portraying her experiences as irrelevant…

You've fallen into the trap the article talks about, in expecting the woman in the story to be talking logically and therefore held to a high standard of discourse.

People say over-the-top, outrageous things out of emotionality, when they may mean something far less or completely different.

Instead of seeing the woman's statements as a logical argument, one should see them as the expressions of emotion that they are, and try to engage in talk that connects to the emotions and experiences underneath.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#35

Post by wtallis »

Alex3917 wrote: post #21
aethertap wrote: post #3

For me, fallacies are a great tool for recognizing bad reasoning, which then provides pointers about how to expose it as such using a real argument. The fallacy itself doesn't constitute a counter argument. In a good debate, the fallacies themselves never come up but you can see how they have influenced the flow of argument. I really liked how it was put in the book Logical Self-Defense: To be valid, an argument has…

"The fallacy itself doesn't constitute a counter argument." Why not? It doesn't prove that what the other person believes is false, but it does show that their reasons/evidence for their view are wrong. (Assuming the logical fallacy isn't itself a straw man against some minor point in the other person's argument.) And it's usually it's not necessary (or even possible) to prove that x is false, only that there's no ra…

Perhaps its clearer to say that pointing out a fallacy is an argument against their argument, but not an argument against their claim. When you dismantle an argument as fallacious, you're just leveling the playing field; you can't actually refute a claim that way.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#37

Post by bengillies »

Alex3917 wrote: post #21
aethertap wrote: post #3

For me, fallacies are a great tool for recognizing bad reasoning, which then provides pointers about how to expose it as such using a real argument. The fallacy itself doesn't constitute a counter argument. In a good debate, the fallacies themselves never come up but you can see how they have influenced the flow of argument. I really liked how it was put in the book Logical Self-Defense: To be valid, an argument has…

"The fallacy itself doesn't constitute a counter argument." Why not? It doesn't prove that what the other person believes is false, but it does show that their reasons/evidence for their view are wrong. (Assuming the logical fallacy isn't itself a straw man against some minor point in the other person's argument.) And it's usually it's not necessary (or even possible) to prove that x is false, only that there's no ra…

> Why not?

Because, while it's a perfectly valid argument to make, technically winning an argument is different to actually winning an argument.

If most people don't know what a logical fallacy is, then you may as well be referring to the argument from magic pixies and fairy dust fallacy: they won't care or understand what you're saying. At worst, they'll assume you have an unwelcome air superiority about you and they'll start to ignore everything else you say as well.

The sad fact is that people listen to emotions because they can relate to them and, however invalid such an argument is, it's often the argument that wins.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#39

Post by ionforce »

JasonFruit wrote: post #6

Far too often, logical fallacies are invoked in order to run away from an argument. I think this is the core point: the fallacy-lobbers are often looking to dismiss the entire conversation rather than trying to participate in it. There's no counter-argument; instead, the message is, "You're too dumb to bother with." That may sometimes be true, but it's never conducive to enlightening discussion.

I don't agree with this. I think the root problem in many "arguments" is that the two parties are speaking completely different languages or using two different rule sets. One side will use logical sounding arguments that aren't really logical, and the other side will actually use logic. The logical side isn't "running away" from this argument. They are taking it head on, as an argument should be taken.

Or, you both need to admit to yourselves that what is going on is just political theater and not really argumentation. Which is fine, but just different.

But let's not throw away all of our logical tools because some idiot doesn't know how to use them.

Re: Logical Fallacies Are Usually Irrelevant or Cited Incorrectly

#40

Post by abraininavat »

Nursie wrote: post #14
JasonFruit wrote: post #6

Far too often, logical fallacies are invoked in order to run away from an argument. I think this is the core point: the fallacy-lobbers are often looking to dismiss the entire conversation rather than trying to participate in it. There's no counter-argument; instead, the message is, "You're too dumb to bother with." That may sometimes be true, but it's never conducive to enlightening discussion.

I totally agree with his assessment of the misuse of the term ad-hominem too. An ad-hom fallacy is "your argument is wrong because you're an immoral moron", not "your argument is wrong for these reasons, you immoral moron". The latter is not very nice and probably shouldn't be encouraged, but it's not an ad-hominem because the insult is not part of the argument, just an unpleasant aside.

While I agree with you for the most part, the context and nature of the debate is important. In a casual conversation that happens to be an argument, there's (usually) some semblance of a logical argument that can be teased out from a large amount of non-logical communication. In that context, picking on any of that non-logical communication and calling it a fallacy is silly.

In the context of a real debate, however, when each party has the goal of arguing a side, and an audience is there to hear and evaluate each party's words in the context of the argument, I think a phrase like "you immoral moron" is indeed to be taken as an ad-hominum. In that situation every statement is assumed to be part of your argument.

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