Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate

http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html

by ffpaladin • 16 years ago

67 32 16 years ago

tudorachim• 16 years ago

I've never heard of a school whose abbreviation is csun; thus, this list probably has a bunch of errors. Not worth the read.

yummyfajitas• 16 years ago

Your argument is logically fallacious, therefore this list has no errors.

gfodor• 16 years ago

Doubly so because it made it to the front page of Hacker News.

pierrefar• 16 years ago

My thinking is that the author has a vested interest in not teaching his opponents the tricks of debating therefore the list is incorrect and incomplete.

waterlesscloud• 16 years ago

He who first resorts to pointing out logical fallacies has lost the debate.

telemachos5• 16 years ago

I'm not sure if you're kidding, but if not, that's an interesting rule of thumb. I can half see your point: when arguing with normal people, if you need to resort to pointing out their fallacies, it's probably not worth it. On the other hand, if you're arguing with a Philosophy major, then pointing out a fallacy doesn't necessarily signal failure. It's closer to starting round two.

SkyMarshal• 16 years ago

The idea isn't to point them out, but to expose them without directly pointing them out.

The article's author has a different idea:

Besides, let's be honest: debate is not just about finding truth, it's also about winning. If you think a fallacious argument can slide by and persuade the judge to vote for you, you're going to make it, right? The trick is not getting caught.

edanm• 16 years ago

The article is talking about a college debate, which has judges and rules, not a regular debate between people. The article also talks about how to point out the logical fallacy in a way that gets you the most points for it (which in some cases involves pointing it out directly, Latin and all, and in some cases doesn't).

ErrantX• 16 years ago

Actually, I'd say not. So long as He has not fallen for any himself it's sure footing to remove counter arguments through their logical failings.

In fact I'd say it is a sure sign of winning a debate :)

DanielBMarkham• 16 years ago

Pet peeve: the confusion of understanding between "logical fallacy" when used in terms of a debate and "logical fallacy" when used in the sens of a mathematical or geometric proof.

Conversations about topics inside a system with a fixed set of consistent rules, like math, consist of not making fallacies. He who makes no fallacies can extend the system in unforeseen ways. This is the search for truth.

Human language and the totality of knowledge is not a formal system with complete rules and non-contradictions, therefore not only will an elimination of fallacies not lead anywhere, it's probably impossible to structure any kind of discussion without introducing one. So if you use a list of fallacies as a way to somehow "ding" an opponent, as if he would only use a fallacy if he were somehow making a mistake, you've missed the point. The author of the article is more correct to say that you're either debating or discussing. If you're debating, you're using all sorts of rhetorical tricks. If you're discussing, you're still using them, but the purpose isn't to score points, it's to find some agreeable progress in mutual understanding.

telemachos5• 16 years ago

A lot to chew on here. First, I think your distinction between mathmatical proofs and everything else (?) is a bit simplistic. Second, you seem to suggest that the non-math side of the divide ("human language") is necessarily not truth seeking and that any attempt to point out a fallacy in such a context is pointless. That strikes me as far too strong.

Imagine I am discussing a topic with someone. The topic might be anything, but let's stipulate that it's not a member of the mathematical proof family that you mention.

If I or the other person commits a logical fallacy and someone points that out, we can avoid one bad outcome: trusting an invalid conclusion. (I'm using 'valid' and 'invalid' in the sense philosophers use it of an argument where the conclusion doesn't logically follow from the premises. An invalid argument may have a true conclusion, but the form of the argument makes it unreliable. Example: My name is Peter. Therefore, I will die. The conclusion is true, but the premise doesn't actually get me there.)

I completely agree that conversation shouldn't be like a scored debate, and so I think pointing out fallacies to ding other people is childish and largely pointless. But if you are actually striving to understand something, then an awareness of (common) fallacies can be very, very useful.

stretchwithme2• 16 years ago

right on. Many disasters can be easily avoided if we challenge the faulty logic involved.

I'd like to see more real debates amongst our decision makers. Everything today is designed to avoid them. We would certainly get better decisions and the mental demands alone will make for sharper leaders.

loup-vaillant3• 16 years ago

> Second, you seem to suggest that the non-math side of the divide ("human language") is necessarily not truth seeking and that any attempt to point out a fallacy in such a context is pointless.

That's a straw man. He said: "it's probably impossible to structure any kind of discussion without introducing [a fallacy]". Because you can't avoid fallacies doesn't mean that pointing to (some of) them is pointless.

I think you agree with Daniel more than you realize.

andrewbaron3• 16 years ago

I was a philosophy major and figured out accidentally in an academic setting that logic was one of my strong suits. After considering law, I decided I didn't want to live my day-to-life dealing with using tactics of logic and the legal system to battle against others. Of all the classes I ever took however, the most useful class for me personally was logic as it did the most to prepare me for doing business deals. Most business deals finally come down to negotiating and its good to make sure you can justify your value and easily knock down anyone who tries to undermine your value, on the spot, especially for fallacious reasons. And the more you have command of logic, the more your other qualities which are helpful for doing business deals may shine. This seems to be the case especially for those who like to design their own deals instead of take a defensive role to the another party's designs. And then comes the discussions of more in-depth terms, and logic becomes more and more useful all the way through the end of a contract. And ultimately, lawyers, who you may depend on for this part of your deal, are not usually meant to act as advisors to your business and tell you what you want to do, they are usually there just to protect you.

As others have pointed out, calling a logical fallacy card to ding an opponent may indeed often miss the point if the objective is to simply win, though I have found in doing business deals, it is logic that is most useful to protect my value and ideas, as opposed to just winning them.

So I would suggest that this is an article worth close study and that leaning about fallacies is a great way to get right at the elements involved in sound logic.

*note: this comment was not meant to be an argument, just a "subjective" comment for consideration.

philwelch2• 16 years ago

Really? I've found that being good at logic (and good reasoning in general) makes me a lot worse at convincing others, because my motivations for believing things depart so much from theirs.

andrewbaron3• 16 years ago

I guess it depends on what industry you are dealing with and on what level. When you are dealing with Hollywood, they tend to pull out ALL the tricks. Protection and savviness on business deals is a must. Its an aggressive world out there and if you are going to take your business out of doing family and friends business, you may need to be prepared for sharks. We have done contracts within many very competitive markets and it can get aggressive out there.

blahedo• 16 years ago

Interestingly, the entire setup of the article---how to use an accusation of "logical fallacy" ("preferably both in Latin and English") to impress a debate judge to dismiss an opponent's argument...

...is itself an argumentum ad verecundiam, an argument to authority!

Which is not to say that it's not a good debate technique. :)

RevRal• 16 years ago

I use this a lot in debate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

(Not itself a fallacy)

grellas• 16 years ago

In law, when logic does not favor your client's position, you are trained to attack in illogical ways that still might win, e.g., appeal to prejudice, attack the person, distort the issues through (subtle) misrepresentations (crude ones being too easily exposed). It can be wearying to listen to this sort of thing being endlessly paraded before any advocate's forum to the detriment of both truth and logic.

This piece gathers and reasonably explains a useful grouping of logical fallacies. Among them: (1) Begging the question ("petitio principii"): "This is the fallacy of assuming, when trying to prove something, what it is that you are trying prove" (for more, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question); (2) Tu quoque ("So's your old man"): "This is the fallacy of defending an error in one's reasoning by pointing out that one's opponent has made the same error."

timwiseman• 16 years ago

It seems that that would be a natural outgrowth of the adversarial system. If your goal is to persuade people and not to find the truth, then it is rational to use any ethical technique available to do so. A more inquisitorial system would largely be able to avoid this issue, but of course it creates issues of its own.

dejb• 16 years ago

This article actually does a good job of explaining both sides of these 'logical fallacies' including why they aren't always invalid. It's the best job I've seen so far of refuting the 'Fallacy Fallacy'. In particular it points out how the 'burden of proof' plays a big part in determining the validity of some arguments.

kees• 16 years ago

The author wrote two other articles about what debaters should know about respectively Law and Economics, which will provide you some basic models to help you in your argumentation and your critical thinking about these subjects as a layman. They are on linked on his homepage http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/dgwdebate.html

Could somebody suggest similar articles about other topics? For example statistics.

dennisgorelik• 16 years ago

Have you noticed that the author is a Libertarian? (From examples of logical fallacies he quotes).

Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate

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