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> That is, learning them will help you identify your own beliefs that are worth questioning. But the OP's point is that they're actually not a particularly goo

> That is, learning them will help you identify your own beliefs that are worth questioning. But the OP's point is that they're actually not a particularly good way of identifying that (particularly the rhetorical fallacies). Many if not most things people believe which are incorrect do not involve any logical fallacy. Conversely, if I wanted to identify which of my current beliefs are probably incorrect, beliefs I hold largely because of the appeal of authorities supporting them, for example, would probably be a very bad place to focus my doubts.

taeric 6y ago
I disagree. Authority is a very common base for why you believe something. In large, we call this trust. It isn't necessarily a bad thing. This can also lead to why a rhetorical won't work. Authority works, but only with a shared belief in the authority. Such that if your message requires a new authority to your audience, it has less of a chance of working. Zero, if there is an active lack of belief in your authority figure. If examined with empathy, it can also let you accept someone's belief without believing it.
- notahacker 6y ago
  I don't think you actually do disagree. :) Authority is a very common base for why I believe things. 'Appeal to authority' is also a classical logical fallacy, i.e. 'but this conflicts with the positions of most scientists' is regarded as a weak and inadmissible argument in a debate versus someone who claims to have performed an experiment themselves. However, this logical fallacy is not particularly useful in assessing which of my own beliefs are incorrect, as suggested by the OP, because beliefs I have in common with most scientists are unlikely to be the beliefs I most need to question.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Many if not most things people believe which are incorrect do not involve any logical fallacy. Every false belief involves a logical fallacy, either the fallacy of false premises or a fallacy of reasoning, because starting with true premises and employing sound logic will always produce a true conclusion.
- coldtea 6y ago
  And herein lies the immaturity the grandparent was talking about. "starting with true premises and employing sound logic will always produce a true conclusion" is only useful where premises can be determined to be true, and the conclusion follows a logical syllogism end to end. This is only done (or even achievable) for quantifiable / statements of fact ("a book is on the table", "the earth is round", "the GDP is 10 trillion" and the like). For 99% of what humans care about - claims and their veracity, values, morals, politics, goals, tastes, aesthetics, interests, etc, there are no "true staatements" to begin with, and many of them doesn't involve a sound logical syllogist-sound process, but only regarding their simplest sub-parts. E.g. two political enemies might have different opinions on what to do with the national debt, but they can agree on the actual amount of the national debt, and use pure logic to calculate it, check where it was spent, etc. That, though, wont help them determine logically and agree on whether something like welfare or military spending is good or bad, and it's usually those latter questions that matter in such discussions. The thing is, people still name all those other things (that are not ammenable to logical process end to end) as true and false, based on their own opinions. Logicians can disagree all they want, this ain't gonna change. And it's those "true" and "false" statements that matter in most arguments, not their less interesting, quantifiable, easily acceptable by everybody and logically analysed brethen. The "let's point people to logical fallacy lists, as the solution" crowd doesn't understand this.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    This. (and even some of those beliefs which can be determined to be true/false aren't determined to be true/false based around representing my beliefs as a logical syllogism. If you want to evaluate whether my belief about the book being on the table is still correct, it's probably more productive to look at the table than evaluate whether my argument depends on implicit premises like my eyesight having been reliable and nobody moving the book in the last five minutes. And if I'm wrong it's probably memory failure or knowledge gaps rather than faith in the premise that the book could not have been moved) And some of my beliefs which are pure logical fallacies when it comes to formal debate like 'Brain Force Plus is unlikely to be a useful nootropic because the man promoting it, Alex Jones, is a mountebank' are actually pretty useful heuristics.

taeric 6y ago

I disagree. Authority is a very common base for why you believe something. In large, we call this trust. It isn't necessarily a bad thing. This can also lead to why a rhetorical won't work. Authority works, but only with a shared belief in the authority. Such that if your message requires a new authority to your audience, it has less of a chance of working. Zero, if there is an active lack of belief in your authority figure. If examined with empathy, it can also let you accept someone's belief without believing it.

notahacker 6y ago
I don't think you actually do disagree. :) Authority is a very common base for why I believe things. 'Appeal to authority' is also a classical logical fallacy, i.e. 'but this conflicts with the positions of most scientists' is regarded as a weak and inadmissible argument in a debate versus someone who claims to have performed an experiment themselves. However, this logical fallacy is not particularly useful in assessing which of my own beliefs are incorrect, as suggested by the OP, because beliefs I have in common with most scientists are unlikely to be the beliefs I most need to question.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Many if not most things people believe which are incorrect do not involve any logical fallacy. Every false belief involves a logical fallacy, either the fallacy of false premises or a fallacy of reasoning, because starting with true premises and employing sound logic will always produce a true conclusion.

coldtea 6y ago
And herein lies the immaturity the grandparent was talking about. "starting with true premises and employing sound logic will always produce a true conclusion" is only useful where premises can be determined to be true, and the conclusion follows a logical syllogism end to end. This is only done (or even achievable) for quantifiable / statements of fact ("a book is on the table", "the earth is round", "the GDP is 10 trillion" and the like). For 99% of what humans care about - claims and their veracity, values, morals, politics, goals, tastes, aesthetics, interests, etc, there are no "true staatements" to begin with, and many of them doesn't involve a sound logical syllogist-sound process, but only regarding their simplest sub-parts. E.g. two political enemies might have different opinions on what to do with the national debt, but they can agree on the actual amount of the national debt, and use pure logic to calculate it, check where it was spent, etc. That, though, wont help them determine logically and agree on whether something like welfare or military spending is good or bad, and it's usually those latter questions that matter in such discussions. The thing is, people still name all those other things (that are not ammenable to logical process end to end) as true and false, based on their own opinions. Logicians can disagree all they want, this ain't gonna change. And it's those "true" and "false" statements that matter in most arguments, not their less interesting, quantifiable, easily acceptable by everybody and logically analysed brethen. The "let's point people to logical fallacy lists, as the solution" crowd doesn't understand this.
- notahacker 6y ago
  This. (and even some of those beliefs which can be determined to be true/false aren't determined to be true/false based around representing my beliefs as a logical syllogism. If you want to evaluate whether my belief about the book being on the table is still correct, it's probably more productive to look at the table than evaluate whether my argument depends on implicit premises like my eyesight having been reliable and nobody moving the book in the last five minutes. And if I'm wrong it's probably memory failure or knowledge gaps rather than faith in the premise that the book could not have been moved) And some of my beliefs which are pure logical fallacies when it comes to formal debate like 'Brain Force Plus is unlikely to be a useful nootropic because the man promoting it, Alex Jones, is a mountebank' are actually pretty useful heuristics.