12 ms·

Logical Fallacies

141 points by keskadale 6y ago

Smaug123 6y ago
My objection to this kind of thing continues to be: having lists of fallacies arms everyone with fully general counterarguments that permit everyone to avoid thinking. No argument on anything important is watertight; every important argument is fallacious in some way; dismissing every fallacious argument will allow you to "win" every argument simply by pointing out all the ways in which your opponent is wrong, without ever actually arguing in favour of anything.
- ignoramous 6y ago
  Fallacies and mental models (like precepts) are also for one to internalize. Not to really only use in debates to win arguments. Unless one a lawyer or a politician or something that stands to gain from untoward made-up agendas. As with anything, the first step is awareness of the flaws, followed by working to correct those to whatever extent one can.
  - Smaug123 6y ago
    Indeed! But the site emphatically does not lead with the lesson that the proper use of fallacy-knowledge is to give you the tools to examine your own thoughts. I hold a weak belief that bare lists of fallacies do more harm than good because they don't install the necessary prerequisite of epistemic uncertainty.
- rwoerz 6y ago
  "everyone" sounds like hasty generalization [1] SCNR [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization#Hasty_generalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization#Hasty_ge...
  - Smaug123 6y ago
    Whom does it not so arm?
- eeZah7Ux 6y ago
  > every important argument is fallacious in some way An argument can be profoundly fallacious or not. A solid argument, pretty much by definition, is solid because there aren't obvious fallacies in it. > dismissing every fallacious argument will allow you to "win" every argument simply by pointing out all the ways in which your opponent is wrong No: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy
  - Smaug123 6y ago
    Obviously it's bad logic. I put it in scare quotes for a reason. But having lists of fallacies available makes it a lot easier to commit this particular error of reasoning. I'm not sure I've ever witnessed an argument between normal people which was assisted by one party naming a fallacy.
- f154hfds 6y ago
  It's interesting - I would think the exact opposite of what you said is true. If people are going to have a meaningful debate, or at least present water-tight arguments to back up some conclusion, they must be aware and explain how these fallacies don't apply in their circumstance. I have the third book in the book list at the bottom of the article, the Art of Argument (and I happen know the authors, which is fun but irrelevant). Many of their examples in the book are actually advertisements, which try to subtly persuade bordering on manipulation. Why would you not want to have tools in your reasoning arsenal to catch manipulation? I should also add that one of the most successful modern fallacies is the straw man, and it crushes meaningful political discourse. How can pointing out a straw man "permit everyone to avoid thinking"? Fallacy awareness actually helps people avoid getting caught in traps on both sides of an argument. I would say this knowledge adds to discourse when used appropriately.
  - casion 6y ago
    > I would say this knowledge adds to discourse when used appropriately. We could say this about very nearly everything that exists.
  - Smaug123 6y ago
    > How can pointing out a straw man permit everyone to avoid thinking? Because pointing out fallacies is not argument, but feels a lot like it is. Pointing out fallacies allows you to defeat any other argument, but it does not allow you to take a position for anything. It is the perfect tool for allowing you to entrench yourself in your original view, by handily defeating those who would assail you in a fully general way that applies however correct you are. Merely saying "but to do so is to commit the fallacy fallacy" doesn't change the fact that it happens extremely commonly. It's the "when used appropriately" that's the issue. A list of fallacies is probably a good thing to have access to after you've somehow had epistemic humility installed in you. But epistemic humility does not come naturally to most people, and must be taught.
- AussieWog93 6y ago
  Trying to win arguments by just pointing out fallacies is on the list of fallacies too. It's called "Fallacy fallacy".
  - Smaug123 6y ago
    That doesn't change the fact that having access to the resource makes it much easier to commit this fallacy. It's a rare environment where naming a fallacy actually contributes positively to the epistemic atmosphere. It's rather analogous to giving someone access to an easy-to-use extremely-high-power energy source, with a small warning label saying "caution: danger of death", and a wide array of cables and electrical components, and saying "go forth". If you know what you're doing, these components are useful and will allow you to construct safe things. If you don't know what you're doing, you kill yourself with them.
- the_snooze 6y ago
  I'm on the same boat. From my experience, too often people use these lists as cheap shots against someone's position without actually engaging with those views in good faith. A far more productive way to use knowledge of fallacies is to improve your own reasoning and positioning, not attack others'.
clarifier123 6y ago
Slippery slope isn't a logical fallacy. It's often being incorrectly used, usually as a result of the continuum fallacy, but it isn't a fallacy in and of itself.
orange_tee 6y ago
I am not well versed into how these logical fallacies are supposed to be applied. Everyone is operating with imperfect information, so no implication will ever be 100% logically tight. For example, using "appeal to authority", it is logically true that just because a group of Fields Medalists think your proof is wrong, does not necessarily mean that your proof is wrong. But in practice, there is a very high chance you are in the wrong. Logical fallacies are binary, but the world is more stochastic, so I may be wrong, but I think these logical fallacies do not actually apply to reasoning about the real world. They only work when applied to thought experiments. But I am no philosopher so I do not know for sure.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Determinations of chance aren't material, they're a matter of perspective and a tool to use when making decisions. The chance that a wrong proof is correct is 0%, and the chance that a correct proof is correct is 100%, no matter what any selection of Fields medalists feel about it. Whether, when you're making a business decision, you go with the lone whacko or the Fields medalists is a different question.
- nkozyra 6y ago
  Argumentative logical fallacies apply to conclusions/truths, not suspicions or intuitions. They're meant to do exactly what you are asking for here: eliminate a binary rule from deduction.
- syops 6y ago
  An argument can be logically sound but with a false conclusion. An argument can be logically invalid but with a correct conclusion. The role of logical fallacies is to point out unsound reasoning. They don’t demonstrate veracity or lack thereof. Regarding the appeal to authority fallacy you mentioned. I personally do not believe this is a fallacy. I do agree that the appeal to false authority is a fallacy. We all have to rely on the expertise of others for much of what we believe to be true. Of course said beliefs might be wrong but relying on expert knowledge is not a fallacy in and of itself in my opinion.
  - 6y ago
greatgib 6y ago
I'm sceptical of this website. It looks like that it intermixed a few things that are not logical fallacies in order to appear to have more content to sell books that are more than a few pages thick. Example:. https://www.logicalfallacies.org/shotgun-argumentation.html https://www.logicalfallacies.org/shotgun-argumentation.html <<A student argues that he didn't do his homework because, he had lost his backpack, and when he found it the notebook was not in there, and it turned out that the dog had eaten his notebook.>> It is clearly not a logical fallacies case: either it is a lie, or if it is the truth, it is a logical explanation of the chain of unfortunate events that resulted in the student not to able to deliver.
- glenstein 6y ago
  It could be both. You can make an untruthful statement about why you didn't do your homework, and the untruthful statement can be logically fallacious as well as untruthful. I don't believe that one precludes the other. I would even go so far as to say that those properties frequently go hand in hand.
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    The GP leveled criticism at the specific example which does not contain a logical inconsistency. I’d go further and say that the linked page doesn’t accurately describe the fallacy. The first part of the fallacy is offering so many arguments (or even just arguments swamped in endless text) your opponent can’t or won’t respond to everything. (There’s also generally an implication that these arguments are known by the “spewer” to be tenuous or outright fallacious.) The second part is claiming that an opponent’s lack of response to any or all of the arguments means the opponent is wrong. To me, the first part is just bad faith, but it’s not necessarily illogical. It’s the second part that makes it a fallacy.
    - glenstein 6y ago
      >which does not contain a logical inconsistency. Are you sure we're reading the same page? Most things described as "logical fallacies" are informal anyway, and have nothing to do with "logic": they're not expressed in the form of a formal Quinean logical syllogism that maps out truth tables with elemental logical operators like AND, XAND, IFF etc. The only work the word "logic" is doing here is not as a formal term but as a vague complement that approximately means something like "rational." And invoking that term, or witholding it is just a personal expression of whether you like something enough to award it a merit badge that has the word "logical" on it. It's just playing calvinball. >The second part is claiming that an opponent’s lack of response to any or all of the arguments means the opponent is wrong. This is just incoherent to me. Second part? The page isn't grouped into parts. I'm assuming you mean the second half of the sentence explaining the shotgun fallacy. But the second half of the sentence isn't expressing a second, isolated idea. The whole thing together describes a rhetorical strategy for expressing an argument that attempts to escape refutation. It's as real as any other informal fallacy. If it falls short of qualifying for your personal complement that it's "logical", well, either you're referring to formal logic or you're not, and if you're not, then this whole exercise in deeming it "logical" is just a game of calvinball that doesn't have anything to do with anything.
simonh 6y ago
The most useful and effective tool I've come across to use in a debate is to get the two sides to outline the position and argument of their critics as clearly as hey can, to the satisfaction of their critics, before engaging in the debate. That's not really practical in internet forum comment wars, but I think if you come to the table with this spirit in mind it can be very helpful. Arming yourself with rhetorical weapons like this, especially if you rather view them as tools for thinking, will get you some way but I think rarely aid in reaching consensus or understanding where disagreement comes from.
- tpoacher 6y ago
  I recommend an (old) book by Thouless called "Straight and Crooked Thinking" if you can get your hands on a copy. It goes through a list of "dishonest" debate techniques (not necessarily relying on fallacies) and possible techniques to disarm them.
  - layer8 6y ago
    Here is the PDF version linked on the Wikipedia page: http://neglectedbooks.com/Straight_and_Crooked_Thinking.pdf http://neglectedbooks.com/Straight_and_Crooked_Thinking.pdf
    - tpoacher 6y ago
      Amazing find (and website)! Thank you for this!
stonesweep 6y ago
This looks like an advert to try and sell the Amazon books, there's an entire curated wiki available as an alternate resource: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy
minikites 6y ago
I don't understand the appeal of lists like this. Attacking the structure of someone's argument only works in high school debate club, not real discussions with real people, where you need to actually engage with the substance of their argument. This feels like the conversational equivalent of tattling to the teacher and a slim step above criticizing someone's grammar to look smart.
- Veen 6y ago
  Learning about informal fallacies is useful for a couple of good reasons and one bad reason: - They help people to understand why a superficially appealing argument might not be a good argument. It's a useful innoculation against bullshit. Someone who has internalized informal fallacies can use them to spot bad arguments in the media or from politicians, for example. - They help people to avoid using falacious arguments in their own conversations. If a person wants to make a strong case for a position, at work for example, they're more likely to be taken seriously if they avoid bad reasoning. The harmful motivation for someone to be interested in a list like this is that they're effective rhetorical strategies when used with the right audience. If you're interested in persuading people and you aren't very moral, fallacies can be your friend.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Attacking the structure of someone's argument only works in high school debate club That's very much not true. For one thing, academic debate in high school has pretty much the same criteria as it does in a high school. But more importantly: > where you need to actually engage with the substance of their argument Fallacies are, without exceptions, weaknesses in the substance of an argument, or places where it fails to engage with the substance of the argument it is offered against. Identifying them is very useful if you are in a context (like, say, high school or collegiate debate, or, say, a court room) where that arguments engage with each other's substance is critical. Now, in most cases you will leverage the weakness revealed by having identified the fallacy rather than just pointing it out by name, but especially when the audience is familiar with them and the argument is in writing, naming them makes a convenient counterargument macro, as each fallacy is a compact name for a defect in the argument in serving it's purpose.
tpoacher 6y ago
That is NOT what "Informal Fallacy" means. The definition offered is effectively a rewording of the formal fallacy. In fact the very thing that makes an informal fallacy INformal is the fact that from a formal point of view it is not fallacious (i.e. the argument is technically valid) Informality comes from the fact that while technically valid, an informally fallacious argument does not further the conversation, either because there is no universe where the premises could ever be true (i.e. a valid but unsound argument), or because the validity is the result of a "vacuous truth", or because it is structured in such a way that the conclusion, while not invalid, is designed to derail rather than further the conversation in a useful way (i.e. trolling)
anilgulecha 6y ago
One observation I've seen made, and have agreed with time, is that using analogies is bad form in an argument. Once an analogy has been made, the conversation always turns to contorting it to matching the viewpoints by both sides. It's always distracting. If you're reaching for an analogy, spend a bit more time to try to make your point without it.
- FartyMcFarter 6y ago
  Analogies are usually not a proof, but they can help understanding things. If humans were infinitely smart, analogies wouldn't be needed. But since we aren't, we often understand things better by seeing a comparison to something that is more visceral, or that we already know.
- tpoacher 6y ago
  This is because an analogy is in fact a form of fallacious thinking. Except in the case where your analogy is effectively an argument to generalisation, attacked via a specialised example (but arguing only over the generalisable properties). Any other type of analogy immediately falls flat as soon as someone calls out specialised property x that does not hold for oroginal argument y.
- Veen 6y ago
  It’s probably a bad idea to use analogies in a combative argument where participants are more interested in winning than establishing the truth. But analogies are useful cognitive ratchets; they help people to begin to understand difficult abstract concepts, so they are useful when participants are more cooperative than competitive.
- casion 6y ago
  I don't think this is necessarily true. Analogies are useful to help build bridges when two parties have differing corpuses of knowledge. If I want to discuss the merits of different woods in cavaquinho construction with someone that's spent all of their life in an office, then it is almost always easier to work in an analogistic manner that spend hours upon hundreds of hours building up their knowledge. If it's a _debate_ with two parties trying to convince the other of a point, then analogies begin to fall short. You did say _conversation_ though. Not all conversations are debates.
dfgdghdf 6y ago
My personal favourite is the logical-fallacy-fallacy. This is where someone names a logical fallacy that doesn't quite apply, but is close enough to fool people into making it look like they have won debate. An example might be: "Listening to the scientists is just an appeal to authority"
- tpoacher 6y ago
  That's not what that fallacy refers to. What it refers to is the fact that an argument being fallacious is no guarantee that the conclusion doesn't hold in reality. (What you're describing is probably closer to motte and bailey, straw man, and appeal to definition.)
heyflyguy 6y ago
I'll have to bookmark this for my next internet argument.
throw0101a 6y ago
See also: * https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com I don't think it tries to list every one, but mostly the most common ones.
didymospl 6y ago
See also: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ For translations and this wonderful poster that you can hang in your "common sense" coworker's cubicle: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0318/1808/8492/products/FallaciesPoster_HighRes_1800x1800.jpg https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0318/1808/8492/products/Fa...
hntrader 6y ago
The slippery slope fallacy (which I see made the list) is often abused in discourse to argue against anyone proposing that A could plausibly lead to B, even if the person thinks there's a fairly low probability of it playing out. I would go so far as to say it's not a legitimate fallacy. People can both overestimate or underestimate the probability that A will lead to B, but we call the former fallacious and not the latter, which makes no sense. If we think that the former should be validly called the slippery slope fallacy then we need a fallacy for the latter too (inertia fallacy? fallacy of lack of imagination?)
- gdubs 6y ago
  One minute people are judicially applying the Slippery Slope fallacy, and before you know it we’re using it recklessly to dismiss very plausible outcomes. Kidding aside, the point of the Slippery Slope argument isn’t that a chain of events can’t happen or won’t happen - it’s that we can’t assume they will happen.
  - hntrader 6y ago
    I get your point on the definitional nuance, but why don't we have a fallacy for people who assume that something won't happen? Or is this also an instance of the slippery slope fallacy - asserting that A necessarily leads to NOT(B) instead of B? Also I believe my other point stands with respect to how this fallacy is abused in common discourse to score debate points, at least according to my experience. In practice, not many commit this fallacy, since everyone except the most dishonest will admit there's a tiny probability that their causal chain won't play out.
    - gdubs 6y ago
      It’s early here and it’s been about 20 years since my logic course in College, but I’ll give it a shot. This is generally the domain of logic as a formal tool for argumentative analysis. In that context, one is trying to nail down whether an argument is valid or not. It’s important for us to make a distinction between what is logically sound, and what is a hypothetical that can’t be proven. It comes down to feels not reals. Logic is reals. It is a formal system. It helps us ground our thinking. A slope may be indeed slippery, if it can be proven that A leads to Z every time. But usually a Slippery Slope is utilized as a way of scaring people into the assumption that A will lead to Z, even when there’s plenty of off ramps along the way. It’s about certainty vs speculation. To say that, “hey if we start doing A we might end up at Z” is not wrong because we say “might”, and it’s worthy of debating the risks and possibilities. But often people present it as a Truth. And it’s fair to point out that it’s neither a certainty, nor logically sound.
julienreszka 6y ago
There are only two fallacies: anticipation and procrastination. If you're discussing something and it isn't directed towards an immediate course of action, stop already it's not worth wasting your attention.
cycomanic 6y ago
I believe that there is a distinct difference between formal and informal fallacies and how they should be dealt with in a debate. I agree with many here that just pointing out fallacies does not advance the debate, however I believe this only applies to informal fallacies (which are often much less clear cut). To me informal fallacies are often just poor debating style. However formal fallacies should absolutely always be challenged, because the make the argument formally invalid (non sequitur).
known 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
SeeManDo 6y ago
If you can directly identify any of these fallacies while arguing on the internet your stance on the subject instantly becomes correct and the opposing view wrong.
- xdavidliu 6y ago
  perhaps we can add "name-dropping logical fallacies" itself as a logical fallacy X: We shouldn't listen to health experts! They got it wrong at the beginning of the pandemic when they told us not to buy or wear masks, and therefore they are wrong now too! Y: Wait, that doesn't make sense. X: Strawman! Y: Oh sorry sir/madam; you are correct. Please carry on.
- scrooched_moose 6y ago
  See Argument From Fallacy or Fallacy Fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy https://effectiviology.com/fallacy-fallacy/ https://effectiviology.com/fallacy-fallacy/
- randalluk 6y ago
  > If you can directly identify any of these fallacies while arguing on the internet your stance on the subject instantly becomes correct and the opposing view wrong. Elsewhere, this line of reasoning is called the "fallacy fallacy". But the linked site describes the fallacy fallacy as "an argument that is based on false claims, but is logically coherent", which sounds more like a false premise to me.
- LiquidSky 6y ago
  Yeah, that's my problem with these kinds of lists. They've turned from useful tools to help improve thinking/arguments to point cards where you win if can identify one.
ThreeOne 6y ago
Great resource, I'd like to see something similar for cognitive biases.
- jimsmart 6y ago
  Not quite the same as the linked site, but Wikipedia has an extensive list of cognitive biases, most of which link to their own page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
loveistheanswer 6y ago
What about "whataboutism"? It's not listed. Is me asking that question an example of whataboutism? Joking aside, whataboutism is a "logical fallacy" that I see commonly invoked here on HN, most often when the topic is political in nature. It seems like many people want to assert their opponents questions are whataboutism so that they do not have to consider the broader context of the issue, which almost always would invalidate the narrow, one sided, siloed analysis which they are desperately clinging to. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#Defense https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#Defense
dooglius 6y ago
This sort of thing really isn't all that useful, since no argument outside of pure mathematics is logically airtight. In particular, arguments accused of employing a slippery slope fallacy or no true scotsman fallacy are not generally bad forms of argument.
jgtrosh 6y ago
> Women should be able to have abortions, so abortion should be legal and easily available. This is given as the second example for circular reasoning, but I don't agree. I think it's a simple logical statement that doesn't prove its prerequisite.
ochronus 6y ago
I’ve written about how we use some of these fallacies in our arguments because of the core fallacy: we think we have to win arguments. https://ochronus.online/how-to-stop-winning-arguments/ https://ochronus.online/how-to-stop-winning-arguments/
musicale 6y ago
AKA "A guide to typical arguments, political and otherwise, with special applicability to online discourse." That being said, where's the favorite of the moment, "guilt by association?"

141 points by keskadale 6y ago

My objection to this kind of thing continues to be: having lists of fallacies arms everyone with fully general counterarguments that permit everyone to avoid thinking. No argument on anything important is watertight; every important argument is fallacious in some way; dismissing every fallacious argument will allow you to "win" every argument simply by pointing out all the ways in which your opponent is wrong, without ever actually arguing in favour of anything.

ignoramous 6y ago
Fallacies and mental models (like precepts) are also for one to internalize. Not to really only use in debates to win arguments. Unless one a lawyer or a politician or something that stands to gain from untoward made-up agendas. As with anything, the first step is awareness of the flaws, followed by working to correct those to whatever extent one can.
- Smaug123 6y ago
  Indeed! But the site emphatically does not lead with the lesson that the proper use of fallacy-knowledge is to give you the tools to examine your own thoughts. I hold a weak belief that bare lists of fallacies do more harm than good because they don't install the necessary prerequisite of epistemic uncertainty.
rwoerz 6y ago
"everyone" sounds like hasty generalization [1] SCNR [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization#Hasty_generalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faulty_generalization#Hasty_ge...
- Smaug123 6y ago
  Whom does it not so arm?
eeZah7Ux 6y ago
> every important argument is fallacious in some way An argument can be profoundly fallacious or not. A solid argument, pretty much by definition, is solid because there aren't obvious fallacies in it. > dismissing every fallacious argument will allow you to "win" every argument simply by pointing out all the ways in which your opponent is wrong No: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/the-fallacy-fallacy
- Smaug123 6y ago
  Obviously it's bad logic. I put it in scare quotes for a reason. But having lists of fallacies available makes it a lot easier to commit this particular error of reasoning. I'm not sure I've ever witnessed an argument between normal people which was assisted by one party naming a fallacy.
f154hfds 6y ago
It's interesting - I would think the exact opposite of what you said is true. If people are going to have a meaningful debate, or at least present water-tight arguments to back up some conclusion, they must be aware and explain how these fallacies don't apply in their circumstance. I have the third book in the book list at the bottom of the article, the Art of Argument (and I happen know the authors, which is fun but irrelevant). Many of their examples in the book are actually advertisements, which try to subtly persuade bordering on manipulation. Why would you not want to have tools in your reasoning arsenal to catch manipulation? I should also add that one of the most successful modern fallacies is the straw man, and it crushes meaningful political discourse. How can pointing out a straw man "permit everyone to avoid thinking"? Fallacy awareness actually helps people avoid getting caught in traps on both sides of an argument. I would say this knowledge adds to discourse when used appropriately.
- casion 6y ago
  > I would say this knowledge adds to discourse when used appropriately. We could say this about very nearly everything that exists.
- Smaug123 6y ago
  > How can pointing out a straw man permit everyone to avoid thinking? Because pointing out fallacies is not argument, but feels a lot like it is. Pointing out fallacies allows you to defeat any other argument, but it does not allow you to take a position for anything. It is the perfect tool for allowing you to entrench yourself in your original view, by handily defeating those who would assail you in a fully general way that applies however correct you are. Merely saying "but to do so is to commit the fallacy fallacy" doesn't change the fact that it happens extremely commonly. It's the "when used appropriately" that's the issue. A list of fallacies is probably a good thing to have access to after you've somehow had epistemic humility installed in you. But epistemic humility does not come naturally to most people, and must be taught.
AussieWog93 6y ago
Trying to win arguments by just pointing out fallacies is on the list of fallacies too. It's called "Fallacy fallacy".
- Smaug123 6y ago
  That doesn't change the fact that having access to the resource makes it much easier to commit this fallacy. It's a rare environment where naming a fallacy actually contributes positively to the epistemic atmosphere. It's rather analogous to giving someone access to an easy-to-use extremely-high-power energy source, with a small warning label saying "caution: danger of death", and a wide array of cables and electrical components, and saying "go forth". If you know what you're doing, these components are useful and will allow you to construct safe things. If you don't know what you're doing, you kill yourself with them.
the_snooze 6y ago
I'm on the same boat. From my experience, too often people use these lists as cheap shots against someone's position without actually engaging with those views in good faith. A far more productive way to use knowledge of fallacies is to improve your own reasoning and positioning, not attack others'.

clarifier123 6y ago

Slippery slope isn't a logical fallacy. It's often being incorrectly used, usually as a result of the continuum fallacy, but it isn't a fallacy in and of itself.

orange_tee 6y ago

I am not well versed into how these logical fallacies are supposed to be applied. Everyone is operating with imperfect information, so no implication will ever be 100% logically tight. For example, using "appeal to authority", it is logically true that just because a group of Fields Medalists think your proof is wrong, does not necessarily mean that your proof is wrong. But in practice, there is a very high chance you are in the wrong. Logical fallacies are binary, but the world is more stochastic, so I may be wrong, but I think these logical fallacies do not actually apply to reasoning about the real world. They only work when applied to thought experiments. But I am no philosopher so I do not know for sure.

pessimizer 6y ago
Determinations of chance aren't material, they're a matter of perspective and a tool to use when making decisions. The chance that a wrong proof is correct is 0%, and the chance that a correct proof is correct is 100%, no matter what any selection of Fields medalists feel about it. Whether, when you're making a business decision, you go with the lone whacko or the Fields medalists is a different question.
nkozyra 6y ago
Argumentative logical fallacies apply to conclusions/truths, not suspicions or intuitions. They're meant to do exactly what you are asking for here: eliminate a binary rule from deduction.
syops 6y ago
An argument can be logically sound but with a false conclusion. An argument can be logically invalid but with a correct conclusion. The role of logical fallacies is to point out unsound reasoning. They don’t demonstrate veracity or lack thereof. Regarding the appeal to authority fallacy you mentioned. I personally do not believe this is a fallacy. I do agree that the appeal to false authority is a fallacy. We all have to rely on the expertise of others for much of what we believe to be true. Of course said beliefs might be wrong but relying on expert knowledge is not a fallacy in and of itself in my opinion.
- 6y ago

greatgib 6y ago

I'm sceptical of this website. It looks like that it intermixed a few things that are not logical fallacies in order to appear to have more content to sell books that are more than a few pages thick. Example:. https://www.logicalfallacies.org/shotgun-argumentation.html https://www.logicalfallacies.org/shotgun-argumentation.html <<A student argues that he didn't do his homework because, he had lost his backpack, and when he found it the notebook was not in there, and it turned out that the dog had eaten his notebook.>> It is clearly not a logical fallacies case: either it is a lie, or if it is the truth, it is a logical explanation of the chain of unfortunate events that resulted in the student not to able to deliver.

glenstein 6y ago
It could be both. You can make an untruthful statement about why you didn't do your homework, and the untruthful statement can be logically fallacious as well as untruthful. I don't believe that one precludes the other. I would even go so far as to say that those properties frequently go hand in hand.
- cgriswald 6y ago
  The GP leveled criticism at the specific example which does not contain a logical inconsistency. I’d go further and say that the linked page doesn’t accurately describe the fallacy. The first part of the fallacy is offering so many arguments (or even just arguments swamped in endless text) your opponent can’t or won’t respond to everything. (There’s also generally an implication that these arguments are known by the “spewer” to be tenuous or outright fallacious.) The second part is claiming that an opponent’s lack of response to any or all of the arguments means the opponent is wrong. To me, the first part is just bad faith, but it’s not necessarily illogical. It’s the second part that makes it a fallacy.
  - glenstein 6y ago
    >which does not contain a logical inconsistency. Are you sure we're reading the same page? Most things described as "logical fallacies" are informal anyway, and have nothing to do with "logic": they're not expressed in the form of a formal Quinean logical syllogism that maps out truth tables with elemental logical operators like AND, XAND, IFF etc. The only work the word "logic" is doing here is not as a formal term but as a vague complement that approximately means something like "rational." And invoking that term, or witholding it is just a personal expression of whether you like something enough to award it a merit badge that has the word "logical" on it. It's just playing calvinball. >The second part is claiming that an opponent’s lack of response to any or all of the arguments means the opponent is wrong. This is just incoherent to me. Second part? The page isn't grouped into parts. I'm assuming you mean the second half of the sentence explaining the shotgun fallacy. But the second half of the sentence isn't expressing a second, isolated idea. The whole thing together describes a rhetorical strategy for expressing an argument that attempts to escape refutation. It's as real as any other informal fallacy. If it falls short of qualifying for your personal complement that it's "logical", well, either you're referring to formal logic or you're not, and if you're not, then this whole exercise in deeming it "logical" is just a game of calvinball that doesn't have anything to do with anything.

simonh 6y ago

The most useful and effective tool I've come across to use in a debate is to get the two sides to outline the position and argument of their critics as clearly as hey can, to the satisfaction of their critics, before engaging in the debate. That's not really practical in internet forum comment wars, but I think if you come to the table with this spirit in mind it can be very helpful. Arming yourself with rhetorical weapons like this, especially if you rather view them as tools for thinking, will get you some way but I think rarely aid in reaching consensus or understanding where disagreement comes from.

tpoacher 6y ago
I recommend an (old) book by Thouless called "Straight and Crooked Thinking" if you can get your hands on a copy. It goes through a list of "dishonest" debate techniques (not necessarily relying on fallacies) and possible techniques to disarm them.
- layer8 6y ago
  Here is the PDF version linked on the Wikipedia page: http://neglectedbooks.com/Straight_and_Crooked_Thinking.pdf http://neglectedbooks.com/Straight_and_Crooked_Thinking.pdf
  - tpoacher 6y ago
    Amazing find (and website)! Thank you for this!

stonesweep 6y ago

This looks like an advert to try and sell the Amazon books, there's an entire curated wiki available as an alternate resource: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Logical_fallacy

minikites 6y ago

I don't understand the appeal of lists like this. Attacking the structure of someone's argument only works in high school debate club, not real discussions with real people, where you need to actually engage with the substance of their argument. This feels like the conversational equivalent of tattling to the teacher and a slim step above criticizing someone's grammar to look smart.

Veen 6y ago
Learning about informal fallacies is useful for a couple of good reasons and one bad reason: - They help people to understand why a superficially appealing argument might not be a good argument. It's a useful innoculation against bullshit. Someone who has internalized informal fallacies can use them to spot bad arguments in the media or from politicians, for example. - They help people to avoid using falacious arguments in their own conversations. If a person wants to make a strong case for a position, at work for example, they're more likely to be taken seriously if they avoid bad reasoning. The harmful motivation for someone to be interested in a list like this is that they're effective rhetorical strategies when used with the right audience. If you're interested in persuading people and you aren't very moral, fallacies can be your friend.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Attacking the structure of someone's argument only works in high school debate club That's very much not true. For one thing, academic debate in high school has pretty much the same criteria as it does in a high school. But more importantly: > where you need to actually engage with the substance of their argument Fallacies are, without exceptions, weaknesses in the substance of an argument, or places where it fails to engage with the substance of the argument it is offered against. Identifying them is very useful if you are in a context (like, say, high school or collegiate debate, or, say, a court room) where that arguments engage with each other's substance is critical. Now, in most cases you will leverage the weakness revealed by having identified the fallacy rather than just pointing it out by name, but especially when the audience is familiar with them and the argument is in writing, naming them makes a convenient counterargument macro, as each fallacy is a compact name for a defect in the argument in serving it's purpose.

tpoacher 6y ago

That is NOT what "Informal Fallacy" means. The definition offered is effectively a rewording of the formal fallacy. In fact the very thing that makes an informal fallacy INformal is the fact that from a formal point of view it is not fallacious (i.e. the argument is technically valid) Informality comes from the fact that while technically valid, an informally fallacious argument does not further the conversation, either because there is no universe where the premises could ever be true (i.e. a valid but unsound argument), or because the validity is the result of a "vacuous truth", or because it is structured in such a way that the conclusion, while not invalid, is designed to derail rather than further the conversation in a useful way (i.e. trolling)

anilgulecha 6y ago

One observation I've seen made, and have agreed with time, is that using analogies is bad form in an argument. Once an analogy has been made, the conversation always turns to contorting it to matching the viewpoints by both sides. It's always distracting. If you're reaching for an analogy, spend a bit more time to try to make your point without it.

FartyMcFarter 6y ago
Analogies are usually not a proof, but they can help understanding things. If humans were infinitely smart, analogies wouldn't be needed. But since we aren't, we often understand things better by seeing a comparison to something that is more visceral, or that we already know.
tpoacher 6y ago
This is because an analogy is in fact a form of fallacious thinking. Except in the case where your analogy is effectively an argument to generalisation, attacked via a specialised example (but arguing only over the generalisable properties). Any other type of analogy immediately falls flat as soon as someone calls out specialised property x that does not hold for oroginal argument y.
Veen 6y ago
It’s probably a bad idea to use analogies in a combative argument where participants are more interested in winning than establishing the truth. But analogies are useful cognitive ratchets; they help people to begin to understand difficult abstract concepts, so they are useful when participants are more cooperative than competitive.
casion 6y ago
I don't think this is necessarily true. Analogies are useful to help build bridges when two parties have differing corpuses of knowledge. If I want to discuss the merits of different woods in cavaquinho construction with someone that's spent all of their life in an office, then it is almost always easier to work in an analogistic manner that spend hours upon hundreds of hours building up their knowledge. If it's a _debate_ with two parties trying to convince the other of a point, then analogies begin to fall short. You did say _conversation_ though. Not all conversations are debates.

dfgdghdf 6y ago

My personal favourite is the logical-fallacy-fallacy. This is where someone names a logical fallacy that doesn't quite apply, but is close enough to fool people into making it look like they have won debate. An example might be: "Listening to the scientists is just an appeal to authority"

tpoacher 6y ago
That's not what that fallacy refers to. What it refers to is the fact that an argument being fallacious is no guarantee that the conclusion doesn't hold in reality. (What you're describing is probably closer to motte and bailey, straw man, and appeal to definition.)

heyflyguy 6y ago

I'll have to bookmark this for my next internet argument.

throw0101a 6y ago

See also: * https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com I don't think it tries to list every one, but mostly the most common ones.

didymospl 6y ago

See also: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ For translations and this wonderful poster that you can hang in your "common sense" coworker's cubicle: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0318/1808/8492/products/FallaciesPoster_HighRes_1800x1800.jpg https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0318/1808/8492/products/Fa...

hntrader 6y ago

The slippery slope fallacy (which I see made the list) is often abused in discourse to argue against anyone proposing that A could plausibly lead to B, even if the person thinks there's a fairly low probability of it playing out. I would go so far as to say it's not a legitimate fallacy. People can both overestimate or underestimate the probability that A will lead to B, but we call the former fallacious and not the latter, which makes no sense. If we think that the former should be validly called the slippery slope fallacy then we need a fallacy for the latter too (inertia fallacy? fallacy of lack of imagination?)

gdubs 6y ago
One minute people are judicially applying the Slippery Slope fallacy, and before you know it we’re using it recklessly to dismiss very plausible outcomes. Kidding aside, the point of the Slippery Slope argument isn’t that a chain of events can’t happen or won’t happen - it’s that we can’t assume they will happen.
- hntrader 6y ago
  I get your point on the definitional nuance, but why don't we have a fallacy for people who assume that something won't happen? Or is this also an instance of the slippery slope fallacy - asserting that A necessarily leads to NOT(B) instead of B? Also I believe my other point stands with respect to how this fallacy is abused in common discourse to score debate points, at least according to my experience. In practice, not many commit this fallacy, since everyone except the most dishonest will admit there's a tiny probability that their causal chain won't play out.
  - gdubs 6y ago
    It’s early here and it’s been about 20 years since my logic course in College, but I’ll give it a shot. This is generally the domain of logic as a formal tool for argumentative analysis. In that context, one is trying to nail down whether an argument is valid or not. It’s important for us to make a distinction between what is logically sound, and what is a hypothetical that can’t be proven. It comes down to feels not reals. Logic is reals. It is a formal system. It helps us ground our thinking. A slope may be indeed slippery, if it can be proven that A leads to Z every time. But usually a Slippery Slope is utilized as a way of scaring people into the assumption that A will lead to Z, even when there’s plenty of off ramps along the way. It’s about certainty vs speculation. To say that, “hey if we start doing A we might end up at Z” is not wrong because we say “might”, and it’s worthy of debating the risks and possibilities. But often people present it as a Truth. And it’s fair to point out that it’s neither a certainty, nor logically sound.

julienreszka 6y ago

There are only two fallacies: anticipation and procrastination. If you're discussing something and it isn't directed towards an immediate course of action, stop already it's not worth wasting your attention.

cycomanic 6y ago

I believe that there is a distinct difference between formal and informal fallacies and how they should be dealt with in a debate. I agree with many here that just pointing out fallacies does not advance the debate, however I believe this only applies to informal fallacies (which are often much less clear cut). To me informal fallacies are often just poor debating style. However formal fallacies should absolutely always be challenged, because the make the argument formally invalid (non sequitur).

known 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

SeeManDo 6y ago

If you can directly identify any of these fallacies while arguing on the internet your stance on the subject instantly becomes correct and the opposing view wrong.

xdavidliu 6y ago
perhaps we can add "name-dropping logical fallacies" itself as a logical fallacy X: We shouldn't listen to health experts! They got it wrong at the beginning of the pandemic when they told us not to buy or wear masks, and therefore they are wrong now too! Y: Wait, that doesn't make sense. X: Strawman! Y: Oh sorry sir/madam; you are correct. Please carry on.
scrooched_moose 6y ago
See Argument From Fallacy or Fallacy Fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy https://effectiviology.com/fallacy-fallacy/ https://effectiviology.com/fallacy-fallacy/
randalluk 6y ago
> If you can directly identify any of these fallacies while arguing on the internet your stance on the subject instantly becomes correct and the opposing view wrong. Elsewhere, this line of reasoning is called the "fallacy fallacy". But the linked site describes the fallacy fallacy as "an argument that is based on false claims, but is logically coherent", which sounds more like a false premise to me.
LiquidSky 6y ago
Yeah, that's my problem with these kinds of lists. They've turned from useful tools to help improve thinking/arguments to point cards where you win if can identify one.

ThreeOne 6y ago

Great resource, I'd like to see something similar for cognitive biases.

jimsmart 6y ago
Not quite the same as the linked site, but Wikipedia has an extensive list of cognitive biases, most of which link to their own page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

loveistheanswer 6y ago

What about "whataboutism"? It's not listed. Is me asking that question an example of whataboutism? Joking aside, whataboutism is a "logical fallacy" that I see commonly invoked here on HN, most often when the topic is political in nature. It seems like many people want to assert their opponents questions are whataboutism so that they do not have to consider the broader context of the issue, which almost always would invalidate the narrow, one sided, siloed analysis which they are desperately clinging to. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#Defense https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism#Defense

dooglius 6y ago

This sort of thing really isn't all that useful, since no argument outside of pure mathematics is logically airtight. In particular, arguments accused of employing a slippery slope fallacy or no true scotsman fallacy are not generally bad forms of argument.

jgtrosh 6y ago

> Women should be able to have abortions, so abortion should be legal and easily available. This is given as the second example for circular reasoning, but I don't agree. I think it's a simple logical statement that doesn't prove its prerequisite.

ochronus 6y ago

I’ve written about how we use some of these fallacies in our arguments because of the core fallacy: we think we have to win arguments. https://ochronus.online/how-to-stop-winning-arguments/ https://ochronus.online/how-to-stop-winning-arguments/

musicale 6y ago

AKA "A guide to typical arguments, political and otherwise, with special applicability to online discourse." That being said, where's the favorite of the moment, "guilt by association?"