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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 a

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.

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.