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I for one disagree with the article. Naming fallacies is shortcuts, useful in keeping the discussion focused on topic. If we had to explain why attacking the pr
by dandare 4y ago
I for one disagree with the article. Naming fallacies is shortcuts, useful in keeping the discussion focused on topic. If we had to explain why attacking the proponent instead of the argument is not disproving the argument every time someone uses ad-hominem any discussion would have to be so much longer.
In my experience, it is mostly the people who fall for logical fallacies that complain when the opponent is calling them out.
- naasking 4y agoNaming the fallacy shouldn't be the end of your response though, because you both still disagree. Clearly your interlocutor is trying to point something out, perhaps an observation for which he has only a fallacious explanation, and merely pointing out the fallacy does not dismiss their position or suffice as a response. That's the article's point that calling out fallacies is not substantive discussion.
- elmer007 4y agoRelated to the previous post and to this one (and agreeing with parts of both), I think it's worth mentioning an important aspect a little more explicitly: the conclusion of an argument that contains a fallacy is not necessarily false. The conclusion isn't proven true, but the fallacious reasoning doesn't render it false either. Naming the fallacy can help refute, but it's likely that one needs to go further with their explanation of a differing conclusion (or a more sound reasoning of why the other's conclusion is, in fact, false).
- dandare 4y agoYou just described the fallacy fallacy :)