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Unlike earlier posts in this series, I don't know that I can blame any particular philosopher here for these errors, although it's safe to say that Augustine is one who's useful at correcting one of them.
Here's the deal: There's a whole list of things called "logical fallacies" that aren't. What they actually are is patterns of reasoning that can be used fallaciously, and sometimes are.
Two Examples
An appeal to pity is a fallacy if it's given as a reason to not conclude that someone committed a crime. But reasons for pitying him might be relevant to how harshly the criminal is punished.
Ad hominem arguments attack a person. An attack on a person's character is a fallacy if it's used as an excuse for ignoring his theories in physics, but an attack on Che Guevara's character is a solid objection against quoting him as some sort of moral authority.
A More Bullet-Pointy Explanation
A fallacy is an error in reasoning.
Some fallacies depend ONLY on the structure--on the form, or the pattern of reasoning--of an argument. The pattern itself is bad! ("All X are Y, and all Z are Y, so all X are Z.")
We call these formal fallacies.
But some fallacies depend on structure/form/pattern AND on content, i.e., what the argument is about.
These are called informal fallacies.
Formal fallacies depend only on the way we reason about things; informal fallacies depend in part on the things we're reasoning about.
Some argument patterns are easy to use fallaciously, but . . . it depends on what we’re reasoning about.
These argument patterns are given names, like “appeal to the people” or “attack on the person” or “appeal to authority" or "appeal to pity" or "slippery slope" or "false dilemma" or "false dichotomy" or "false cause" or "appeal to ignorance" or "loaded question."
But they are not inherently fallacious. With these argument patterns, the details of what the argument is about make a difference to whether it is a good argument.
So What's the Point of All This?
People talk about fallacies a lot, but usually not very accurately. One of the worst offenses is when people identify an argument as a slippery slope argument or an appeal to authority or what-have-you as if that settles the matter--as if slippery slope arguments and appeals to authority are all bad arguments. They aren't all bad.
Finding out that an argument has one of these patterns is only the first step. The second step is thinking carefully about what details fill out that pattern, and whether they give us a good argument or not.
And the rest--the rest is examples, I reckon. I recently heard someone suggest that it was an ad hominem fallacy to object to someone's moral position on the grounds that he was a total weirdo and loser, but I don't think that's a fallacy. Maybe some slippery slope arguments used by conservatives were fallacious, but they weren't all. Some arguments from ignorance are ok too.
And the rest is--lots more examples. There's probably no end of them. But this post needs an end, so here it is.
Discussion (39)
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In this general ballpark, I've always stopped short while reading the academic-sounding phrase, "logic dictates". Logic might suggest, even strongly suggest, but it doesn't "dictate". I've seen examples on both left and right. "Paying gang members to stay home and not be criminals is smart policy, and logic dictates that we blah blah..." A lower rent example of this is "it stands to reason". Yeah? Prove it. Make an argument.
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Quite right! Standards of diction and rhetoric have fallen drastically. Perhaps Kamela can be enlisted to right the ship on this critical issue.
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Hitler liked Halbfester Schnittkäse.
You have not proven that you don't like Halbfester Schnittkäse.
Therefore, you are Hitler.
Victims do not have agency
Persons without agency cannot be culpable
It is OK if I kill you because I identify as a victim
Newspapers often print a lot of stuff on paper
The Washington Post prints some stuff on paper
Therefore, it must all be true.
This statement is probably true
This marginally related statement may or may not be true
Therefore whatever I say next must be true because of Science or Victimhood.
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Clearly, you are on the right side of history.
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It may have been the first conversation I posted on Ricochet, but when I started teaching math in 1996 I was surprised at how many young math teachers would tell me that they didn’t understand proofs. Some of them were decent Algebra teachers, and one of the better ones told me “I never got those geometry proofs”. Most high school geometry curricula nowadays treat proofs like a secondary topic that they try to squeeze in. Some of these teachers could work their way through a proof but didn’t understand the point.
As an undergrad I took a symbolic logic class that was great fun for the handful of engineering and math majors in the class but appeared to be torture for everyone else. I believe that a significant cohort of Americans would not understand the erroneous syllogism you made in the main post. And maybe even after explanation would still not see what was wrong with it.
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